San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)

Looking ahead

- By David Moore

» Opener versus Jaguars sets up a sad day for Texans fans.

FRISCO — You’ve got to give the Cowboys credit.

No team in the NFL can turn a hopeful outlook into despair quicker than Dallas.

Despair may be a bit of an overstatem­ent. The loss of right tackle La’el Collins to a suspension and receiver Michael Gallup to a calf strain aren’t fatal blows. Both should be back before the first half of the season is complete.

But the enthusiasm generated by a feel-good loss to Tampa Bay in the opener — yes, there is such a thing — barely had time to invigorate the Cowboys fan base before the news hit.

Gallup’s injury was the first to surface. A source said he’ll be out three to five weeks. Collins fivegame suspension for a violation of the NFL’s substances of abuse policy was announced about an hour-and-a-half before head coach Mike McCarthy met with reporters at The Star on Friday.

“That’s something I can’t speak on right now,” McCarthy said. “I know the timing is a bit awkward.”

Questions about Collins’ suspension and Gallup’s loss overshadow­ed the encouragin­g aspects that came out of the team’s 31-29 loss to the Buccaneers. Talk about a buzz kill.

“The game was a heckuva game,” McCarthy said. “I thought that the atmosphere was awesome. I loved the way our players went out there and attacked. The conditioni­ng challenge, I thought they hit the target there. Play style was exactly what I was looking for so there’s a lot of really good things

“But at the end of the day, when I view the overall outcome of the game, I think it’s more about capabiliti­es vs. victories.’’

The narrative heading into the game was how the Cowboys had little to no chance of beating the defending Super Bowl champions

on their home field. The narrative coming out of that game shifted to people wondering how Dallas lost.

Tom Brady. That’s a good

place to start.

But it can be argued that Dak Prescott more than held his own with the GOAT. The Cowboys won the turnover battle 4-1, held the ball nearly nine minutes longer than Tampa Bay and saw the Bucs penalized 11 times for 106 yards.

“I think we showed everybody what we’re capable of,” McCarthy said.

McCarthy will also tell you this league is about winning close games. He cites the statistic that for the majority of teams, an

average of eight games a season come down to the last series with the outcome in doubt.

The Cowboys held a one-point lead heading into the final 1:24 before Brady engineered an 11play, 57-yard drive that yielded Ryan Succop’s game-winning field goal with two seconds left on the clock.

Running back Ezekiel Elliott called it a good start, one the Cowboys can build on going forward. His teammates echoed that opinion.

“We fully expected to win this game coming in here,” defensive end Randy Gregory said. “If a few things go differentl­y, we win this game. We said in the locker room, those are the defending champs. That’s the guy, the team, (people) believe is going to win another Super Bowl.

“We’re right up there with them. We believe that. We just need to build on that, come back and get better.”

Dallas must get better in the short-term without Collins and Gallup. Both players should be back before October is done.

More adversity will hit. It does for every club. But that wasn’t part of McCarthy’s message in the locker room after the narrow defeat.

What did he tell his players? “I loved their fight,” McCarthy said. “I loved the juice. I loved the energy. It was fun. I mean that was a fun game to play. I mean I loved everything about the sideline, loved the warmups, the whole thing. That’s a stupid comment, but I loved everything about it.

“I thought that our guys stuck to the game plan. They went for it. I thought the adjustment­s, the communicat­ion on the sideline was outstandin­g. I thought our energy and our play style was what we were looking for.” He didn’t stop there.

“I was really excited about the momentum swings in the game and how we responded to them because that’s what big time games are about,” McCarthy continued. “You’ve got to battle through the adversity of it and our guys handled that very well and we responded almost every time when they threw something at us. We were very, very comfortabl­e and confident at the end of the game.

“That’s kind of where we are. Just got to get over the next hurdle. We’ve got to win those games. It’s about victories over capabiliti­es.

“That’s a theme here in case you were wondering.”

 ?? Mike Ehrmann / Tribune News Service ?? The injury to wide receiver Michael Gallup and suspension of offensive tackle La’el Collins quickly overshadow­ed whatever positives Dallas took away from a 31-29 loss to Tampa Bay.
Mike Ehrmann / Tribune News Service The injury to wide receiver Michael Gallup and suspension of offensive tackle La’el Collins quickly overshadow­ed whatever positives Dallas took away from a 31-29 loss to Tampa Bay.

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