The Dallas Cowboys continue to struggle away from the comforts of AT&T Stadium, getting their doors blown off, 31-10, in Buffalo on Sunday afternoon. The Cowboys fell to 3-4 on the road with a 7-0 mark at home.
Blame for the latest road loss can't be placed on the weather, which was pretty tame for Buffalo in mid-December, or the turf. The dichotomy with how the Cowboys perform outside of Texas is baffling at this point.
"It's a gap, and that's part of my message," coach Mike McCarthy said after the loss, via the team's official website. "We play so well at home. There's just too big of a gap on our road games. We're conscious of it, and we've got a long flight home to think about it, and to talk about it. We've got to move on to Miami in the morning, and get this one corrected but, yes, we've gotta be better."
Dallas has a -4 point differential on the road in 2023 (14th in the NFL) while leading the league with a +171 point differential at home in 2023.
The defense got run over by James Cook and the Bills, forcing just two punts on seven non-end-of-half drives and allowing Buffalo to churn out 28 first downs.
Early in the season, Dallas laid an egg in Arizona. They got blown out in San Francisco. They played close in Philadelphia in Week 9 but made just enough mistakes to lose on the road. Then came Sunday's debacle.
"Honestly, it's unacceptable at this point," linebacker Micah Parsons said. "There's no excuse for it. It's mind-boggling and I don't understand why we're not playing well, and why we're not coming together on the road. We've something we need to look at and get better at, because we're back on the road next week."
The Cowboys' only road wins this season have come in a Week 1 shellacking versus the five-win Giants, a three-point Week 6 win over the L.A. Chargers -- who just fired their coach and GM -- and a Week 11 blowout of the two-win Panthers.
Dallas, which saw its lead in the NFC East slip away ahead of Monday Night Football, has a big road date with the Miami Dolphins on Christmas Eve before closing the season with Detroit at home and Washington in D.C.
Dak Prescott's play has underscored the Cowboys' road struggles. Sunday, he generated 134 passing yards and an interception on 21 of 34 passing, marking his first game in 2023 with zero passing touchdowns and one INT and his second career game with fewer than 140 passing yards and no TDs (minimum 10 attempts).
In seven road games this season, Prescott's completion percentage dips 10.8 points compared to home (63.2 vs. 74). His yards per game of 216.3 is 87.3 fewer than at home. His TD-INT ratio is 8-5 on the road and 20-2 at home, and his passer rating, sitting at 122.5 in home tilts, plummets 38.3 points to 84.2.
"It's a huge difference and, really, that's what these next couple weeks are about -- is figuring out that difference, and trying to close that gap," Prescott said of the road struggles. "We want to come out and start how we do at home, and that's just not been the case. We've gotta find out what those answers are … we can't be two different teams: winning at home against a good team last week and then come out here today and not get anything done in all three phases."
