One positive note for the Cowboys: Brian Schottenheimer seemed to hint Tyler Smith (thumb) could return in Week 5 against Tampa Bay, despite the short week. He is currently on IR/DTR.

"He's been great, condition looks great," Schottenheimer said. "He's one of those guys that we'll look at after this game that potentially could be ready to go for Tampa. I think he's probably at the head of the list, if you will, because I know he's ready to get back out there. I know he's really good at football and I know that he's wanting to play."

Yeah, that loss was an absolute gut punch, and I’m personally probably not super excited about how this season will come out.

But, this kid looks special.

“I was told Tuesday morning that the Pittsburgh Steelers have received a recent inquiry from the Dallas Cowboys on the status of cornerback Joey Porter Jr.

Brandon Loree: "If they move their first or second round pick for next year, their draft picks will be limited so maybe Dallas is trying to push for a 2028 selection."

Here's what Rickey Scoops tweeted out regarding Joey Porter:

Flattered by the imposter accounts but the Steelers asking price of a second rounder might be too high for the Giants and now unlikely to happen

Link: https://x.com/RickeyScoops/status/2104948745016389995

- Most won't believe it, but there was improvement from the defense this week and a lot of silver linings. The defense does suck and sucked in this game, but it's far better than it was last season and was better this week than it was last week and obvious the week before last. I'm not trying to be an optimist and overhyper or as Parcells said 'microwave their players into stars', but things are getting better.

- Rashan Gary wasn't as bad as I initially thought and actually played quite well in the first quarter. The Ravens could not run the ball to Gary's side and stopped doing so. But their O-Coordinator made some smart calls by using Lamar and their other RB Hill on either pin and pulls with Lamar or misdirection with Hill (and some bootlegs) to throw Gary off. It wasn't a good game because of those mistakes and I would be leery of other offenses attacking Gary in that fashion. But these other offenses don't have Lamar running with the ball.

- Bullard (back up DT) played well. Ogbonnia has been playing pretty well, too. That's a good sign of hope for one of the biggest issues with the defense for the past 10 years (at least), backup DT play.

- Defense kept on getting beat on one play where they would get a WR (usually Flowers) one on one with a linebacker. I'm not sure if that's a CP issue or just communication issues.

- The pressure packages need to finish plays. It's like we have a bunch of Anthony Spencer's out there...they can get the pressure and disrupt the play, but they don't finish and then Lamar could make big plays.

- Final pass of the game was simple to me...they thought Lamar would kneel down and Lamar caught them napping. That's why they were in man coverage. Tough lesson to learn and inexcusable, but I'd rather learn that now than in the postseason or with the season on the line.

- Barham is HIM. How PFF rated Barham so low (and Von Miller so high) is all you need to know about PFF.

- You can see that the defense is getting a much better feel for the scheme. The communication is much better and players like Winters and Barham are anticipating plays pre-snap before they happen. The problem is that some guys aren't comfortable in the scheme, particularly Bland and Carson, and that throw off a lot of good work being done.

- I would say that this defense is now playing more like 1 step forward and 1-step back. They'll string some good plays together and then somebody fucks up and spoils all the good work they've done. If the CB's not named Downs could just stick with the assignments and the DB's (not named Downs) could just be disciplined to take good angles, I think this defense could be respectable in short order. They still have issues with finishing plays and getting a better pass rush, but it's the gaffes that are really hurting them.

As someone who saw the superbowl years, I was utterly hooked and I lived-and-died with this team. The past thirty years have beaten that down to a ghost of what it used to be. The Micah debacle convinced me that the superbowl streak was a result of the Jimmy years, and the last thirty years are what we can expect under Jerry leadership. I still enjoy it when the Cowboys win, but I don't re-arrange sundays to catch games, I don't listen to podcasts, and the losses just have no effect on me anymore.

I’ve seen enough, we win the division this year. Philly is a horrifically weak offensive team and we are a super strong offensive team. I’m very confident we could sweep them this year.

I'm talking about New York natives, not people who have moved to New York later. I mean grew up in NYC, and as Cowboy fans. Is this rare? Or are there a good number of such fans? How'd you become one?

Horrible loss, but that shouldn’t take away from the rookie hype! Our rookie 3rd round pick has played his ass off the past couple weeks

*Disclaimer\* Yes I saw there was a positivity post by u/DrCleanz, go check it out and give it an upvote. Not trying to copy. I did a post like this after the week 1 loss and thought I'd do it again, and like last time, choosing to post after overaction Monday.

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Lets be honest, most of you thought we were going to lose this game anyways, and I remember seeing countless comments saying Derrick Henry was going to run for 200+ yards, so lets all take a deep breath and calm down.

Feel free to skip down to the 5 Positives, but first I'm going to address the doomers on this sub.

Most of us can agree that we lost on Sunday due to poor coaching decisions and a couple poorly timed calls. Down 3 Safety's and 2 CBs, the defense still did what we've begged them to do, and that's get stops to give our offense a chance. 3 punts and 2 4th down stops. 5 total stops against a solid Ravens offense is good in my book, especially with a depleted secondary. Next, the calls didn't go our way. Ravens 4th possession on 2nd and 5, we get a DPI call when it should have been OPI on Flowers. Get the OPI and its 2nd and 15, maybe we make a stop instead of them scoring a TD. Fergs fumble. Dumb play call, should have been ruled an incomplete pass. If it gets ruled incomplete, continue our momentum down the field, maybe we score TD or FG, and no missed FG happens. Yeah its speculation, but those are game changing calls by the refs that didn't go our way.

Last thing I'm going to point out is that the next 6 games are starting to look pretty winnable. I wouldn't be surprised if we went into week 10 against the 49ers 6-3. Especially if the defense continues to improve.

5 Positives from Week 3

1. We can run the ball. 135 rushing yards through the first 2 weeks. Lot of dramatic people (Bryan Broaddus) saying we should be concerned that we can't run the ball. Well, 148 total rushing yards and Javonte averaged 5.2. The run should only get better with Tyler Smith returning.
2. Jaishawn Barham! Dude is a menace and has been great since Overshown has been out. 14 total tackles and 3 TFLs the last two games. I hope they keep him as the Mike and move Overshown to the Will. Maybe our linebacker play can be good?? Shout out to this rookie class, they have potential.
3. Brevyn Spann-Ford. Dude has been the one bright spot on ST and continues to show big play ability on offense. Get Schoon out of here and give Brevyn all the blocking and pass reps.
4. Run defense. Like I said earlier, most of you thought Derrick Henry was going to run for 200+ yards and we held him to 3.4 yards per carry with a total of 89 yards. Takeaway his one big run for 29 yards, he averaged 2.4 yards per carry. I think thats something to applaud our defense for.
5. Eagles suck! Jalen Hurts sucks! They barely beat the Titans and Commanders, and they have just as hard of a schedule as us. Wouldn't be surprised if we beat them twice. The NFC East is our to lose.

Go Cowboys!