FRISCO, Texas -- Frustration is simmering in Dallas following the Cowboys' fourth loss in a row to the San Francisco 49ers -- the latest being a 30-24 defeat on "Sunday Night Football" in Week 8.
Quarterback Dak Prescott said "shit is frustrating. I've got to make the plays, period," when asked about the four-game losing streak to the 49ers postgame. Cornerback Trevon Diggs took his frustrations out directly on WFAA's Mike Leslie, a sports anchor and reporter for ABC's local Dallas affiliate, by walking out of the locker room to confront him about a tweet about Diggs' perceived last of hustle on the back end of San Francisco tight end George Kittle's 43-yard catch-and-run. It's unprecedented to see a player walk out of the locker to directly confront a media member before they are let into the locker room postgame, but that's exactly what happened. Diggs explained his rationale in depth with teammate and All-Pro edge rusher Micah Parsons' "The Edge with Micah Parsons" podcast on Monday.
"I just felt like it was unnecessary. I just felt like he was trying to use my name for clicks," Diggs said. "After the game, I just happened to see it. I looked, clicked on it and seen who it was, and I was like, 'Oh, he's right here. I just saw you.' I went up to and explained how I felt. I felt like it was a lot emotions just losing, coming out of the game. Fresh off the loss. I'm a competitor. I wanted to win, so it's a lot of emotions. I just kind of let my emotions get the best of me. At the end of the day, it doesn't make it right for someone to be saying anything or throw dirt on your name or make you seem like you doing bad or a bad job. I feel like I played my hardest game yesterday. I felt like I did everything like I could. I was tackling, setting the edges, doing everything to help my team win. For him to try to throw that on my name just didn't sit right with me because you were completely wrong."
To Diggs' point, Week 8 was his best game in coverage of the season: he didn't allow a single yard on two targets against the 49ers. However, Leslie's tweet wasn't critiquing Diggs' coverage skills but rather his end-of-the-play pursuit. Diggs was covering a route that had him running toward the right side of the field while Kittle's route took him toward the left sideline, and he did end up eventually shoving the Pro Bowl tight end out of bounds at the 4-yard line. San Francisco scored a 4-yard rushing touchdown on the very next play. The Pro Bowl cornerback's tackling and pursuit efforts initially became a topic of conversation after Dallas' 47-9 home loss against the Detroit Lions in Week 6. Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy's stance on the matter was that it's best to take the high road, but he also expressed empathy for Diggs, who's still just 26 years old.
"I think that's clearly an example of frustration," Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy said Monday. "I think we have to be better in those moments. I always talk about staying on a high road, that's part of our responsibility in this business. But I'm not ignorant or naive to the fact that this generation, that's part of the world they live in, the social media world. you have to manage that. That's part of being a professional athlete and that's part of representing this organization properly. ... I'm not probably the right person to talk about being in that position and what it feels like. I do have children in their 20s. And this generation, that's the world that they live in. It needs to be managed."
Dallas defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer, who is 68 years old, offered this sage advice to Diggs: don't go on Twitter right after games.
"Well obviously, it's important that we all be professionals with it, and it's not the kind of thing we want to do," Zimmer said. "You probably shouldn't be reading your tweets right after the game, but I don't know if that's what it was."
