Following the butt-kicking the Dallas Cowboys took in Buffalo on Sunday, the organization has been delivering a very consistent message about what went wrong in the 31-10 loss to the Bills.
Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy and defensive coordinator Dan Quinn pointed to the team's 12 missed tackles as the key to Dallas allowing the Bills' rushing attack, led by James Cook, to gash their defense for 266 yards - the most yards the Cowboys have allowed since 2012.
"The biggest issue was the tackling. We lost the tackling battle," McCarthy said Monday at The Star in Frisco.
"The biggest impact on this game was our tackling and our ball-hawking," Dan Quinn said a short time later. "We're excellent at those two things, and we had a poor performance in both. Our tackling wasn't up to the standard we've set. That is our secret sauce, our tackling and our ball-hawking, and we didn't have it."
Jerry Jones didn't speak with the media after the game but agreed with his coaches' assessments of what went wrong when he joined Shan and Bobby on Tuesday morning on 105.3 The Fan.
"We just had missed tackles. We had missed tackles by our best," Jones said. ... "The good news I would say is that this is correctable from week to week. You can emphasize fundamentals because you've been practicing them the entire year. ... We have the talent. … We can specifically address what beat us in Buffalo (for this week’s game at Miami).”
The Cowboys have a tall task ahead of them on Christmas Eve, as the Miami Dolphins boost an even better rushing attack than Buffalo - ranking fourth in the NFL in rushing yards with an average of 139.6 yards per game.