Micah Parsons says ‘We let them down today’, defense to blame for Cowboys loss to Eagles

The scoreboard at Lincoln Financial Field said the Philadelphia Eagles won Sunday night’s game. But the Cowboys came away from the 27-16 loss blaming the team wearing silver and blue.

“I just really feel like we beat ourselves,” a visibly subdued Micah Parsons told reporters after the game. “You play it back on the mistakes that I made and other guys might have made, we could have played much cleaner football. That’s the frustrating part.”

The Dallas defense hadn’t allowed an opponent to score over 19 points all season, but gave up 20 unanswered to Philadelphia in the second quarter alone. While the entire team made some obvious adjustments over the break and came back in the second half to close the gap, it proved to be too little, too late… especially when the rally was repeatedly hampered by an old nemesis.

“The biggest thing we’ve got to be better at: we’ve got to eliminate these discipline penalties,” head coach Mike McCarthy said in his postgame press conference. “We had way too many discipline penalties, especially in the fourth quarter. That’s where my focus is.”

Defensive lineman Osa Odighizuwa was flagged for unnecessary roughness in the closing moments, and cornerback Trevon Diggs drew an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for slamming his helmet to the ground after the Eagles’ fourth-quarter touchdown.

Earlier in the evening, a Dante Fowler neutral zone infraction turned a Philadelphia 4th-and-4 into a new set of downs. And a Kelvin Joseph roughness call on a kick return pinned the offense deep in their own end.

But of the team’s ten penalties on the night (eight on the defense and special teams), it was Parsons who earned perhaps the most memorable.

After breaking up (and almost intercepting) a Jalen Hurts pass to force 3rd-and-10, Parsons was hit with a 15-yard call for what officials classified as taunting.

Once again, the flag moved the chains and gifted Philadelphia a big chunk of field position just as the Cowboys had started to swing the game’s momentum with a solid touchdown drive.

“It’s just passion of the game. We play a game with passion, play it with heart. Sometimes you might overdo it,” explained Parsons of the call that many saw as extremely nitpicky. “I’ve got to do a better job at that, not giving up those type of first downs, things like that. That bothers me a lot.”

Luckily, the penalty didn’t cost Dallas any points, and it arguably played a much smaller role than the dismal 18-for-38 passing performance by Cowboys quarterback Cooper Rush, resulting in a 37.3 rating. Or his three interceptions, the first picks of the 2022 season.

But last year’s Defensive Rookie of the Year refuses to pin the defeat on the offense.

“We have to be accountable. I don’t point the finger,” Parsons said afterward.

“We have to do better for them. I feel like we let them down today. It’s weighing on me heavy. The type of pride I hold for this defense, the type of standard that I hold for us, it hurts a lot right now to lose this type of game.”

What hurts even more is recognizing the fatal wounds as self-inflicted.

“What I saw today is us beating ourselves. We gave them more opportunities to score the ball. D-line’s got to be more disciplined on third-and-five,” said edge rusher DeMarcus Lawrence, who logged eight tackles and one for loss on the night. “I don’t feel like we should hang our heads on a game like this, knowing that we played tough, we learned from our mistakes, came in here and corrected it at halftime, and got better, so that’s all it took.”

The Cowboys are well aware that they’ll meet their Philadelphia rivals at least one more time, with a regular-season rematch scheduled for Week 16 in Arlington. That gives them plenty of time to fully learn from their own mistakes and- they hope- be not nearly so generous come Christmas Eve.

“We’re going to look at this film, and we’re going to have a second opportunity to play them again,” said Parsons. “I’m looking forward to it.”

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Story originally appeared on Cowboys Wire