Cowboys rookie Tyler Guyton clearly didn't like what he saw from the officiating tonight. As he walked off the field he said to our cameras "the NFL needs better refs! Please!" pic.twitter.com/tQ1YLs5wM9

— Mike Leslie (@MikeLeslieWFAA) September 27, 2024

Former Dallas Cowboys coach Bill Parcells loved to say that “I don’t coach penalties” which was one of his clever ways to avoid accountability from his player’s mistakes.

No coach “coaches” penalties, but if the team is penalized enough, it does become a reflection of the man in charge. In this case, current Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy has no clever phrase, or excuse, to defend his team in this continued area of concern.

Mike only likes to say, “We need to clean it up.” With the state of his team, Bissell should soon be the official “Vacuum of the Dallas Cowboys.” This team needs one of those powerful wet-dry vacs to clean up the messes they routinely leave on the field.

On Thursday night in New Jersey, McCarthy himself needed a win almost as much as his team against a very meh New York Giants. It’s only September and the Cowboys had already reached a point where they “could not lose this game.” Not against a team they had defeated 13 of the last 14 times.

Not against a team where they were the heavy favorites despite performances in their last two games that suggested they may be an underdog against any other NFL team.

The Cowboys won in the ugliest, yellow-est fashion possible, 20-15.

Week 4 of the regular season looked more like Week 4 of the preseason. Although parts of the Cowboys played dramatically better than pee wee performances they that submitted in their defeats in Weeks 2 and 3, both at home, this is still a rough product.

The officials may have fallen a bit too in love with themselves on Thursday, but the Cowboys gave the officials plenty of reasons to throw their little yellow flags all over New Jersey. What began with a 15-yard face mask penalty in the first quarter on safety Donovan Wilson never stopped, and turned the game into a painful stop-and-start slog.

By the end of the night, the Cowboys were penalized 11 times for 89 yards. Read that six or seven more times and it’s still accurate.

Rather than own any of his struggles, Cowboys rookie left tackle Tyler Guyton instead blamed the refs. After the game, Guyton was caught telling WFAA’s cameras in the tunnel, “The NFL needs better refs! Please!”

When he watches the film, he will realize it wasn’t just the refs who had a bad night.

They won a game despite committing 11 penalties for 89 yards. NFL math says that should have given the Giants at least one touchdown.

Speaking of bad-to-average football teams, Giants quarterback Daniel Jones and his buddies could not take advantage of the free gifts the Cowboys were determined to hand out. Rather than accidentally trip into the end zone once, the Giants had to settle for five field goals from Greg Joseph.

Five field goals may be an homage to the days when Parcells was the head coach of the New York Giants in the 1980s, but here in 2024 five field goals and no touchdowns are a guaranteed way to lose a game.

Coming into the Thursday night, the Cowboys had been penalized 21 times, 13th in the league. Last season, they were the third most penalized team in the NFL. In 2023, they were fourth.

If you were wondering who the head coach was of those teams, it’s the same guy now.

For whatever the reason, his team has struggled to “clean it up” consistently. False starts, holds, too many men on the field, offensive pass interference, defensive holding, name it and the Cowboys tried it on Thursday night. At least McCarthy didn’t pull a Sonny Dykes and get ejected from the game.

Against the Giants, it did not help that rookie left tackle Tyler Guyton could not block New York Giants defensive end Kayvon Thibodeaux. Guyton was called three times for holding, and the refs were generous to keep it there.

After a solid performance in the Cowboys’ Week 1 win at Cleveland, Guyton has routinely played like an over-matched left tackle. Because that’s currently what he is.

The guy on the other side, Terence Steele, has had his share of troubles, too. The same for rookie center Cooper Beebe.

The only reason this game was close was the Cowboys penalties. The Giants aren’t good, but the Cowboys insisted on keeping it interesting.

Their defense was dramatically better against the Giants, and at least they evened their record at 2-2.

They got away with one because they still need to “clean it up.”