Offense Sputters Against Dallas Cowboys Week 11

Brandel said the Vikings “didn’t step up” to the challenge of a stout Dallas pass rush.

O’Connell opted to pull Cousins and other starters – on offense and defense – partway into the fourth quarter, in order to preserve players’ health when the game had gotten out of hand. Cousins was replaced by backup QB Nick Mullens, who finished the day 5-of-7 passing for 54 yards, no touchdowns and no interceptions. His passer rating was 93.8.

Dallas didn’t allow a single Viking to total 50 receiving yards. Tight end T.J. Hockenson led the team with five catches for 34 yards, followed by Justin Jefferson’s three grabs for 33.

Hockenson said the team retained confidence in its ability to come back in the second half, but the execution just wasn’t there.

“Bad things tend to stack on each other, and that’s kind of what happened,” he said. “But that’s a good team that we played. They’ve got a lot of good players.”

Jefferson said it “definitely doesn’t feel good” to suffer such a steep loss – especially to the Cowboys, who now are 4-0 at U.S. Bank Stadium.

“I think we only had 54 [offensive] plays total, and that includes once we’ve pulled our guys there in the fourth quarter,” O’Connell said. “Not enough offensively to sustain and take the pressure off our defense.”

The brutal loss came after an exhilarating, come-from-behind win at Buffalo last week. It can be difficult to win coming off such a physically and mentally demanding game, but O’Connell emphasized that it’s no excuse for a poor performance.

“This is not the first time we’re going to have to an emotional win, to come back and play the next week – with much more energy,” he said. “We’ve gotta coach better, play better across the board.

“But [this is a] huge opportunity for our team to really look inward,” O’Connell continued. “We expect in these tough times to be able to rely on our locker room, our players and our coaches, and we’ll be right back here in four days with an opportunity to get this taste out of our mouth.”