Dallas Cowboys tight end Jake Ferguson opens up on disappointing end to 2023 season
The post-mortem on the Dallas Cowboys’ 2023 season is complete and according to star tight end Jake Ferguson, the team is moving on to 2024. It’s an “all-in” season, as Jerry Jones has called it.
On NFL Total Access on Wednesday, Ferguson discussed how the team fell short against the Green Bay Packers in the Wild Card round. He chalked it up to the Packers bringing their A-game while Dallas failed to deliver any crippling blows early.
“You know it’s tough to say,” Ferguson said when asked about what went wrong. “I think for me, it’s also the NFL, 32 of the best [teams] in the world are playing one sport against each other but at the same time I always like to think, ‘We’re the Dallas Cowboys, every team that’s going to play us is going to bring their all every single time.’ We’re not going to get anybody’s ‘We don’t have to bring that hard against them.’ They’re bringing their all against us. It’s a kill-or-be-killed mentality. We’ve just got to kill them first.”
Ferguson, who led all the Cowboys’ tight ends this season, scored three touchdowns in the 48-32 loss. He snagged all three scores from Dak Prescott who’s faced harsh criticism ever since, despite cleaning up on his biggest issue of 2022 – the turnovers.
“I know Dak is ready for the next season, that’s all you can do,” he said. “You can’t look back and you know, have any sort of just ‘Oh, I made a bad play, so we lost.’ No, it’s just on to the next, it’s over with, so we played that game, clock’s zero, it’s time to move on to the next week.
“We’ve got to get ready for this OTA session coming up, and then also fall camp and just get ready so if we do get in this situation down the road again, where we take advantage and we aren’t really looking back, we’re just going straight through the wall.”
Cowboys focused on ‘all-in’ season
Unlike more than a dozen of his teammates, Ferguson doesn’t have to worry about contract negotiations this offseason. He showed everyone he could fill in as the starter after Dalton Schultz’s departure and he still has two more years on his rookie deal. If his play stands out next season, he could be looking at early negotiations for an extension.
Dallas has a lengthy list of upcoming free agents to consider re-signing, as well as multiple stars who are looking for contract extensions. The list of the Cowboys’ free agents includes Tyron Smith, Tony Pollard, Stephon Gilmore, Tyler Biadasz, Dorance Armstrong Jr., Jayron Kearse, Jourdan Lewis, Johnathan Hankins, Neville Gallimore, Dante Fowler Jr., Chuma Edoga, Noah Igbinoghene and Rico Dowdle.