ESPN

IRVING, Texas -- Cowboys wide receiver Miles Austin missed Wednesday's practice with a hamstring injury.

Austin, who missed last week's game at San Diego with the same injury, is getting better, according to coach Jason Garrett but his absence raises questions about his availability for Sunday's clash against undefeated Denver.

"Miles is a good player and he's off to a really good start," Garrett said. "He's been as healthy as he's been the last couple of years, up until hurting the hamstring and being out last week. He's made a lot of plays for us, underneath plays, a couple of plays down the field, he's certainly a good player. He starts and he has a big role on our team for a reason."

Also, linebacker Justin Durant (groin) and defensive end George Selvie (concussion) also missed practice.

Defensive end DeMarcus Ware, who tweaked his back in the Chargers game, and is dealing with a neck issue, was in full pads during Wednesday's practice.

ESPN.com team reporter Todd Archer on the Dallas Cowboys’ hot topics as they begin preparations for Week 5.

IRVING, Texas -- Morris Claiborne, the second-year cornerback for the Cowboys, says he’s not making as many plays as he did before because of a scheme change.

The Cowboys played man coverage in a 3-4 scheme last season and now are playing more zone in the 4-3.

Claiborne says his struggles are tied to that.

It sounds more like excuses.

"Now we're basically a zone team,” he said on his weekly ESPN Dallas radio show on 103.3 FM on Tuesday night. “You have to play within that zone. Everything is new to everybody. When guys come in and hit those big dig routes in between the zones, then of course the corner's there, so they're going to say, 'Oh, yeah, that's the corner.'

"It's still a transition. When we were in press, just faced up man-to-man, they only hit one ball on me. But overall, I think all my big plays come within the zone."

I’m no expert but Claiborne is struggling at corner right now. And I’m not in the minority here.

We’ll use this as a guide, only a guide mind you. Pro Football Focus said Claiborne allowed six receptions for 115 yards in the loss to the San Diego Chargers. On the season, PFF has Claiborne ranked 98th at cornerback allowing 15 catches for 272 yards.

Stats LLC., again, we’ll use this as a guide, has Claiborne getting burned 15 times this season, tied for the 17th most in the NFL. Bruce Carter, the linebacker, is tied for fifth having getting burned 17 times and allowing three touchdowns.

We’re not sure if these people are right in their grades of Claiborne, but it’s clear he’s not playing with the same confidence he had last season.

"I feel like it's high, but it's not where it needs to be to be able to play corner," Claiborne said. "We're not the type of team that we were last year. We're not assigned [receivers] and you go wherever he goes, you follow him wherever he goes, and that's your man. We're not in that. We don't do that anymore.”

Last season when Claiborne played in the 3-4 man-to-man scheme he had just one interception and was credited with eight pass breakups.

What a season!

This season, he’s got zero picks and one pass breakup. He’s playing hard and through a bad shoulder, that limits his ability to jam receivers and make tackles.

Then again this is what Stephen Jones, the executive vice president of the Cowboys, had to say about Claiborne on KRLD-FM on Monday: "I think it's time for the injury thing to leave the scene (with Claiborne). He needs to step up and make plays."

Claiborne has lost the starting job because of his shoulder injury to Orlando Scandrick. Yet, Claiborne’s on-field struggles might prevent him from regaining the gig again.

Coach Jason Garrett noted Claiborne needs to improve his techniques and play with more confidence and the man from LSU agrees.

It’s amazing Claiborne is resorting to these measures regarding his disappointing play. DeMarcus Ware also dealt with a scheme change. He’s got four sacks and 13 quarterback pressures. The scheme change has nothing to do with quarterbacks targeting Claiborne more than fellow corner Brandon Carr. San Diego Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers attacked Carr on the first play of the game on Sunday and the pass fell incomplete. Rivers targeted Claiborne more than Carr after that.

Scheme has nothing to do with it.

NFL teams target the weakest links on the field.

“We've got to have him go out there and compete and make plays,” Jones said of Claiborne. “I think no one wants that more than Mo."

A weekly analysis of the Cowboys’ quarterback play:

Rewind: Tony Romo was efficient in the Cowboys' 30-21 loss to the San Diego Chargers, completing 27 of 37 passes for 244 yards and two touchdowns, but he was limited by a lack of opportunities. The poor outing by the defense resulted in Romo running only seven plays in the third quarter and just 14 by the time there was 6:49 to play in the game. When the Cowboys did have the ball, they were done in by drops and penalties that forced the end of drives. Romo was sacked three times, matching his season high, but two were coverage sacks and not the fault of the offensive line.

Fast-forward: The Broncos are allowing 316 yards per game through the air so far this season, but some of that is a function of how well their Peyton Manning-led offense is playing. Opponents are forced to throw the ball to play catch-up, and Denver is content to allow some yards. But the Broncos are allowing opposing quarterbacks to complete just 57.8 percent of their passes, and their six interceptions are tied for sixth in the league. And that has come without Champ Bailey, who has yet to play this season. Romo has been careful with the ball so far, with just one interception in 152 pass attempts, and is completing 72 percent of his passes.

Matching wits: This game will be billed as Romo versus Manning, but Romo will have to avoid trying to match Manning throw for throw and score for score. He has to make sure he does not give the Broncos any short fields to work with, while also being aggressive enough to take shots. He’s done this before actually. In just the fourth start of his career in 2006, he beat Manning, who brought an undefeated Indianapolis Colts team to Texas Stadium, 21-14. Romo wasn’t great, but he was effective, completing 19 of 23 passes for 226 yards with no touchdowns and one pick. The Cowboys held the ball for 33 minutes, 42 seconds thanks to a persistent running game (36 carries, 117 yards).

Prediction: I said Romo would have his first 300-yard game last week against San Diego and he didn’t, so I’ll make the claim this week that he reaches that mark. A possible return of Miles Austin will help, but Dez Bryant will give the Broncos' secondary trouble. Romo has at least one touchdown pass in 17 straight games and has 59 multiple-touchdown games in his career. He will get to 18 and 60 against Denver, but it’s hard to imagine it will be enough to beat Manning.

IRVING, Texas – Terry McAulay’s crew will work Sunday’s game between the Dallas Cowboys and Denver Broncos at AT&T Stadium.

It’s the first time the Cowboys have seen McAulay since Week 15 of the 2011 season when they beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 31-15. The Cowboys had just two penalties for 15 yards in the game with a Jason Witten false start and a Tyron Smith hold. The Buccaneers were penalized six times for 46 yards.

Last week McAulay’s crew called the New York Giants-Kansas City Chiefs game and called 14 penalties for 127 yards. They called seven holding penalties and had four special teams’ penalties.

Here’s the breakdown:

Illegal block above the waist – 1
Offensive holding – 7
Defensive pass interference – 1
False start – 1
Intentional grounding – 1
Illegal formation – 1
Clipping – 1
Delay of game – 1

Quarter-by-quarter:

First – 7
Second – 1
Third – 3
Fourth – 3

IRVING, Texas -- The Cowboys' offensive line had a solid performance, maybe its best of the season, in Sunday's loss to the San Diego Chargers.

As a rushing attack, the team gained 92 yards, and that includes a 15-yard scramble by quarterback Tony Romo. Despite three sacks allowed, one where Romo fell down, the quarterback seemed to have good protection for most of the day.

The first series of the game was rough with Romo under pressure on his first three drop-backs. But with Brian Waters starting the entire game at right guard for the first time this season, there seemed to be a chemistry going with the group.

"I thought they played well," coach Jason Garrett said. "We ran for nearly six yards a carry. We blocked a front that has traditionally rushed the passer well. There are some matchup problems that those guys can present. Dwight Freeney is a great player and has been a great player in this league for a long time. I thought we blocked him. I thought we blocked some of the other guys well. Tony had time to throw the football."

The next task is defending the Broncos defensive front, which allows 390.3 yards per game and has just five sacks in 2013.

Tuesday morning, Cowboys owner/general manager Jerry Jones praised the offensive line's work in the Chargers game and expects it to continue against the Broncos.

"Our offensive line, frankly played a real good ballgame," Jones said on KRLD-FM. "A very good ballgame, they've been playing well. Tony's got plenty of time to make the throws. We just got to make the plays."

After four weeks the Cowboys are 2-2 and still in first place in the NFC East. As we do every week, we review, preview, comment and tell you about the Cowboys in our weekly Beat Writers Report.

• Bruce Carter stood on the sidelines for 18 consecutive defensive snaps in the second half before returning to the field with 2:42 to play in the fourth quarter. Carter's absence was explained in different ways on Sunday: Poor play, heat related issues and a coach's decision. Coach Jason Garrett added to the drama Monday when he said Carter sat because of a sore foot. Asked about the heat (it was 80 degrees at kickoff with a humidity of 27 percent with a slight wind) Garrett said that wasn't an issue. Defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin said it was after the game. We're not sure why the Cowboys can't get their stories straight regarding Carter's absence but one thing is clear: he didn't have a good game. Carter had good coverage on a touchdown pass to Danny Woodhead, but quarterback Philip Rivers made a perfect throw over Carter's outstretched arm for the touchdown. On Woodhead's 13-yard touchdown reception, a wheel route, Carter just lunged at him and then took off. It was poor technique by the linebacker who can play better. One other play of note, regarding Carter, was a run where he stopped Ryan Mathews at the line of scrimmage, but couldn't hold him, allowing a seven-yard gain. Garrett wouldn't commit to Carter's status on the nickle defense, Ernie Sims is there, so there appears to be more changes coming.
• Left tackle Tyron Smith lost his left shoe in the middle stages of the fourth quarter. Smith came out for two plays and this is where Jermey Parnell took over. His first snap was OK, as Tony Romo completed a nine-yard reception to Terrance Williams. But the second snap, Parnell is flagged for holding. Smith got his shoe on and returned and Parnell watched the rest of the afternoon. Garrett talks plenty about players taking advantage of opportunities when presented and here Parnell got one only to struggle. The Cowboys are still high on him, but with security in Smith at left tackle and Doug Free at right tackle, there has to be some scratching of heads about the future of Parnell. He played well late last season in a platoon with Free, but struggled with his health in training camp and once he became healthy has just been OK.
• Two of the smallest and fastest players on the team, Lance Dunbar and Cole Beasley, played a combined 34 snaps Sunday. Beasley caught all three passes thrown his way for 16 yards and Dunbar gained seven yards on a pitch play with his only touch. Beasley is a good slot receiver who finds opens spots in the defense and uses his speed as an excellent yards-after-catch player. Dunbar can do the same, as evident by his work in training camp and in games. The negatives for Dunbar are ball protection, he fumbled once and his size, 5-8, makes it hard to trust him on pass protection, yet it's all about how he sets his feet. I think the Cowboys should get the ball more to these two players given how defenses are trying to take Jason Witten and Dez Bryant out with double-teams. DeMarco Murray is a solid running back but Dunbar should get more opportunities to make plays in the short passing game because he makes defenders miss. Beasley does the same thing because he gets into his routes quick and that's a positive for Romo who wants to get rid of the ball in less than two seconds.
• Bryant had six catches for 81 yards and two touchdowns in the loss. In the second half, the Cowboys got away from him. Tight coverage and shading a safety near him were part of the reasons. Bryant is such a powerful player in tight quarters that by the time he gets open, Romo has moved on with his reads. In the first quarter of games, Bryant has seven receptions for 109 yards and two touchdowns. Romo targeted him a team-leading 10 times in the opening quarter. In the fourth quarter, Bryant has been targeted nine times and has five catches for 43 yards with no touchdowns. Witten (13) and Murray (7) have been targeted more in the final quarter than Bryant. The Cowboys best offensive player is Bryant and the team has to find ways to get him open in the fourth quarter especially if they're trailing in games which was the case in losses to Kansas City and San Diego.
• Notes: Jerry Jones said Tuesday on KRLD-FM he wanted to see Gavin Escobar on the field more against the Chargers but understood why. Escobar, who got two offensive snaps, isn't a very good blocker and the Cowboys need him to improve in this area. ... Chargers targeted cornerback Brandon Carr twice on Sunday and completed one pass for 19 yards. ... Remember when everybody wanted Murray benched for Phillip Tanner or Joseph Randle or even Dunbar? Guess who's the third-leading rusher in the NFL? Murray has 356 yards. ... In case you forgot, Denver's Peyton Manning, whom the Cowboys meet this week, is 2-0 against Monte Kiffin and 1-0 against Rod Marinelli. In two of the victories, Manning needed a fourth quarter comeback to win.

A weekly examination of the Cowboys’ ESPN.com Power Ranking:

Preseason: 20 | Last Week: 15 | ESPN.com Power Ranking since 2002

The Dallas Cowboys dropped three spots in this week’s ESPN.com Power Rankings after their 30-21 loss to the San Diego Chargers, but they will have a chance to make a big jump if they can knock off the top-ranked Denver Broncos on Sunday at AT&T Stadium.

With the way the Broncos are playing and the way the Cowboys' defense played last week against Philip Rivers (401 yards passing, three touchdowns), that seems like too tall of an order.

Among the voters, Dan Graziano continues to be a believer in the Cowboys, putting them at No. 14 in the rankings, while Kevin Seifert gives them their lowest ranking at No. 21. The Chargers did not receive much of a bump in beating the Cowboys, going from No. 19 to No. 17.

The Cowboys remain the top-rated NFC East team by a decent margin. The Washington Redskins check in at No. 25, but the Cowboys’ two wins this year came against the No. 29 New York Giants and No. 26 St. Louis Rams.

Beating the Broncos and Peyton Manning could be a huge boost, but the Cowboys are so much of a week-to-week team that you cannot predict that it would mean much going into their Week 6 meeting against the Redskins.

IRVING, Texas -- The No. 1 job of the Monte Kiffin-led defense is to affect the quarterback.

The Dallas Cowboys did not do that in their 30-21 loss to the San Diego Chargers, sacking Philip Rivers just once and unable to put any consistent pressure on him.

The result was a 401-yard, three-touchdown day for Rivers.

Rivers was able to do most of his damage in a no-huddle offense with shorter throws to set up the deep shots. Simply, he did not allow the Cowboys the chance to generate much of a pass rush because he got rid of the ball so quickly.

“You’ve just got to get push in the pocket and you have to win quicker and you have to cover better earlier and not give them a place to throw the ball quite so quickly,” coach Jason Garrett said. “If you make him hold it on some of those routes, quarterbacks tend to get uncomfortable. They just did a great job. He got the ball out of his hands. They got guys open. They did it consistently through the game.”

Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning will notice and use some of that against the Cowboys this week at AT&T Stadium. Manning has been sacked only five times and only twice since losing left tackle Ryan Clady for the season.

Garrett did not have a kind review of his defensive line from the Chargers game.

“They did not play to their level and a lot of different reasons for that,” Garrett said. “We’re playing a lot of different combinations ... but there are no excuses. One of the things that they did is they possessed the ball a lot. They were in that no-huddle offense and [Rivers] was at the line of scrimmage and they’re playing at a pace that they’re controlling. Sometimes that’s hard on defensive linemen but that’s the nature of this league. That happens a lot and you just have to make sure that you’re ready for the challenge.”

IRVING, Texas -- Tony Romo has to walk a delicate balance as the Dallas Cowboys' quarterback.

If he takes too many chances, he will hear how he is too much of a gunslinger. If he protects the ball, as he has done through the first four games, people will wonder if he is too much of a game manager.

Calvin Watkins brought up the point about the lack of the deep ball in the Cowboys’ offense so far, and maybe Romo is being too careful.

“I don’t know that I buy that,” coach Jason Garrett said.

Romo is completing 72 percent of his passes, but he has only three completions of 25 yards or more this season. He has averaged 33 passes of 25 yards or more in the six seasons in which he has started at least 10 games. He is on pace for 12 in 2013.

“I think you can make big plays without turning the ball over,” Garrett said. “I think over Tony’s career he’s demonstrated that. He’s had a number of years where he’s had a high touchdown total and a low interception total. And that’s obviously what we’re going for. I think we’re playing better than we have in a long time on the offensive line. They have some marquee rushers on that San Diego defensive front. We did a good job of slowing those guys down. I thought he had time to throw the football, and so in that kind of balance that we have, if we’re running it, if we’re protecting it, I believe you can make some of those plays. We’ve just got to do that on a more consistent basis.”

Game situations often dictate decisions. When you’re down two scores in the fourth quarter, passes need to be thrown. Romo got the Cowboys to the Chargers' 1 on Sunday in that situation before Terrance Williams fumbled.

Garrett said Romo’s decision-making has been solid so far, but not perfect because it’s never perfect.

“As well as Peyton Manning is playing right now, he probably goes back and looks at the tape and goes, ‘Ah, that wasn’t very good. I should have gone there with the ball, I should have done this, I should have done that,’” Garrett said.

And being too careful can be a bad decision.

“I mean, a good decision isn’t necessarily just check it down every time,” Garrett said. “You and I can do that.”

IRVING, Texas -- Jason Garrett played quarterback for 12 years in the NFL and saw Hall of Famer Troy Aikman up close for seven seasons with the Dallas Cowboys.

The Cowboys coach has studied the game forever and Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning is doing things never been done before.

“He’s playing quarterback at maybe the highest level it’s ever been played,” Garrett said. “He’s been doing it for 15 years. He’s a fantastic player. His understanding of the game is second to none. His command is second to none. His ability to positively impact the people around him is second to none. Physically, he’s awfully good. He throws it where he wants to over and over and over again. He throws it on time. He’s accurate. He has the ability to make a ton of big plays and very few bad plays. He’s playing at as high of a level as the game has ever been played.”

Manning has 16 touchdown passes and no interceptions in his first four games. He has thrown for 1,470 yards. His quarterback rating is a ridiculous 138.0. His QBR is 91.4.

It’s only Tuesday so it might be a little early for the Cowboys to be tired of all of the Peyton Manning greatness talk, but there might come a point where all of the gushing about how well the Broncos quarterback is playing gets to be too much.

But could all of the glowing talk lead some of the defenders, rattled after last week’s performance against San Diego, make it seem like Manning is infallible?

“The one thing I would say is nobody is building him up; he’s doing it,” Garrett said. “It’s not like this is false bravado. It’s on the tape. You are going to watch the tape and see how good they are, and see how well he is playing, and the weapons that he has and how he’s using them and just how efficient and effective they’ve been. So, we are going to watch the tape and evaluate and put a plan together and we are going to go play.”

IRVING, Texas -- In the first four weeks of the season, Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo has thrown just nine passes of 20 or more yards and fewer than 10 passes with 21 or more air yards.

To say the Cowboys don't take enough shots down the field would be fair. In Sunday's loss to the San Diego Chargers, 19 of Romo's 27 completions went for fewer than 10 yards.

Defensive coverage, time in the pocket and play call affect whether or not Romo throws passes down the field. It would seem Romo has the weapons necessary to take shots down field in wide receiver Dez Bryant and at times rookie wideout Terrance Williams. When healthy, Miles Austin is a deep threat, but his ability to beat defenses on slants is something the Cowboys like to take advantage of.

The Cowboys struggled on third down, going 3-of-9 and had four drops in the passing game, three coming on third-down plays. The Cowboys ran the ball well, averaging 5.8 yards per carry, but still didn't challenge one of the worst pass defenses in the NFL with deep throws.

"That’s certainly something you want to do," coach Jason Garrett said of deep throws. "You want to be able to make some chunk plays in the passing game. The touchdown that Dez had, the 34-yarder, was one of those kinds of plays. A ball doesn’t always have to travel that far in the air but you want to be able to make those plays, complete the ball in the intermediate range where you give your receiver a chance to break a tackle and go score. We didn’t do that on a consistent enough basis throughout the ballgame."

The touchdown Garrett is speaking of is the throw Romo made to Bryant in tight one-on-one coverage against the Chargers on a throw to the end zone.

"He can make that catch with two people on him," Cowboys owner/general manager Jerry Jones said Tuesday on KRLD-FM.

Jones said he doesn't feel the need to challenge defenses deep all the time. In the Chargers game, Jones felt Romo had time to complete all sorts of throws because the offensive line played well.

It's just interesting that Peyton Manning (17), Geno Smith (17), Philip Rivers (15) and Alex Smith (14) just to name a few have more 20-yard throws than Romo. Michael Vick leads the NFL with 23 passes of 20 or more yards.

"I think if we would have done a better job on third downs, you get a few more of those opportunities and we wanted to be balanced and consistently try to run the ball throughout," Garrett said. "We were able to do that, and hopefully you mix in a high-percentage game with a chunk, big-play passing game and that’s the way you want to play offensive football."

IRVING, Texas – It’s time for Five Wonders while wondering just how many yards Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning will throw for Sunday at AT&T Stadium.

1. We’ll keep it with the Manning theme with the first wonder. The Cowboys have allowed two 400-yard passing games in a season for the first time in team history. That they came in the first four games is troubling with Eli Manning throwing for 450 yards and Philip Rivers throwing for 401 yards. I wonder how many 400-yard games they will allow this season. This Sunday they see Peyton Manning. In the future they get New Orleans’ Drew Brees, who threw for 446 yards against them last season, Detroit’s Matthew Stafford, Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers, Philadelphia’s Michael Vick and Chicago’s Jay Cutler. Vick and Rodgers already have 400-yard games this season. Washington’s Robert Griffin III has the capability of a 400-yard game. And then there’s a rematch with Eli Manning and the Giants. I wonder if the total will be four or five. What do you think?

2. I wonder if the Cowboys need to take shots down the field offensively. It’s not about throwing go routes all of the time, but the field shrinks when the Cowboys don’t take shots. So far this season Tony Romo has completed 72.4 percent of his passes, but he has only three completions of 25 yards or more. In 2012 he had 34. In 2011 he had 35. In 2009 he had 39. The offense has changed, and I don’t believe it’s Bill Callahan’s West Coast philosophy. I believe it’s Romo being more sure with the ball and getting rid of it quicker. Manning is the best quarterback in the world right now and he has 11 passes of at least 25 yards. Vick leads the NFL with 15. Romo is on pace for 12 this season. He is in a tough spot because if he throws it up for Dez Bryant or Miles Austin to make a play and the pass is intercepted he has to hear how he’s forcing the ball too much. That shouldn’t dictate his thought process and I don’t believe it does, but did anybody see Atlanta’s Matt Ryan just throw it up to Julio Jones on Sunday night? At some point you have to take chances.

3. I wonder how Orlando Scandrick will do against Wes Welker. He fared pretty well against him when the Cowboys played at the New England Patriots in 2011. Welker had a touchdown, but caught six passes for 45 yards. Leading into that game Welker had at least 81 yards in every game. He had only three games with fewer than 45 yards the rest of the season on his way to a 122-catch, 1,569-yard season. Scandrick’s quickness helps in his matchup with Welker, but so does his aggressiveness. He can play as well as he possibly can against Welker, but the Broncos have Demaryius Thomas, Eric Decker and Julius Thomas that will cause the Cowboys issues.

4. I wonder when the Cowboys realize their running game is at its best when they run out of three-wide receiver formations. They want to be as 12 personnel team and run two-tight end formations as much as possible, but it’s just not sticking so far. The Cowboys like it because they feel like they can dictate to the defense because 12 personnel does not allow the defense to determine the strength of the formation. By my count, DeMarco Murray has 152 yards on 25 carries out of 11 personnel in the last two games. He has 83 yards on 15 carries out of 12 or 13 personnel. Both are good, but 41 of those 83 yards came on one play against St. Louis. When the field is spread, Murray is a better runner and the Cowboys are able to block it better. This running game is not about overpowering defenses. It’s about angles. With more room, Murray looks like he can get to the angles better.

5. The Cowboys have shown nothing has changed from the last two years with their win-one, lose-one start to the first quarter of the season. I picked them to go 10-6 at the start of the season and to be a wild-card team. Clearly the NFC East will not get a wild-card spot, so the Cowboys will have to win the division. Getting off to a 3-1 start was a must, in my view, and they are 2-2. So now I wonder where they will steal a win later in the season to make up for it. This week against Denver? Hard to be confident in that one. At Detroit later in the year? Stafford is playing well. At Chicago? Winning in December at Soldier Field is tough. At New Orleans? Yikes. Winning their division games is even more important now and they might have to win five of their six games inside the NFC, so they have to sweep the Giants and sweep either the Philadelphia Eagles or Washington Redskins. Garrett does not look at it like this. He’s a one-game-at-a-time kind of guy, but that doesn’t mean the guys in the locker room are thinking that way too.

IRVING, Texas -- A few weeks ago, defensive tackle Jason Hatcher challenged his teammates to stop the roller coaster the Cowboys have been on the past few years.

The team hasn't won consecutive games since a three-game win streak last December. The Cowboys (2-2) are currently in first place in the NFC East, but in some ways it doesn't feel like it given the 0-2 mark on the road.

Cornerback Brandon Carr said the team can't find a way to get off the roller coaster.

"You want to be consistent that’s the whole thing," Carr said Monday, the day after the Cowboys' 30-21 loss to the San Diego Chargers. "I get tired of saying it, the whole roller coaster thing, it’s real and we still haven’t found an answer to it. But all you can do is come to work each day and prepare and get ready for the next opponent we're going to face."

Carr called the loss to the Chargers humbling and said the defense was embarrassed. Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers threw for 401 yards with three touchdown passes. The Chargers offense kept the Cowboys' defense on the field for the bulk of the third quarter. The Cowboys' had seven offensive snaps in the third quarter as Rivers and the Chargers scored 20 unanswered points.

"It makes your stomach hurt," Carr said. "It gets your emotions and everything into it, it's just not a good feeling. We have too many good ballplayers, good coaches, just overall a good program, a good organization and we should be winning these games. It's tough to win on the road, but the good teams get the job done and we have to find a way to look within ourselves and get the job done."

IRVING, Texas -- There were plenty of questions during coach Jason Garrett's news conference on Monday about cornerback Morris Claiborne.

In Sunday's loss to the San Diego Chargers, an unofficial count had Claiborne allowing four receptions for 84 yards. The four times he was targeted in what was thought to be man coverage, were all completed passes.

Claiborne lost the starting job to Orlando Scandrick because of a shoulder injury, but he's continuing to play through the injury on passing downs and when offenses line up with three receivers.

It seems Claiborne is playing with a lack of confidence and is struggling with his techniques when he faces receivers in tight coverage.

"I think it’s probably a combination," Garrett said. "Technically, you go back at each of the completions against him and you say, 'Hey, you should do this. You should do that.' But I also think confidence, playing that position, is critical. And usually those two things work hand in hand. When you’re playing technically sound and you have ability, you tend to have more and more confidence because you’re in the right place. They went to him too much in this ballgame, and they were too effective. He’s just got to play better, and he will play better."

An NFC personnel man had this to say about Claiborne: "He's a good cover guy with top-flight weight, height and speed to cover, but he gets lost trying to find the ball. He disrupts the ball, but he's not a ball hawk."

The same personnel man said chargers receiver Keenan Allen exposed Claiborne. Allen caught three of his five passes for 80 yards against Claiborne. On Allen's second reception of the game, he adjusted to a deep pass faster than Claiborne did to make a 31-yard reception.

The Cowboys expected more from Claiborne as he enters his second season and considering what the team did, move from No. 14 to No. 6 in draft selections to get him, you might say he's been disappointing.

"It’s a challenging position," Garrett said. "The quarterbacks and receivers in this league are very good. Guys at the college level, they don’t face the expertise or just the level of play, the level of skill that these guys have, so sometimes if you’re a more talented player, you can get away with being a little late to the ball because you can come back. The ball’s not really where it’s supposed to be. But guys in this league throw the ball on time. They throw it where they want to throw it. The route running is good. So technically you just have to be really, really sound to give yourself a chance to succeed out there, because you’re by yourself."