The Dallas Cowboys opened the 2026 season against the rival New York Giants hoping to turn the page on last year’s shortcomings. Instead, many of the same problems followed them into a new season. The defense struggled mightily, while the offense failed to pick up the slack and play complementary football.
While the blame starts at the top with the owner and trickles down to the coaching staff, the players need to be held accountable, too.
What could have been a tone-setting win to open the season instead slipped away in a 28-20 loss, and several costly individual performances played a major role in the collapse. These Cowboys deserve the most blame for the loss.
3 Cowboys players to blame the most for loss to the Giants
1. DeMarvion Overshown - LB
When the Cowboys announced that DeMarvion Overshown would wear the green dot and take over at MIKE, it was fair to wonder how quickly he would adjust to the added responsibility. Overshown hadn't spent much time in that role over his first few seasons, and injuries have prevented him from getting consistent reps on defense.
Unfortunately, his debut in the role was a difficult one. Overshown looked uncomfortable at times directing the defense, and his night ended early after he suffered a hamstring injury.
Overshown's night started poorly when he committed an unnecessary roughness penalty by shoving Jaxon Dart out of bounds past the white line. The penalty fired up the Giants' sideline and Dart and Co. capitalized with a touchdown drive to grab the early lead and all the momentum.
As the quarterback of the defense, a player in his position has to be smarter than that and lead by example.
Overshown also missed his fair share of tackles, something this defense did a lot of last year. Dart was able to pick apart this defense over the middle, where you expect the linebackers to be ready in coverage. Dee Winters played poorly, too, but the number of tackles missed by Overshown is hard to ignore.
It's only one loss, but Jerry Jones may already need to think about adding more talent at linebacker. He publicly said before the season that he wasn't done making moves and would be willing to trade more draft capital if the right opportunity presented itself.
Overshown still has plenty of time to grow into his new role, but he's never been a traditional MIKE linebacker. Between that learning curve and his latest injury, Dallas could use a more natural presence in the middle of the defense.
2. DaRon Bland - CB
DaRon Bland might be fully healthy after having a tough time coming back from injury last season, but his poor play showed again on Sunday night. While the entire secondary struggled to cover anybody on the Giants, Bland's poor play looked all too familiar to 2025.
Bland looks like another player the Cowboys should not have spent millions of dollars on. Since the departure of Dan Quinn and Al Harris, combined with his injury history, Bland has become a shell of what he was in 2023. He might have had some activity on the stat sheet, but he was playing so far off on so many plays and just looked lost again.
His biggest mistake came on the touchdown that put the Giants firmly in control of this game at the end of the first half.
On the touchdown to Isaiah Likely, Bland and Dee Winters looked confused about who to guard, which left Likely able to get wide open for the score. While more blame for that play could be put on Winters, Bland and he should have communicated better there.
As the Cowboys' top cornerback, Bland is expected to set the standard in the secondary, and his performance against the Giants fell short of that.
3. Dak Prescott - QB
Dak Prescott barely had a chance to make a comeback in this game because the defense let him and the offense down once again. However, ghosts of the old Dak appeared right at the end of the half, which turned this game completely against the Cowboys.
After the defense forced their only turnover of the night, the offense had a chance to take the lead before halftime. Instead, Prescott threw a bonehead interception to Jevon Holland. A few plays later, the Giants scored and the life was essentially sucked out of the Cowboys,
Prescott will always face criticism as the Cowboys' quarterback, and he will have to deal with more of it after that play Sunday night. He clearly looked like he was trying to throw the ball away, and Holland made a tough interception, but he has to throw the ball out of bounds there. If that drive continues and ends in points, Dallas would have had a much better shot at winning this game.
Prescott did all he could to try to get the offense going, and he did in the second half, but it was not enough to overcome that defense. The narrative has not changed from last season based on what happened vs. the Giants, but he deserves some of the blame for Sunday night's loss.
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