I don't know if they are a superior team, but it's been a terrible effort so far. They started off weird by keeping the ball on the coin toss and then we saw a classic example of the worst of Cousins of where he held onto the ball for too long on 3rd down and lost the fumble. Cousins has had quite a few plays where he holds onto the ball and then the pocket collapses around him. It's one of his traits that always frustrates me. To be fair, the OL, especially after Darrisaw got hurt, deserve a lot of the blame for the pocket collapsing.
On defense, they are just not finishing plays to get off the field. The worst one is when Za'Darius Smith should have had a sack deep in Dallas territory, but he couldn't finish the play and then Prescott ran for a 2-yard game. There's been plays like that all game, where they are not finishing plays and are letting themselves get gouged on the ground.
A let down game is normal, but with how O'Connell has been bucking so many of the problems that we've had in the past, I thought he would keep the team on track. Unfortunately, it felt like once they fumbled on the opening drive, they just never really got things on track.
What really worries me are the continued issues in the red zone. Early in the season, they were doing creative scheming to get guys open and it seems like teams have adapted to it now. To be fair, there are also execution issues most notably with Hockenson's two drops in/near the end zone. He should be a target they can rely on there. I am not sure what they do to get the red zone issues right, but it's been a problem for a few weeks and the matchups are not getting any easier.
