Cowboys owner Jerry Jones insists roster is fine after loss to Ravens, 28-25

The final score makes the game look competitive, but make no mistake about it, the Dallas Cowboys were completely worked by the Baltimore Ravens.

For most of the game the Cowboys were staring up at a franchise that literally represents their historic drought (the Ravens began play in 1996 when the Cowboys were last defending Super Bowl champions). Lamar Jackson ran (and passed) all over them. Derrick Henry especially ran all over them. In a game where wills were measured, Baltimore came out on top without really breaking a sweat until late in the game.

The Cowboys seemed, like they did against the New Orleans Saints a week ago, woefully unprepared for the challenge. This isn’t necessarily to reference coaching or preparation for the game itself, but rather the group of players on each sideline. A season ago Max Verstappen dominated Formula 1 races forever due to having a car that was a rocket ship compared to the field, on Sunday at AT&T Stadium there were a bunch of Max Verstappen vehicles with the Cowboys driving a Honda Civic.

Ideally the Cowboys would have used all of the past offseason as a time to add to their roster. They obviously did not and are in need of help. That last point is something that Jerry Jones seems to disagree with though, as he noted after the game.

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones was asked about upgrading the roster, he said he doesn’t think that’s an issue. “I like our personnel.”

Jones when asked specifically about not going after Derrick Henry in the offseason: “We couldn’t afford Derrick Henry.” pic.twitter.com/lkQPFjJX9a

— Jon Machota (@jonmachota) September 22, 2024

You’ll note that Jerry says here that the Cowboys could not afford Derrick Henry. That would be the same Henry who had two touchdowns and did whatever he wanted against the Cowboys to the tune of 174 total yards.

Even if you believe this to be true, it is now factual that the Cowboys got extensions done with Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb before the season began. Relative to just the financials of football here, they could have done those in the early days of the offseason. Had the Cowboys done this, they could have alleviated salary cap space at the time that they could have used on anyone, Derrick Henry included. We have discussed this many times.

The Cowboys look like a bad roster right now and that is extremely unfortunate. But it (it being the roster) was an amendable thing that the team chose not to touch. This falls on them and them alone.