Cowboys vs. Falcons: Cowboys' Biggest Winners and Losers from NFL Week 9

A two-game losing streak does nothing to fix a team's issue with confidence and a broken spirit. Welcome to nowheresville, Cowboys fans. It's a place where mediocre teams try, but fail, and quarterbacks like Tony Romo cannot catch a break.

On a cool Sunday night in November, the Cowboys traveled to Atlanta, Ga., to take on the undefeated Atlanta Falcons. They ran in with buoyancy and left with brokenness.

Dallas lost to the Falcons 19-13 in a game that featured six field goals, two touchdowns and seven Cowboys penalties.

What say you, Jason Garrett and Jerry Jones? Dallas is now 3-5 and in danger of missing the playoffs, again.

The Cowboys have the struggling Eagles, Redskins and Browns on deck, but are they good enough to even beat those teams? Well, maybe that is another article for another day.

For this one, let's take a peek at the biggest winners and losers from Week 9.

WINNER: Tony Romo, QB

He did the best that he could do—he honestly did. From my perspective, Romo looks frustrated. It looks like the weight of being blamed for all of the Cowboys issues are finally starting to build up on the young quarterback.

Some of his throws were off, not many, but some. His receivers still ran wrong routes and yelled at his coach to throw the ball at one point during the game.

With all of that swirling around him, he only missed on 10 passes, threw one touchdown and had 321 yards passing.

Even in a loss, Romo can say that he did everything in his power to lead the Cowboys to victory.

LOSER: Orlando Scandrick, CB

Has anyone every watched the Family Guy episode where the Griffins get a new dog and completely shun their old dog Brian? If you haven’t, you should really give it a peek.

At any rate, Scandrick was given a contract extension worth $27 million over five years about a year ago.

Since then, he’s the old dog and corners Brandon Carr and Morris Claiborne are the new ones. Well, technically, Scandrick has never been the new dog because he’s simply not that good.

He missed assignments, tackles and was flagged for holding against the Falcons.

Scandrick seemed to revert back to his form of old, a form that landed him on the potential cut list after his 2010 campaign.

He won’t lose his job or be cut after one bad game against the Falcons, but it makes you wonder why he was given the extension in the first place.

WINNER: Kevin Ogletree, WR

I guess the 'Tree must like prime time because this is his first big game since the opening season matchup against the Giants.

Ogletree had 96 yards on just three catches and one touchdown.

He had one tough drop that would have gone for a first down, but he did score a touchdown. Now, if only the Cowboys could get this type of production from him every week, the outcome of some of their games may be different.

LOSER: Cowboys Rushing Attack

Felix Jones is hurt, Lance Dunbar is young and Phillip Tanner was sparingly used. Collectively, they rushed for 65 yards on 18 carries.

It is not entirely the fault of the running backs, but just think how much better this team would be if they have a robust rushing attack?

Jones had nine carriers for 39 yards, and Dunbar had eight for 26 yards.

Overall, they were inconsistent and uneventful. Plus, head coach Jason Garrett called a pretty unbalanced game. To his credit, he didn't have much of a choice as their running backs couldn't find anywhere to run.

WINNER: DeMarcus Ware, LB

Ware takes offense when someone says that he can't play the run, which I agree with him on, but he is truly a sack machine.

Against the Falcons, he brought his sack total to 10 for the year and mauled Matt Ryan 1.5 times—or twice in my book.

He had one of his patented strip sacks and pressured him for most of the evening.

The Cowboys may be a bad football team, but they still have great talent at the skill positions.

LOSER: Cowboys Secondary

Corners Brandon Carr and Morris Claiborne didn't fair so well on Sunday night. Falcons receivers Julio Jones and Roddy White did what they wanted to against Dallas' defensive backfield.

They went for a combined 238 receiving yards and 12 catches. Jones had two long catches—his longest being a 48 yard bomb from Ryan.

White's longest was a 26-yarder as most of his catches were underneath.

Jones and White are the league's best receiving duo ,and they were on full display Sunday night.

WINNER: Bruce Carter, LB

I remember when the Cowboys decided to draft an injured linebacker for the second year in a row last season; I chided them and thought that they were wrong in their choice.

This is why I'm not a scout or a member of the Cowboys personnel department.

Carter has turned into a monster on the field, and when Sean Lee returns next season, this duo will menace any offensive player on the field.

Dallas has great depth at the linebacker position, and Carter just adds another scary element.

For the night, he led the team with 10 tackles and one pass knockdown. Oh, and did I mention that nine of his 10 tackles were solo?

He was one of the lone bright spots for the Cowboys on Sunday night in Atlanta.

LOSER: Dez Bryant, WR

Bryant has been in the news lately for two reasons: Attending a nightclub and not having domestic violence charges against him dropped.

He also nursed a sore hip this past week in practice but played anyway.

On Sunday, he was rendered ineffective against the Falcons. He had just one catch for 15 yards, and we never saw much of him.

Earlier in the week, he was pulled from punt-return duty, and with him having just one catch, the NBC football crew was forced to show simple sideline shots of the talented receiver.

If Dallas has any shot of turning their season around, Bryant has to make his presence felt on the field.

LOSER: Jason Garrett, HC

His team is 3-5, his offense is sputtering, he has no running game and his quarterback seems upset.

I would say that Garrett's coaching clock is ticking pretty loud right now with news Sean Payton may be a free-agent coach at the end of the season. NFL.com and NFL Network's Michael Lombardi broke the news (h/t Gregg Rosenthal of NFL.com).

He has the rest of the year to save the Cowboys season, but so far, a 3-5 record is about as well as he can do.