Sunday night’s clash between the Dallas Cowboys and Green Bay Packers at AT&T Stadium ended in a puzzling 40-40 tie. Dallas had opportunities to close it out, but a shaky defense faltered when it mattered most, while the Packers did just enough to stay even. After the game, a reporter lobbed a strange question at Dak Prescott, asking if the result felt like kissing his sister. Prescott responded with a classic mix of humor and irritation, saying, “Good thing I ain’t got one.”

Moving ahead, the Cowboys will now shift their focus to Week 5 against the New York Jets. However, before that, they’d better iron out a few things if they want to dodge more ties and more awkward questions.

A month into the NFL season, Dak Prescott is making defenses sweat, leading the league in passing yards (1,119), completions (121), attempts (166), and a sharp 72.9% completion rate. That’s exactly why Jerry Jones is a fan, pointing out that Prescott’s NFL-high $60 million salary per year is money well spent, and hinting that it makes shelling out big bucks for Micah Parsons a little less urgent. “It’s very simple, right?” Jones said after the tie. “Dak was indispensable in my mind.”

So, while Jerry Jones would have preferred a 2-2 record over 1-2-1, he feels worse for Prescott. For over four quarters, Prescott met everything the Packers threw at him. He was precise, relentless, and delivered the best performance of his 10-year career. But, in the end, it didn’t matter. Hence, Jones said, “To not come out with a W for that (performance) is unbelievable for him. But I thought he was the better quarterback tonight. … That (Green Bay) quarterback is special. But I like the way our quarterback played tonight.”

Coach Brian Schottenheimer even took it a step further. “If there’s a better quarterback playing right now than Dak Prescott in the league,” he challenged, “I’d love to see him.”

It’s high praise, but it rings a little hollow when you look at the other side of the ball. The Cowboys‘ defense has become an opposing QB’s dream. In the last 3 games, Jordan Love, Caleb Williams, and Russell Wilson have combined for 10 TDs against only 1 INT. 

The Packers had the ball 5 times in the second half and overtime. They never punted. 5 possessions yielded 3 touchdowns and 2 field goals. The Cowboys’ defense couldn’t get a single stop. Prescott can talk about faith in his guys, about how “the turnovers are going to come,” but faith doesn’t tackle. 

Prescott desperately needs help, and it’s clear it has to come from that side of the ball. The pass rush is inconsistent, managing just a single sack all night. There’s still visible confusion on the back end, and the tackling has been sloppy. You can’t win when the other team converts on 10 of their 14 third downs and scores on 5 of 6 red zone trips. That’s just math.

Prescott’s box score tells you he went 31-for-40 with 319 yards, 4 total TDs, and 0 INTs. But you didn’t need the numbers. You could see it in the way Micah Parsons sought him out after the game. “When you watch this film, you’re gonna (feel) lucky,” Parsons told his former QB. He said Prescott was “on his s—,” admitting that if Dak hadn’t been, “it would have been a long day.” The thing is, it was a long day anyway. A weird, pointless, achingly long day that ended right back where it started.

For Dak Prescott, the Cowboys’ season has become a series of high-stakes shootouts. Every week, he’s forced to throw his way through games as the defense struggles to keep opponents in check. Dallas leads the league in both total yards allowed (1,682) and passing yards surrendered (1,189), and heading into two Monday night matchups, they rank second in yards per play allowed (6.4), a list shared with just two other NFL teams.

Even on nights when the offense lights up the scoreboard, the defense’s holes leave fans holding their breath. Coach Schottenheimer acknowledges the problem but insists the fix is straightforward. “There’s a way to stop having those conversations and that’s to play better,” he said Monday. “We’re capable of playing better, we need to play better.”

And while such a tie makes it easy to blame the defense, Prescott chose not to go that way.

Dak Prescott says he can’t blame the Cowboys’ defense

In overtime against the Packers, the Cowboys started strong, moving the ball well on their first drive, but it ended with a 22-yard field goal. Prescott admitted he would have preferred a touchdown, rather than leaving the Packers a chance to march into field-goal range and tie the game with just one second remaining.

“I believe in my defense,” Prescott said. “This game, yeah I can be mad about the one second on the clock, I can be mad that they drove the ball, but at the end of the day I’m pissed that we didn’t score in the red zone. We had an opportunity to score in the red zone. . . . Not for one second am I looking at the defense. I’m a guy that looks inward first, looks at what we need to do and what I need to do to help this team, and if we score in the red zone or start faster, who knows if we’re in this position.”

“We can be explosive,” he doubled down. “We can be a monster team. We get some stops in the way this offense is playing.” He insisted the defense is playing well, that it’s just “the big plays here and there that put them behind.” He praised “the way that they rally to the ball, the way that they hustle,” and expressed faith in defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus to get it right, promising that “the turnovers are going to come as well.”

But, as said earlier, faith doesn’t tackle, and it certainly doesn’t cover crossing routes when the game is on the line. What do you think?