Wobbly Dak gets to beat up Jets next

ARLINGTON, TEXAS >> The Dallas Cowboys started the season with three straight victories against teams that are now a collective 2-12, two of them winless.

Now they’ve lost two in a row to a pair of division leaders with 4-1 records.

Translation: Stop the Super Bowl talk for now with a team that already had lofty expectations before its best start in more than a decade.

“I think it is a reality check,” star running back Ezekiel Elliott said after Sunday’s 34-24 loss to Green Bay in which the Packers led 31-3 late in the third quarter. “I think we’ve just got to take this loss, take these last two losses, and use them as fuel.”

The only rebuttal the Cowboys (3-2) have for suggestions that the first three weeks were a fluke is that quarterback Dak Prescott, normally good at avoiding turnovers, matched his career high with three interceptions while Aaron Rodgers didn’t have any.

While the first interception should have been caught for a big gain by Amari Cooper in a scoreless game on the first Dallas drive, and the Cowboys thought the third should have been nullified by a pass interference penalty, the other was a poor decision by Prescott.

He also had an interception in the end zone scrubbed by two defensive penalties on the same play. Prescott threw one interception in last week’s 1210 loss to New Orleans and has a career-long streak of four straight games with at least one pick.

“This is not good enough against a bunch like this, last weekend or this weekend,” owner Jerry Jones said. “I accept that. We got to get better. You turn that ball over, you’re not going to beat these good teams in the NFL. They will beat you.”