Cowboys aren't ready to throw in their towel

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IRVING — Quarterback [link widoczny dla zalogowanych] says they're “snakebit.” Defensive end Marcus Spears wonders if the “team with the worst luck in football” will ever “get a break.” Guard Leonard Davis likened their mistakes to committing “suicide.”
With all the doom and gloom that their nauseating 1-4 start has generated, this question has to be asked: When do the Dallas Cowboys raise the white flag?
From a schedule standpoint, the Cowboys still have time to turn things around. But can they win their race against human nature? Would a loss to the New York Giants (4-2) next Monday night result in players tuning out coach Wade Phillips and his staff? Do the players have enough pride and professionalism to start winning and stop being the league's laughingstock?
The few players who met with the media Monday said they remain united and are determined to become only the sixth team since 1990 to make the playoffs after starting 1-4.
“We didn't go through the offseason and training camp and all these practices to get to a point where we say, ‘We're going to shut it down and pack it in,'” Spears said. “Nobody has that attitude. Our coaches don't, and we don't as players. We look at the tape every Monday. If we stop beating ourselves, we are 5-0.”
Defensive end Igor Olshansky agreed.
“We are very close to being great,” Olshansky said. “But the margin of victory is very small in the NFL. You can't make mistakes.”
Dallas has outgained its opponents 2,000 yards to 1,407 and owns the league's third-ranked offense and fourth-ranked defense. But all the bone-headed mistakes, untimely penalties and sloppy turnovers have proved too much to overcome for a team that once had the talent to do so.
“We've done a lot of shooting ourselves in the foot, and we are not overcoming it,” Spears said. “I've been in games here where we had 12, 13 penalties, and we won by two touchdowns. But we can't do that on this team, obviously, because it's costing us some games.”
That was the case in losing 24-21 on Sunday at Minnesota. The Cowboys outgained the Vikings 314-188, but they couldn't overcome 11 penalties, two turnovers and special-teams breakdowns that included allowing Percy Harvin to open the second half with a momentum-changing 95-yard return for a touchdown.