The Dallas Cowboys suffered an embarrassing 24-16 defeat in the Week 5 Thursday Night Football game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. But the disappointment seemed to bother Jerry Jones, and he decided to leave the game early. 

Jones clearly displayed his frustration by slamming the table. And as Bucky Irving broke free and gained 22 yards, the disappointed franchise owner simply stood up and left the stadium with about a minute left in the final quarter. 

“I’ve been so disappointed before with losses,” the Cowboys owner weighed in on his disappointment. “But this was disappointing. And I’m disappointed because I see potential growth here. We need to have good experiences on an individual basis, as well as a team. And this was not a good experience out here.” 

Jones further expressed his surprise at how well the Bucs carried the ball and ran it between the tackles. Addressing the tough loss, he praised Jalon Daniels and his offense. After all, the Bucs rushed for 241 yards, with Irving running for 72 yards right at the beginning of the third quarter, setting up a touchdown run for Emeka Egbuka. 

That highlighted the problems on the defensive side of the Cowboys’ game. And Jerry Jones knew that his staff needed to address it. 

“Certainly, he’s sitting there taking it on the shoulders, which goes with the territory. But I feel that he’s competent,” Jones replied when a reporter asked if he still has confidence in defensive coordinator Christian Parker to turn the defense around. “The thing that probably bothers me the most tonight is how they ran between the tackles, so to speak, and were able to have that running game up in there with where we have a lot of strength. That’s something that we’ve got to really look at and will.”

Jones refused to put the blame solely on Parker’s shoulders. When asked to provide his evaluation of the defensive coordinator, Jones claimed that he doesn’t want to go down that road. Instead, he acknowledged the fact that the Cowboys need to improve. 

“I would say that on all sides of the ball here tonight, that we had penalties, I didn’t know about two times we turned the ball over,” Jones said. “We did all the things to that score end up like it was. And I thought we had the team that could get out of here with a win. So it’s very disappointing.”

But now, it’s head coach Brian Schottenheimer who sits on the hot seat in Dallas. Of course, he was as disappointed as Jones. He told the Cowboys in the locker room that Week 5 was a missed opportunity for them. He acknowledged that the players didn’t play well in all three phases of the game. And it certainly puts them down in the race to win in the league. 

“I’m gonna look at everything,” Schottenheimer said in the post-game press conference. “I’ll spend countless hours trying to figure it out and getting a chance to step back, look at these five games, and see what we need to improve. … Yeah, I think we evaluate everything, but at the end of the day, we’re five games in. I am disappointed in the way we performed this evening as a football team. And that’s just going to be one part of the process. 

“We’re going to look at all five games and get a chance to slow down our process and look at every detail and see what we need to improve.” 

Right now, they really need to improve their stance in the Week 6 game against the Green Bay Packers. Otherwise, the Cowboys risk extending their 30-year Super Bowl drought another season.