After a 49-17 evisceration of the defense by the New Orleans Saints, Jones had to admit that replacing Rob Ryan with Monte Kiffin as defensive coordinator looks, shall we say, less than wise.
“We thought it was best for us to go in the direction that we are, and it doesn’t look good right now,” Jones said (via ESPN Dallas). “Hopefully we can make it look good, but I have all the feelings that you have when you want to look back at a decision, and I realize when some of them work you have to have a few things go along with it.
“Candidly, we’re having some of the same things that Rob had last year. Frankly, to be fair to Rob, he lost a lot of guys on defense [to injury]. We lost more this year. That’s the game, though. That’s what we play.
That’s the NFL.”
The Cowboys fell to 5-5, which is still good enough to share the top spot in the NFC East with Philadelphia, but their defense gave up an NFL-record 40 first downs and 625 total yards to the Saints. That’s the second time in three weeks an opponent has topped the 600-yard mark against Dallas.
“I didn’t expect this, and I didn’t see this coming. I did think we’d come in here and get some points on the board,” he said (via nola.com). “They just did a very good job of defensing us, kept us off the field. They had the ball a lot and really did a good job offensively. I can’t say enough about how well they played and they put it all together tonight and we were the recipients of it.”
Maybe the Cowboys, who have a bye this week, will make another change.
