DALLAS — No more having to twist around the reality of that playoff debacle to talk about what had been an NFL-best 16-game home win streak for the Dallas Cowboys.
That is over after another impressive in-game streak by the New Orleans Saints.
Loud chants of "Who Dat?” from visiting fans echoed loudly and got more frequent during the home opener for the Cowboys, who lost 44-19 after New Orleans scored touchdowns on its first six possessions on Sunday.
It was another dud at AT&T Stadium for the Cowboys (1-1) when expectations were so high.
Coming off a dominating season-opening win at Cleveland and with Dak Prescott playing his first game since signing a $240 million, four-year contract. the Cowboys instead lost again eight months after their previous home game — when they fell behind 27-0 in the first half in a wild-card loss to Green Bay. They trailed the Saints 35-16 at the break.
“I'm not comparing last year to this year. We’re talking two completely different teams honestly,” Prescott said. “Talking a whole different defensive coordinator. You’re talking new players in different positions, particularly on offense.”
And now talking about another big disappointment, though there is still plenty of season left to play this year.
“Got to reset, and we’ve got to respond. ... We’re not going undefeated. It hasn't been done in 50 years, what a surprise," Prescott said.
“We've got so much ahead of us,” said owner Jerry Jones, who insisted that he really didn't have any flashbacks to that 48-32 loss to the Packers. “We’ve got a lot of work to do. We’ve got a lot of good players that can do the work. I’m confident we’ll get it done. We’ll learn from this.”
Jones called the loss "extraordinarily disappointing," but he remained optimistic, saying, "We will correct this."
"This is early," he said. "This is very, very early. We certainly didn't see this coming. But obviously we've got a lot of room for improvement here."
Prescott finished 27-of-39 passing for 293 yards and a touchdown with two interceptions. He was sacked three times.
Dallas is the only team other than New England since 2000 to have a 16-game home win streak — the Patriots had four in that span. The Cowboys, whose previous regular-season loss at AT&T Stadium was the 2022 opener against Tampa Bay, came up short of their franchise-record 18 consecutive home wins from 1979-81.
Chicago now has the NFL’s longest home win streak at six in a row. The Bears' next game at Soldier Field is in two weeks.
The Cowboys are back home next Sunday against the Baltimore Ravens.
“I wouldn't say I'm concerned right now just because it’s so early in the year. We can do so much better,” defensive end Micah Parsons said. “We didn’t do our job to our best of our standard, and the standard wasn’t held today.”
After scoring on their first nine possessions in their season opener, the Saints already had 310 total yards on 26 plays (11.9 yards per play) at halftime after scoring on all five drives. The first four of those were at least 70 yards, and they needed only 20 on the last one after an interception in the final minute.
“Unacceptable,” Dallas cornerback Trevon Diggs said. “It’s unacceptable we didn’t come to play today.”
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