Colt McCoy is what we thought he was, and that's fine.

The hope was that Colt McCoy would come out of it.

After switching from starter to starter in the 11th week, McCoy entered the state where he was a legend and had the chance to provoke a major discontent with the Cowboys on national television.

Instead, he and the Redskins will leave Dallas with a second consecutive loss and their season in the wrong direction.

For the match, McCoy finished with 24 assists in 38 for a total of 268 yards with two touchdowns and three interceptions.

What was preventing him, as well as the Skins, from having a better offensive day? Here are three factors.

Turnover

Alex Smith threw five interceptions in 38 quarters as the Redskins left this season. McCoy throws three times out of four against the Cowboys.

No. 12 was expected to take a little more risk and try to push the ball further while executing the attack instead of the No. 11. But on Thursday, he forced too many throws and that was really expensive in Washington, a team that counted a lot to win the battle to take away.

"We can not return the ball in the division on the road and expect to take it away," he said afterwards. "I take full responsibility for that."

Jay Gruden and Co. can live with a slight rise in McCoy's INTs if he also produces more on the field. Yet, in his debut this year, he was too careless.

Unpreparedness

Expecting McCoy to enter and manage things smoothly from the start was probably too much, even though it's been part of the Gruden system for years now.

The task was particularly difficult on Thursday because of the quick turnaround that followed Sunday's loss to the Texans and the clash with the Cowboys. This meant no real practice for the QB and his teammates.

"The procedures are like watching videos," he said. "There is not much going on there."

Details such as the depths of the routes are very difficult to determine without real practice.

"There was little that happened throughout the match because I did not have many representatives with these guys," he admitted.

He is hopeful that the gap that separates them here Monday night in Philly will clean him up. It must absolutely make a difference in the overall performance of the offense.

No game in progress

A vintage of Adrian Peterson would have made McCoy's work much more practical. But Peterson and the rest of the race could not do anything at the AT & T stadium.

This was the fourth consecutive game, with Peterson's average rushing average per game being below four. His longest run in the loss was only nine meters.

What you are starting to see, is how much Brandon Scherff's absence harms the rushing offense, which in turn harms the entire operation. Unfortunately, he will not come back anytime soon, so Bill Callahan will have to take advantage of this break to find a way to put Peterson back on track. McCoy needs this.

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