Yes, Dak Prescott and Cowboys deserve heat for not scoring a TD late. But Dallas' defense couldn't hold it down for 7 seconds?

You never quite know which play will be the one that ruins your NFL season. Sometimes it's obvious, like a game-ending fumble, or cinematic, like throwing a crucial interception. And sometimes it's as painful as a kick to the gut … like, say, when your defense decides with seven seconds remaining in a tie game to play some pillow-soft coverage, setting up a game-losing 56-yard field goal:

The Dallas Cowboys ' season isn't over, not by a long shot. But the Cowboys didn't just lose a football game to the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday in Brazil. They lost the benefit of the doubt, they lost the faith of any remotely impartial observer, and they lost any expectation that this porous, injury-ridden, mistake-prone defense is going to get it together anytime soon.

Under normal circumstances, there'd be no shame in losing to Lamar Jackson and the Ravens. And if you look at the numbers without context — Ravens 34, Cowboys 31 — you could believe that maybe this was just one of those games that just didn't go the Cowboys' way.

Not this Sunday. This time, the Cowboys squandered opportunity after opportunity to put this game away, and allowed Baltimore — you know, the team famous for its litany of fourth-quarter collapses — to repeatedly rise from the dead. It's just one game, and not even a division or conference one, but this one ought to sting.

For the Cowboys, the shame of this is that the 2026 season still stretches before them as wide as a 12-lane highway. Coming into the season, the Cowboys had enough talent to inspire Super Bowl predictions. Through two-plus weeks, injuries have decimated two of their three division rivals. Dak Prescott is playing like a quarterback in his prime.

And yet it's impossible to have any faith in this team, primarily because its defense stands about as stout as a wall of toilet paper. Jackson, Zay Flowers and the rest of the Baltimore offense picked apart the Cowboys 20 yards at a time, offsetting some admittedly spectacular plays by Prescott and the rest of Dallas' offense:

Dallas is now 1-2, and inspiring zero confidence. While we're piling on the defense, it's worth noting that Prescott failed to punch in what would have likely been a game-clinching touchdown when he was set up with first-and-goal from the Baltimore 2-yard line with 23 seconds remaining. Two off-target throws, one desperation scramble, and the Cowboys had to settle for a game-tying field goal — which, as it turned out, wasn't nearly enough.

Schottenheimer said after the game that he told Prescott to play it safe on that drive, even to the extent of throwing it away, to preserve the potential field-goal opportunity. That's a sound, if conservative, strategy … but it works only if your defense can stop giving up 20-plus-yard pass plays.

For his part, Prescott put the burden on the shoulders of himself and his offense, saying he was "embarrassed" that they couldn't punch the ball in that final drive. "This one hurts," he said, adding that even after a 10-hour flight home, "I'm sure when we land I'll be just as pissed."

Prescott joined a select quarterback circle on Sunday. He became just the fifth quarterback in NFL history to throw for 250 touchdowns and rush for another 30, joining John Elway, Aaron Rodgers , Fran Tarkenton and Russell Wilson . That's some solid company right there. If his defense can help him out by not forcing him to play hero ball every week, the Cowboys might have something here.

Things change fast in the NFL. In three weeks, this game and this stench around Dallas could all be a bad memory. The Cowboys have a favorable three-game slate ahead — at Houston , Tampa Bay, at Green Bay — that could have them at 4-2 when they face the Eagles. But if they falter during this stretch, if the defense can't figure out how to coalesce and Prescott can't close the deal in those crucial moments, it's going to be yet another in a long line of frustrating seasons for Dallas.