BREAKING: “Storm of Reactions: What’s Happening with the Dallas Cowboys?”

That shrill, grating sound you hear off in the distance is Jerry Jones grinding his teeth into a cloud of dust over the current state of his Dallas Cowboys. “America’s Team” has been trending from playoff contender to dumpster fire over the past couple of weeks. After an embarrassing 47-9 blowout loss to the Detroit Lions in front of their home crowd at “Jerry’s World,” the Cowboys had an early bye week to figure out what went wrong, so some soul searching, and emerge with a better product the rest of the way. If Sunday night’s performance on the road against the San Francisco 49ers is any indication, that week off didn’t do much good. The final score of 30-24 made it look like the Cowboys put up a good fight in front of a national audience, but it took an injury to 49ers running back Jordan Mason and a pair of San Francisco defenders running into one another to leave CeeDee Lamb wide open in the end zone for Dallas to make a game of it. After clawing to a 10-6 halftime lead, the Cowboys were blanked 21-0 in the third quarter. After back-to-back touchdown passes from Dak Prescott to Lamb in the fourth quarter, the Dallas offense got the ball back with the chance to mount a game-winning touchdown drive, but saw four straight Prescott passes hit the ground to seal their fate. Sunday night’s loss dropped the Cowboys below .500 on the season at 3-4, and exposed many of the same flaws that were obvious in their other defeats throughout the early part of the season so far. Obviously, some of the blame can be placed on injuries to key players, particularly starting pass rushers Micah Parsons and DeMarcus Ware. The defense clearly isn’t the same without them, as too much pressure continues to be put on the secondary to cover longer without those two stars chasing opposing quarterbacks around. But the run defense still isn’t consistent enough, which was painfully obvious yet again Sunday night. Even without Mason and Christian McCaffrey, the 49ers still managed to rack up 226 yards on the ground against the Cowboys’ porous defensive front. On the other side of the ball, things are just as ugly on the ground, as Dallas’ lack of a legitimate rushing threat continues to leave their offense woefully unbalanced, placing way too much pressure on Prescott to chuck the ball around the yard and somehow come up with a win. Rico Dowdle missed Sunday night’s game with an illness, forcing Dallas to trot out the has-been duo of Ezekiel Elliott and Dalvin Cook to lead their “ground attack,” if you can even call it such a thing. The Cowboys managed just 56 yards rushing, averaging less than three yards per carry. Mike McCarthy’s offense continues to look stale and boring, relying on players to simply out-talent their opponent and win their 1-on-1 matchups consistently instead of scheming players open and creating space for big plays with creative, innovative play-calling. That lack of creativity and balance on offense has heavily influenced Prescott’s play. After putting up MVP-type numbers last season, throwing just nine interceptions all season, Prescott has been picked off eight times already this year, including a pair of ugly ones Sunday night. Signing him to a long-term extension just before the start of the regular season was the only viable option for Dallas, but they’re making it as hard as possible for their franchise quarterback to live up to his new pay grade. The Cowboys have only beaten one team with a winning record up to this point (Pittsburgh Steelers), and they made a 49ers team with plenty of struggles of their own look their best for the majority of Sunday night’s game. They’re currently sitting behind both the Washington Commanders (6-2) and Philadelphia Eagles (5-2) in the NFC East standings, and they still have those teams on their remaining schedule twice.