SANTA CLARA, Calif. — There is nothing about Dallas Cowboys that is silence or covert, and on a Sunday night when America’s Team almost snuck up and stole a game from San Francisco 49ershis stay at Levi’s Stadium started and ended with a bang.

This time, Jerry Jones — so often the source of the buzz surrounding his franchise — was a casualty. After approaching the venue in the first entourage of three SUVs and passing through security, the 82-year-old owner and his wife, Gene, were startled by a resounding thud: a barricade suddenly rising hit the vehicle behind them, injuring their daughter, Charlotte, and their son, Jerry Jr.

“It’s a (device) that’s meant to stop a car,” a still shaken Jones told me on the sidelines before the game. “Well, let me tell you something—this works.”

A few hours later, after a furious fourth-quarter rally fizzled and the Cowboys fell 30-24, the cornerback Trevon Diggs came out of the visitors’ locker room, which was not yet open to the media, to confront a Dallas television reporter about a third-quarter social media post questioning the player’s effort on a catch-and-run by 43 yards by the 49ers. Ending George Kittle. As Diggs was leaving, the reporter suggested they discuss the matter further.

“Talk about deez nuts,” Diggs repliedwho did not make himself available for interviews.

Hey, with these Cowboys, everything is ball except when it isn’t.

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Other than that, it was a completely uneventful night for a team filled with drama and deflated expectations, and it trended poorly on both counts. Throw the kicker Brandon AubreyHis continuing stint as a juror in a felony trial and the growing sense that Mike McCarthy is a lame-duck coach with a near-impossible mission and quarterback Dak PrescottHis two interceptions in front of tens of millions of viewers seem almost incidental by comparison.

Seven games into a season, Jones tagged a “all in” sense of urgency, his team seems to be running out of answers. Dallas is 3-4, but this being the Cowboys, it feels like 3-and-400.

“We’re the most visible team in sports,” veteran running back Ezekiel Elliott said afterwards. “This is all part of it. We just have to block it.”

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It won’t be easy. Jones has been making waves in recent weeks by pulling a Diggs-like move and threatening to fire local radio hosts on whose show he appears twice a week. After getting over that controversy, prompted by questions the owner didn’t appreciate, he tried to explain the Cowboys’ offensive struggles by stating that McCarthy and his assistants are “designing bad parts, or we design bad concepts.”

McCarthy, who coached Green Bay Packers to a victory in Super Bowl XLV in the stadium Jones owns, has gone 12-5 in each of his three regular seasons as Dallas’ coach, but doing so in 2024 will be extremely challenging. That’s inconvenient given that McCarthy is in the final year of his contract — and that his roster has some glaring weaknesses.

The Cowboys have the league’s worst rushing offense and along with Carolina Panthersthey allow more yards per game on the field than any other team. That’s a damn double that’s hard to beat, and when you throw in a minus-eight spin ratio – NFLhis third worst figure – a rapid change is hard to understand.

“We’re green,” McCarthy told me as he walked toward the team buses long after Sunday’s game. “We have a lot of young guys and they have to keep working. And we have a lot of veterans who are new, so they’re adjusting too. Our continuity is not there and that will show in defense of the run and running the ball.

“Because of everything, we can’t play wide open and balls to the wall. We have to deal with those two areas – running and stopping the run and the turnover ratio – and try to find a way to solve games.”

Even after Jordan Mason left the game, the Cowboys defense was no match for 49ers rookie Isaac Guerendo. (Kelley L Cox / Image Images)

That’s basically what happened in the first half of Sunday’s game against the 49ers (4-4), another high-profile team facing its own. mid-season sickness. Dallas took a 10-6 lead into the locker room, and despite the absence of its injured pass rush threats (Micah Parsons and DeMarcus Lawrence), looked capable of holding the Niners offense in check.

Then the third quarter began, and the Cowboys were forced to check. The 49ers scored three straight touchdowns to take a 27-10 lead with 36 seconds left in the period, evoking memories of a Sunday night blowout in last October’s meeting between the two teams at Levi’s.

This time, however, the Cowboys made things very interesting. Prescott connected with the star receiver CeeDee Lamb (13 catches, 146 yards) on a pair of touchdowns in the fourth quarter on which he was wide open. Those were somewhat redeeming moments for McCarthy, whose play patterns seemed pretty far from bad in those instances — “It was planned open on both (plays),” Prescott told me afterward — and for Lamb, whose routes have recently been criticized by former Cowboys great Troy Aikman.

Did I mention there is a lot of buzz surrounding this team?

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After Lamb’s second catch with 3:32 left, Aubrey’s extra point cut the 49ers’ lead to 30-24. The jury was still out on whether the Cowboys could complete the comeback, a phrase sure to make some of the second-year kicker’s teammates and coaches cringe given the circumstances.

Aubrey, without consulting the team, showed up for jury duty on his day off last Tuesday and ended up being selected for a felony trial. That meant he would miss practice during the week; he compensated by showing up on his own in the evening to get some work done at the team’s training facility.

When he arrived at The Star Thursday night, the indoor practice field was being used to host a high school game. So he went to the open field where the sprinklers were on and the lights were off. “He kicked in the dark,” said one witness, rolling his eyes. “I guess it’s better than nothing.”

All of the Cowboy angst would have been lessened if they had somehow pulled off Sunday’s play, which seemed plausible after Lamb’s touchdown catches. Already this season, the 49ers have blown 10-point fourth-quarter leads twice in losses to a pair of division opponents, Los Angeles Rams and Arizona Cardinals.

Could it happen again? The Cowboys increased the tension by forcing a three-and-out, taking over at their own 25-yard line with 3:05 left. Prescott, however, threw four consecutive incompletions, draining the game of any remaining suspense.

Afterward, he and Elliott spoke defiantly about the Cowboys’ prospects, insisting they are capable of getting hot at the right time and making a run. “It’s a tough league and a tough business,” Prescott said. “I’ve been through worse and I’ve come out of it.”

Elliott said: “We’ve got a very strong dressing room and a very strong management group and there’s no quarterback I’d rather go up against. In a month it could be a completely different situation.”

That would be a bit surprising given that the Cowboys’ next four opponents – Atlanta Falcons, Philadelphia Eagles, Houston Texans and Commanders from Washington — all have winning records. In a meeting with his players (but no other coaches) after Dallas’ 47-9 home loss. Detroit Lions two weeks ago, McCarthy stressed the importance of sticking together amid the growing chorus of negativity from the outside. As Diggs’ apparent confrontation with a member of the media showed, it’s not always as simple as it seems.

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“I have this bad feeling this could be one of those years,” one Cowboys executive said.

Sometimes, in football and in life, the barriers are too much to overcome. Jones wasn’t around to discuss the Cowboys loss Sunday night, but he certainly won’t soon forget his trip to Levi’s. Multiple sources said Charlotte Jones was feared to have suffered broken ribs, while Jerry Jones Jr. may have suffered a concussion. Both were checked by medical staff and cleared to watch the match from the family flat.

The incident injected surreal tension into an already trying season, and when the Cowboys’ players learned what happened to the owner and his family, some found it hard to understand.

“Unreal,” Prescott said as he sat at his locker, shaking his head. “Cowboys can’t catch a break.”

(Top photo by Mike McCarthy: Kelley L Cox / Imagn Images)