Cowboys can't recover from failed fake punt in 3rd straight loss as Prescott faces hamstring injury

ATLANTA (AP) — Trailing by only four points early in the second half, the Dallas Cowboys failed on a huge gamble — a fake punt from their 38.

The play changed the outlook for the Cowboys' comeback attempt the remainder of the game.

Less than three minutes later, the Atlanta Falcons had taken advantage of being given the ball on the Cowboys' side of the field, scoring on one of Kirk Cousins' three touchdown passes. The Cowboys suddenly were two scores behind in their 27-21 loss that left major questions about their ability to salvage the season.

Dallas (3-5) has lost three straight games for the first time since a four-game skid in 2020. Running back Ezekiel Elliott did not accompany the team to Atlanta. Dallas had two more key playmakers, quarterback Dak Prescott and wide receiver CeeDee Lamb, leave the game with injuries.

Nine penalties for 55 yards only added to the frustrations and concerns for coach Mike McCarthy.

“We need to win a game,” McCarthy said. “I know what everybody wants to talk about long term. We have five losses and so we clearly understand where that puts us as far as what it will take. We’ve got to get to winning. We’re making too many self-inflicted wounds and some were pre-snap penalties that are totally unacceptable."

It would be easy to describe the failed fake punt as another self-inflicted mistake. Punter Bryan Anger's pass fell incomplete when C.J. Godwin slipped on the fourth-and-2 fake. The call was unusual because of the close score — the Falcons led 14-10 — and the field position.

“The fake punt was a matchup we felt strong about going into the game,” McCarthy said before adding, “That’s when they got the two-score lead.”

McCarthy confirmed the decision to have Elliott remain in Dallas “clearly was a team discipline situation. We’ll pick up Monday and see where we are.”

Prescott said he hopes the team can rally around Elliott.

“Definitely a difficult situation, me personally being as close as I am with him, wanting to help,” Prescott said. “I think if anything it will be good. Obviously it was a mutual decision for him not to take this trip. As he would say, just getting himself together. I’d like to just, you know, rally around him and be the teammates and the brothers that we are and good will come from it.”

Prescott's top priority will be learning more about the hamstring injury that forced him to miss the fourth quarter. Prescott said he “felt a pull, something I’ve never felt." He said an MRI has been scheduled for Monday to determine the severity of the injury.

“It was a tough deal to walk on it,” Prescott said. “I know how much we needed this one. I wanted to just get out there and compete, get out there and fight.”

Prescott said “it’ll take a lot for me to not be out there” in next Sunday's home game against Philadelphia.

Lamb left the game with a right shoulder injury but returned late in the game.

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

Dallas Cowboys wide receiver CeeDee Lamb (88) drops a pass as he is defended by Atlanta Falcons cornerback A.J. Terrell (24) during the first half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/ Brynn Anderson)

Dallas Cowboys wide receiver CeeDee Lamb tries in vain to catch a pass during the second half of an NFL football game against the Dallas Cowboys, Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/ Brynn Anderson)

Dallas Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy, facing, greets Atlanta Falcons head coach Raheem Morris after an NFL football game, Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024, in Atlanta. The Falcons won 27-21. (AP Photo/ Brynn Anderson)

Dallas Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy walks off the field after an NFL football game against the Atlanta Falcons, Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024, in Atlanta. The Falcons won 27-21. (AP Photo/ Brynn Anderson)

Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott (4) walks off the field after an NFL football game against the Atlanta Falcons, Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024, in Atlanta. The Falcons won 27-21. (AP Photo/ Brynn Anderson)

Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott after an NFL football game against the Atlanta Falcons, Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024, in Atlanta. The Falcons won 27-21. (AP Photo/ Brynn Anderson)

Dallas Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy walks on the sideline during the second half of an NFL football game against the Atlanta Falcons, Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/ Brynn Anderson)

Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott (4) walks off the field after an NFL football game against the Atlanta Falcons, Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024, in Atlanta. The Falcons won 27-21. (AP Photo/ Brynn Anderson)

Dallas Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy speaks at a news conference after an NFL football game against the San Francisco 49ers in Santa Clara, Calif., Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Tony Avelar)

Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott (4) walks off the field with wide receiver CeeDee Lamb (88) after an NFL football game against the Atlanta Falcons, Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024, in Atlanta. The Falcons won 27-21. (AP Photo/ Brynn Anderson)

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli airstrikes killed at least 26 people across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, hitting Hamas security officers and an Israeli-declared humanitarian zone, as the daily bombardment continues and the latest efforts toward a ceasefire appear to have stalled.

“Everyone was taking shelter in their tents from the cold, and suddenly we found the world turning upside down. Why, and for what?” said Ziyad Abu Jabal, displaced from Gaza City, after the strike in the seaside humanitarian zone known as Muwasi.

Hundreds of thousands of displaced people are huddling in Muwasi in damp winter weather.

The early morning strike there killed at least 10 people, including three children and two senior Hamas police officers.

Israel’s military said it targeted a senior officer in the Hamas-run police force. It said he was involved in gathering intelligence used by Hamas’ armed wing in attacks on Israeli forces.

Another Israeli strike killed at least eight Palestinians in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza. The men were members of local committees that help secure aid convoys, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, which received the bodies. An Associated Press reporter there confirmed the toll.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the strike.

In southern Gaza, Israel’s military killed five policemen in eastern Khan Younis. Israeli government spokesman David Mencer said the strike targeted the head of the Hamas internal security force in southern Gaza.

“Where did we find him? Where else, but of course hiding in the humanitarian zone in Khan Younis, where Gazans are sheltering from this war,” Mencer said.

Israel has repeatedly targeted the police in Gaza during 15 months of war, contributing to a breakdown of law and order in the territory that has made it difficult for humanitarian groups to deliver aid. Israel accuses the militant Hamas group of hijacking aid for its own purposes.

The Hamas-run government had a police force numbering in the tens of thousands that maintained a high degree of public security before the war, while also violently suppressing dissent. Now officers have largely vanished from the streets in many areas.

Meanwhile, three Palestinians were killed in an Israeli strike that hit a group of people walking in the street in Maghazi in central Gaza. Their bodies were taken to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.

The war was sparked by Hamas-led militants’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack into Israel. The militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250. Around 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, at least a third believed to be dead.

Israel’s offensive in retaliation has killed over 45,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the territory's Health Ministry, which says women and children make up more than half the dead. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in their tally.

Israel's military says it only targets militants and blames Hamas for civilian deaths because its fighters operate in dense residential areas. The army says it has killed 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.

The war has caused widespread destruction and displaced some 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million, many of them multiple times.

Hunger is widespread. Children, some barefoot or in sandals, waited in line with metal pails or other containers at a food distribution center in Deir al-Balah on Thursday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was released from the hospital Thursday after having prostate surgery Sunday.

Doctors at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital said Netanyahu was recuperating well, although he has a period of recovery ahead. Despite doctor’s orders to remain hospitalized, the 75-year-old leader briefly left the facility to participate in a vote in Israel’s parliament on Tuesday.

Netanyahu has vowed to press ahead in Gaza until Hamas is destroyed. But the militant group, while greatly weakened, has repeatedly regrouped in parts of the territory — notably the largely isolated north — after Israeli forces withdraw.

Khaled reported from Cairo.

Follow AP coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

Palestinians collect donated food at a food distribution center in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Thursday Jan. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Two Palestinian boys wait to collect donated food at a food distribution center in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Thursday Jan. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

An Israeli soldier weeps in front of a memorial at the site of the Nova music festival, where hundreds of revelers were killed or kidnapped by Hamas, near Kibbutz Re'im in southern Israel, close to the Gaza Strip, Thursday, Jan. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

A man mourns over the body of a Palestinian man killed during an Israeli army strike in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, Thursday Jan. 2, 2025. The strike killed at least eight men members of local committees that help secure aid convoys, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, which received the bodies.(AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Palestinians pray over the body before the funeral of a man killed during an Israeli army strike in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, Thursday Jan. 2, 2025.(AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

A body is carried to the area outside the hospital after an Israeli army strike early Thursday morning in the Muwasi area, in Khan Younis in the central Gaza Strip, Thursday Jan. 2, 2025. According to Palestinian medical officials, the airstrike killed at least 10 people, including three children and two senior police officers, in an Israeli-designated humanitarian zone in the Gaza Strip. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Palestinians inspect the site of an earlier Israeli army strike in the Muwasi area, in Khan Younis, central Gaza Strip, Thursday Jan. 2, 2025. According to Palestinian medical officials, the airstrike killed at least 10 people, including three children and two senior police officers, in an Israeli-designated humanitarian zone in the Gaza Strip. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

An Israeli soldier covers his ears as an artillery gunner fires into the Gaza Strip from a position in southern Israel, Thursday, Jan. 2, 2025.(AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

Israeli soldiers stand in a bullet-ridden house during a tour for army personnel to observe the damage caused by the Oct. 7 Hamas onslaught at Kibbutz Kfar Aza, near the Israeli-Gaza border, in Israel, Thursday, Jan. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

Palestinian girls collect donated food at a food distribution center in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Thursday Jan. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

A destroyed part of Gaza City as seen from southern Israel, Thursday Jan. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov))