ARLINGTON, Texas – Things were literally falling from the sky even before the Dallas Cowboys lost yet another home game.
The roof at AT&T Stadium can be fixed. As for the problems plaguing the Cowboys this season, especially in their home building, maybe not after a 34-10 loss to the Houston Texans on Monday night.
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Dallas (3-7) is 0-5 at home for the first time since 1989, the first season Jerry Jones owned the Cowboys when they were 1-15 while not winning any of their eight games game at old Texas Stadium. They have lost six in a row at AT&T Stadium, including that playoff debacle against the Green Bay Packers in January.
“In reality, it’s very frustrating. It’s frustrating for everybody, frustrating for players, frustrated for coaches,” coach Mike McCarthy said. “But we just, we have a lot of moving parts going on and we just have to be cleaner and more detailed in certain spots.”
A piece of the roof and some debris fell about 300 feet to the field when the retractable roof at the $1.2 billion stadium was being opened at least three hours before Monday night’s game. The 15-year-old stadium was mostly empty then, and team officials said nobody was injured before the roof was closed without incident.
Franchise quarterback Dak Prescott, on crutches and safely away from the action five days after season-ending surgery to repair a torn hamstring, could only put both hands on the back of his head after punter Bryan Anger completed a pass on a fake — 5 yards short of a first down — on the Cowboys' opening drive when already down 7-0.
CeeDee Lamb had eight catches for 93 yards, but on consecutive plays in the third quarter had a drop and then an offensive interference penalty near the end zone on a deep pass.
That came on the same drive when Brandon Aubrey, who just before halftime had his first miss in 35 field goal attempts at home over his first two seasons, was good on a 64-yard kick. But the Cowboys took those points off the board after a personal foul penalty for an automatic first down, only for Cooper Rush to throw an incompletion on fourth-and-2 from the Texans 8.
Dallas had 388 total yards, but that was the only time getting in the red zone, after the only points the previous two homes games had been on five field goals.
“We were moving the ball up and down the field, but I feel like it’s been, I think all season is not getting in the red zone and not scoring,” Lamb said. “Obviously good teams do it, and we haven’t been able to do that, and it differentiates the score a lot.”
When Joe Mixon had his third rushing touchdown to put Houston up 34-10 with 3:16 left, soon after four Dallas defenders were called for unnecessary roughness on the same play, it became the sixth home game in a row in which the Cowboys trailed by more than 21 points.
The other NFL teams to fall behind by three touchdowns five times in the same season were the 2020 Jacksonville Jaguars, 2008 Detroit Lions and 1981 Baltimore Colts.
But the Cowboys are the only team to trail by at least 20 points in six home games in a row, including the playoffs, and are the only team to do it in five consecutive regular-season games in their own stadium.
A year after winning the NFC East, Dallas is five games behind division-leading Philadelphia with seven games to play, and goes to Washington (7-4) on Sunday. The Cowboys are ahead in the division of only the New York Giants (2-8), whom they host Thanksgiving Day in their next home game.
Dallas has led for only 2 minutes, 15 seconds in those six consecutive home losses. And that lead came in a 47-9 loss to Detroit that was the worst at home under Jones, and on the owner's 82nd birthday Oct. 13.
Before that playoff loss to Green Bay last Jan. 14, when they were down 27-0 in the first half, the Cowboys had won 16 consecutive games at AT&T Stadium over two seasons. The New England Patriots are the only other team since 2000 to have a streak that long.
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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL