With the Dallas Cowboys' once promising season crumbling right before our eyes, tension in the team's locker room appears to be building.
The NFL Network's Jane Slater reports that some players on the team feel like the coaching staff is "totally unprepared" and just "aren't good at their jobs."
"Cowboys players initially bought into keeping things internal. Now as they sit 2-4 the discontent is leaking out," Slater tweeted on Tuesday, following a humiliating loss to the Arizona Cardinals on Monday. "On the coaching staff 'totally unprepared. They don’t teach. They don’t have any sense of adjusting on the fly.' Another 'they just aren’t good at their jobs.'"
In January, the Cowboys started a new era when they moved on from longtime head coach Jason Garrett and hired Mike McCarthy. But despite the team's wealth of talent, they're off to an anemic 2-4 start. In McCarthy's defense, the Cowboys were dealt a bad hand when they lost Dak Prescott to a season-ending injury last week.
On Tuesday, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones blamed the team's injuries woes for their disappointing start.
"Everybody is reluctant to point to your personnel because you know the way we're going to play the majority of the season is with the personnel that we have," Jones said during his weekly appearance on 105.3 The Fan, per Dallas Morning News' Michael Gehlken. "That's not negative. That's not a negative statement. It's a challenge because we are dramatically different personnel-wise than what we had anticipated having.
"I don't need to go down through the list, but it's a big one," Jones explained. "Other teams in the NFL have really had dramatic personnel changes, and it has impacted their record dramatically. But that's our game. That's what we do. Availability is right there with ability when it comes to personnel. And so, the next question is 'OK, but what do you do?' You adjust, and you play with the personnel you've got."
Dallas is fortunate enough to play in the dumpster fire NFC East, where they're still in first place despite their early struggles.
"I'm not in the feel-good mood frankly that we got manna from heaven being in the East," Jones added. "These things have a way of evening out as we go along, and certainly the NFC East is having its challenges right now. All of that is a way of not wanting to talk about other teams. When you're not playing any better than we are, it's hard for me to basically look to the endgame, which is to win the East, and get excited about the fact that we're better than anybody. We may be slow, but we're ahead of you syndrome. We got to get better to have the kind of season that makes sense for us."
