‘Washes Out Everything Good’: Dallas Cowboys Defense’s Three-Point First Half Undone By Arizona Cardinals’ Second-Half Surge

ARLINGTON, Texas — The Dallas Cowboys held the Arizona Cardinals to 3 points and 136 yards in the first half Sunday at AT&T Stadium. Arizona scored 30 points and gained 331 yards from there, and the Cardinals won 33-30 in overtime. Von Miller said afterward that a loss washes out everything good a player does.

Jacoby Brissett was 8-of-20 for 104 yards with an interception in the first half, and Arizona went 0-for-2 in the red zone. Caleb Downs and Kenny Clark stopped a fourth-and-1 run at the Dallas 1 in the first quarter, and Shemar James intercepted Brissett and returned it 33 yards to set up a touchdown. In the second half, Arizona went 3-for-3 in the red zone and converted 4-of-5 third downs.

Dallas allowed 42 rushing yards in the first half.

“I feel like the energy was there. I felt like we was running and hitting, stopped the run,” Clark said. “I feel like the rush and the coverage was really good. I don’t have really no complaints about how we played in the first half. And then our second half, I don’t know what happened.”

“So we got to go look at the film,” Clark continued. “And it was just disappointing to come out in that second half and not play up to our standard because it was a really good first half.”

The first half does not make up for the loss, in Clark’s view.

“We lost the game, so, of course, you’re going to be sick about the loss. But I think we did a lot of great things in the first half,” Clark explained. “But we can’t keep coming up here and saying, we played this half and we played that half. We got to put together a full game if we want to be the team where we want to be.”

“Yeah, it’s disappointing that we came out that second half and played that way,” Clark added. “I feel like the energy, the effort, the preparation throughout the whole week was really good. I think we showed that the first half, but for whatever reason, we didn’t do that second half. And we got to be better there.”

Von Miller, Malachi Lawrence Weigh In On Their Own Days

Dallas sacked Arizona quarterbacks five times for 42 yards. Quinnen Williams had 2 sacks and 7 tackles, Donovan Ezeiruaku and James Houston IV each had one, and Miller had a 16-yard sack of Brissett in the third quarter.

Miller is still light on his feet, he said.

“The combination that you want to have is you want to win the game, and you want to contribute to winning,” Miller said. “You want to make plays to contribute to winning. It’s all about winning. Whenever you don’t win, it just washes out everything good that you did in the game, and that’s for every single player and every effort that you could possibly make in a game.”

“Winning is the name of the game. And if you’re not able to win, it just kind of washes out all the amazing things that you did,” Miller detailed. “Now, we did have some stuff that we can build on. It was offense, defense, special teams, and me individually. So just keep going. That’s all I know how to do.”

Malachi Lawrence had a quarterback hit. The rookie rated his game a 6 out of 10.

“I was back there a few times, but I just need to keep going,” Lawrence said. “I know those opportunities are going to come. I just got to keep working towards them.”

Joey Porter Jr. Says Game Got Away When Dallas Needed It

Joey Porter Jr. had 1 tackle. He was called for defensive holding in the second quarter and briefly left the game.

“It felt good. Guys were flying around, we were communicating, we were doing what we were supposed to do,” Porter said. “The game just got away from us when we really needed it, and that’s something that we just got to work on as a team. Back to the drawing board. That’s all we can do.”

Cowboys coach Brian Schottenheimer pointed to the first-half defense as a positive.

“You’ve got to come out of this game and find the positives,” Schottenheimer said. “There’s going to be positives. The way we played in the first half, Quinnen Williams, we’ve got some pass rush. So that’s what we’ll do.”

The Cowboys fell to 3-5. Dallas visits the Indianapolis Colts on Nov. 8 at Lucas Oil Stadium. Kickoff is set for noon CT on FOX.