Dak Prescott, Mike McCarthy were awful in Cowboys’ playoff loss. Jerry Jones better see it

Fire ‘em. Cut em’. Pink slip ‘em. Put ‘em up for adoption. Send ‘em to the in-laws.

Pick your player, coach or favorite GM, and there is not a single member of the Dallas Cowboys who does not deserve to be dropped into a Texas State Fair-sized pot of hot grease for what went down on Sunday afternoon at AT&T Stadium.

This was historic; the worst day in the history of the Cowboys in Jerry Jones’ tenure. That covers a lot of ground, and so much ugly, too.

Nothing has ever been as ugly as this.

“I don’t want to rank it but I’m floored,” Jerry said. “This is beyond my comprehension.”

Because this time “it’s going to be different,” and not only was it not different it was worse than ever before.

Because the “NFL MVP” quarterback was horrendous. The head coach was worse. The defensive coordinator was more worse. His defense was more, more, more worse. The kicker was trash. The cheerleaders were probably awful, too.

The second-seeded Dallas Cowboys were spayed and neutered by the Green Bay Packers, 48-32, in the NFC playoffs. The Cowboys not only didn’t make it to their first NFC conference title game since the 1995 season, they didn’t even advance beyond the wildcard round.

This is the most points the Cowboys have ever allowed in a playoff game.

Whatever preposterous, outlandish, childish scenario you can think of for the Dallas Cowboys this offseason, put it on the table.

Quarterback Dak Prescott waited an entire season to prove he could carry the Cowboys deep into the playoffs. Rather than do any of that, he played one of the worst games of his life against Green Bay, including throwing a pair of pick-six passes in the first half.

The Cowboys are apt to hand the man another $50 million a year in a contract re-structuring, but someone “in the room” must ask the hard questions about the player. Not the person. The player. These are two different topics.

The person is great. Exemplary. Upstanding. Kind. Decent. Professional.

The player has shortcomings. Own it.

“Damn sure didn’t think this is where we’d be. Stunned,” Dak said after the game. “I sucked tonight.”

He’s a good NFL quarterback who enjoyed an MVP caliber season, but he has been awful in the playoffs. Late in the second quarter on Sunday he looked like a second-year player who was in his own head, and a QB seeing ghosts.

Do not look at his stat sheet from this game; these numbers are full of lies and damn lies. Watch the game; when this playoff game mattered, he was awful.

No different than his first playoff loss against Green Bay in his rookie season. The same as the playoff loss in L.A. against the Rams. The same as those two playoff defeats against the 49ers.

Don’t expect the Cowboys to move on from Dak, but they have to get real about him.

Head coach Mike McCarthy has one year remaining on his contract, and in his four seasons the Cowboys have been “around it.” Three straight 12-win seasons in the NFL is not an accident, and yet the Cowboys have one playoff win in his tenure.

And speaking of Jason Garrett.

McCarthy is going to want another year on his deal, but with Jim Harbaugh, Mike Vrabel, Pete Carroll, Bill Belichick all available, will Jerry pay for two more years of Mikey-Mike football?

Had the Cowboys won so much as this playoff game against the Packers, the answer is yes. After what we saw here on Sunday, Jerry would be justified in not giving Mike another game.

“We picked a bad day to have a bad day,” McCarthy said.

Jerry didn’t touch the subject after the game, but that topic will be broached in the next week or so.

Which leads us to the “head coach in waiting,” Cowboys defensive coordinator Dan Quinn. Seldom has a coordinator had a worse resume-building game to become a head coach.

Quinn looked to be on the verge of becoming a head coach again for the second time in his career, but how an NFL team hires him after his unit’s performance on Sunday demands a serious re-consideration.

For as horrible as Dak played against the Packers, his defense “bailed him out.” Dak should buy every member of his defense a new Range Rover for their performance on Sunday.

From Micah Parsons to Tank Lawrence, Jayron Kearse and the rest, they were somehow all worse than Dak.

The Packers running game averaged 4.5 yards per carry, and Aaron Jones ran for 121 yards and three touchdowns.

With all due respect to Bart Starr, Brett Favre, and Dr. Aaron Rodgers, the Cowboys defense made sure that Jordan Love will be called the greatest quarterback in the history of the Green Bay Packers.

In his first playoff game, Love threw three touchdown passes, five incompletions, and zero interceptions.

Props to nearly all of the Cowboys defensive players after the game; they ducked the media almost as well as they avoided Packers ball carriers.

“I ain’t got nothin’ for you, dog,” Cowboys defensive end/mannequin Dorance Armstrong said after the game.

With eight minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, AT&T Stadium looked and sounded like the final moments of just another preseason game. Lots of empty seats. People paying attention to their phones, and making plans for the rest of the evening.

It was all a bit sad. A bit sad because it was so unexpected.

We should be conditioned for these things, of course, but no one was prepared for what went down on Sunday.

This was historic.

How ‘bout them Cowboys?