Dallas' defense remains a real problem, limiting Dak Prescott and the Cowboys' potential

Rarely does a single moment sum up an entire team's woes, but Dallas gave us one Sunday. With just eight seconds left in the first half, Cowboys cornerback Cobie Durant was lying face-down and defenseless in his own end zone. Suddenly — and surely painfully — he took a cleat right to the butt courtesy of teammate Markquese Bell , who then stumbled awkwardly to the ground himself.

The only reason why that defenseless defense wasn't a perfect symbol of the Cowboys' hapless D in 2026 is that the opposing offense didn't score on the play.

Dallas beat perpetual rival Washington 37-20 on Sunday afternoon. CeeDee Lamb is already posting elite numbers. Dak Prescott notched yet another victory over an NFC East team. The Cowboys offense is humming along just fine.

But then there's the defense, whose entire strategy appears to be, "It's cool, Dak's gonna save us."

One week after Jaxson Dart diced up the Dallas secondary, Washington 's quarterbacks — Jayden Daniels in the first half, Marcus Mariota in the second — took their turn at the table. A win is a win, true, but you can't help but feel this game could have gone horribly wrong … which is a strange thing to say after a 17-point margin of victory.

Were it not for Prescott, who's now 14-2 against Washington in his career, and Lamb, who caught everything in a 200-mile radius, the trendy preseason Super Bowl pick would have started the season 0-2.

"I was worried about what it was going to be like if we did end up 0-2," team owner Jerry Jones conceded after the game. "And I can't say that I was a pillar of strength in my mentality coming into the game because I've got a lot of respect for the coaching over on the Washington Commander side. But having said all of that, this was a very important win for us."

But the Cowboys didn't fall to 0-2, so let's briefly focus on the positives here. Prescott, who finished 26-of-31 passing for 279 yards and four touchdowns, carved his name in Cowboys history, vaulting past Tony Romo for most passing touchdowns in franchise history at 249:

"Really great to see Dak break the record at home to CeeDee," head coach Brian Schottenheimer said after the game. "I just thought the passing game was hitting on all cylinders today."

Lamb had 89 yards receiving in the first quarter, finishing with eight receptions on nine targets for 153 yards and a pair of touchdowns on the day. Tight end Jake Ferguson snagged another two touchdowns himself, and the Dallas offense remains both cinematic and productive.

The defense? Yeah, not so much. For the second straight game, this group committed boneheaded penalties that wiped out sacks or kept drives alive, allowed rushers to grind out extra yardage and receivers to get loose, and generally looked overwhelmed and overmatched in virtually every phase of the game.

Fate cut the Cowboys a break when Daniels stumbled on the final play of the first half and dislocated his left elbow, an injury that forced him out of the rest of the game . And yet Dallas allowed Mariota, still slinging it in the year 2026, to craft two second-half scoring drives and very nearly tie a game that the Cowboys had controlled throughout.

Washington had its opportunities. On at least two separate occasions, Washington passers couldn't connect with wide-open receivers who'd gotten past the Dallas secondary and into the end zone. Officials also deemed a third-quarter should-have-been-a-TD an incomplete pass, and Washington had to settle for a field goal rather than potentially tying the game at 17:

The defense also struggled with the little things like containing Washington on crucial third-and-long situations, so much so that by the end of the first half, Prescott was whirling a towel on the sideline trying to rally his defense. (It didn't work; Washington converted, although the half ran out soon afterward.)

This all accrues to new defensive coordinator Christian Parker, who's now posted a second straight dog of a game. Dallas can't afford many more of these. "We don't feel like we have a finished product," Schottenheimer said , underselling the problem by galactic margins.

Hope isn't a strategy, and nor is hoping your prolific offense will score enough to outrun your woeful defense every week. Struggling to defend both the pass and run, struggling to contain both pocket passers and mobile ones … these aren't the building blocks of a sound organization.

If the Cowboys aren't able to figure out how to stop weak offenses and slow down better ones, it won't just be the defense getting its butt stomped this season … it'll be the whole team.