NFL Panic Meter: After Monday night's loss, can the Cowboys save their season?

https://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/article/nfl-panic-meter-after-monday-nights-loss-can-the-cowboys-save-their-season-145029036.html

Before Monday night’s game Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones talked in general about trades he might have agreed to already and others that were possibly in the works.

You don’t speak like that if you expect your team to fall to 3-5-1 a few hours later. Surprise! The Cowboys lost 27-17 to the Arizona Cardinals, a team that had lost five games in a row. Then fantasies of major trades to change the Cowboys’ season became reality to most people: The Cowboys aren’t a playoff-level team.

The Cowboys have beat three teams this season. They beat the 2-7 Giants in overtime, the 1-7 Jets and the 3-6 Commanders. The best result the Cowboys have is a tie at home to the Packers in which they allowed 40 points. There was a weird swell of optimism after the Cowboys beat the Commanders at home. Since then they lost by 20 at the Broncos and by 10 to the Cardinals.

The Cowboys have a good offense, but even that faltered on Monday night. Dallas scored just one touchdown against Arizona. The offense needs to be nearly perfect to overcome the defense, and even then, the Cowboys offense playing at a top at a very high level has resulted in three wins over teams with a 6-20 combined record.

The Cowboys made a low-cost trade on Tuesday morning for linebacker Logan Wilson, trading a seventh-round pick for a player who had his role significantly reduced by the Cincinnati Bengals in favor of two rookies. That’s fine because it cost so little, but that or any other move isn’t going to fix what’s wrong with Dallas.

Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys took a loss on Monday night that dropped them to 3-5-1. (Photo by Jamie Schwaberow/Getty Images)

(Jamie Schwaberow via Getty Images)

In addition to the roster issues, the math is starting to work against the Cowboys. At the moment, the No. 7 seed in the NFC is the 5-3 Lions. The first team out of the playoffs and in the No. 8 spot is the 5-3 Bears, followed by the Panthers and Vikings. Dallas is 11th in the conference, and every team above them has been better this season. There are more than seven playoff quality teams in the NFC. Dallas has to get to at least nine wins to have any chance for the playoffs and maybe 10. To get to nine wins, the Cowboys need to go 6-2 the rest of the season. They have games left against the Eagles, Chiefs, Vikings, Lions and Chargers, which are all playoff-level teams (and all of those games come consecutively from Weeks 12-16). Can you see the Cowboys winning most of those games, in addition to not stumbling against the bad teams on their remaining schedule?

In other words, this Cowboys season is likely done. No realistically available trade saves Dallas this season. They’ll still be in the headlines, but from a football perspective, the Cowboys are probably irrelevant the rest of the season.

Panic meter: No need to panic, the party is already over

Here is the rest of the NFL Panic Meter after Week 9 of the season:

Chargers offensive line takes a big hit

The Chargers were expecting to have two of the best offensive tackles in football this season. For the second half of the season, they’ll have neither.

Joe Alt is done for the season after suffering an ankle injury on Sunday. Rashawn Slater already was done for the season, having suffered a torn patellar tendon during training camp. Most teams couldn’t survive losing one elite tackle. Losing two might be too much to overcome.

The Chargers’ line without Alt for a few weeks, when he had a high ankle sprain, wasn’t great. Justin Herbert got hit too often. And it’s not like there’s a reasonable replacement for Alt available on the trade market.

The Chargers are still well coached, have a top quarterback and a lot of other talent. But it’s undeniable that their ceiling got lower with Alt going down for the rest of the season.

Panic meter: It’s not looking good

Packers lose their best passing game option

Not many good teams have a passing offense built around a tight end. The Packers became an exception.

Tucker Kraft is probably the All-Pro tight end of the first half of the NFL season. And he won’t take that honor because he’ll miss the rest of the season with a torn ACL. Kraft leads the Packers in receiving yards and touchdowns. That’s a testament to Kraft’s breakout season. It will be hard to replace him, and it doesn’t help that receiver Jayden Reed is still on injured reserve.

The Packers were already a team that too often had played down to its competition. Since Week 2, the only time the Packers have truly looked like the best team in the NFL was the second half of a Week 8 win over the Steelers. The rest of the time they’ve usually been good enough to win, and little more. Losing Kraft won’t help. Green Bay will turn to Luke Musgrave and maybe he can help fill in, but replacing Kraft changes the outlook of the Packers’ season.

Panic meter: It might not be wise for Wisconsinites to book a Super Bowl trip

How long will it take to fix the Bengals’ defense, anyway?

The Bengals defense has gone from bad to worse to perhaps historically terrible. And if Trey Hendrickson gets traded, it’s not like it will get any better.

There’s no fixing the Bengals’ defense this season. Cincinnati became the first team since the 1966 Giants to score 38 or more points in two straight games and go 0-2, according to ESPN. It’s a mess.

This season is a lost cause, and it’s not like building a defense is easy. The Bengals do have rookies like defensive end Shemar Stewart and linebackers Demetrius Knight Jr. and Barrett Carter playing significant roles, and while they all have promising futures, they’re also a big part of Cincinnati’s defensive struggles. As the Bengals think about next offseason they also have to worry about protecting Joe Burrow better, after their quarterback suffered a toe injury that landed him on injured reserve. There is a lot of cap space tied up in Burrow and receivers Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins, which will affect what they can do in free agency. There aren’t going to be any easy answers to turning this around.

Panic meter: Buckle in, building a competent defense in Cincinnati might take a while

https://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/article/nfl-panic-meter-after-monday-nights-loss-can-the-cowboys-save-their-season-145029036.html