Red shirt, wrong ending: Dak Prescott takes Week 7 away from All Strong

On Monday afternoon Scott Heilig told me exactly where he'd be for the Dallas game: the same seat, the same red shirt, saying two words he had never said in his life. "Go Birds."

The Eagles didn't oblige. Dallas won 38-21 in Philadelphia, Dak Prescott scored 23.28 points for Kamehameha, and a game All Strong had led since Sunday night finished Kamehameha 113.08, All Strong 107.02. All Strong are 3-4. Jeff Carrico's Kamehameha, last in the Remote at 1-5 when the week began, have their second win.

I was careful on Sunday night, and I'm glad I was. When Heilig told me "my guys are done" and to ask him again Tuesday, I didn't call the game. When he told me Monday, "Nervous? I'm up nineteen with one guy left on the other side," I wrote it down as his read, not mine. The one guy turned out to be plenty. A lead with somebody still to play is a projection in a nice shirt.

So what does this loss say about All Strong? Less than the final score will make it sound, and more than Heilig will want it to.

Start with what he got right. His lineup put up 107 points, a good week for an offense I have spent a month calling thin. Here was his summary on Monday: "Penix out-threw Kyler, Amon-Ra was Amon-Ra, Christian was Christian, and Hockenson's back. That's stars carrying a team, which is how I built it." I've pushed on the stars-carry model for weeks, and I'll say it plainly: on Sunday it held. Michael Penix Jr., Christian McCaffrey and Amon-Ra St. Brown did what Heilig pays them to do, and T.J. Hockenson looked like a tight end again. You don't lose a week because of 107 points.

Now the part he'll like less. The question I've been asking since the Watson trade is who the third option is when the stars don't do all the work. On Sunday nobody had to be, and Heilig said so himself: "Christian Watson didn't have to do much Sunday and he didn't." But a game settled by about six points is exactly the kind where the fourth, fifth and sixth names in a lineup matter. Watson had a quiet day. At defensive back, Amani Hooker started under the owner's own rule that production sets the chart, and Heilig graded that one before I could: "Three and a half isn't production."

I'm not going to write the column where a reporter adds up the bench on Tuesday and decides the owner should have known on Sunday. That's the easiest column in this business and usually the least honest. The strongest reading of these facts, and I think the right one, is that Kamehameha beat a good All Strong week with one big Monday night from their quarterback. That happens. It's not a verdict on how Heilig built this roster.

It does change the arithmetic of his promise, though. Sunday night, at 3-3, Heilig told me he wanted three wins in the next three weeks and that "All Strong doesn't rebuild." He made that promise with a little room. There's less now. Three straight wins now gets All Strong only to 6-4. The Fumblers lost too, to the Sports Ballers, so the gap at the top of the Diablo is still two games, but the margin for a bad Sunday is gone.

Fifth Quarter come to town in Week 8. Then comes the trip to the Fumblers in Week 9, which Nina Alvarez and I both think is the swing game in this division. Nina added a caution on Monday that I agreed with: don't call anything until Monday night and Week 8 are in. Monday night is in. It didn't help.

What I like about where this leaves us is that Heilig has given me tests I can actually grade, which is more than most owners give a beat writer in a good week, let alone after a loss. He wants Watson "winning one-on-ones and getting behind people" over these three weeks, "because that's why I went and got him." He says everyone in his secondary "knows the chart moves on what they do, and it will." Neither of those is a slogan. Both show up in a box score every Sunday, and I'll be reading them.

He also told me he'd be happy to talk about Kamehameha "once it's a win." It isn't one. I'm asking him Tuesday anyway. He's been straight with me so far, and a Dallas touchdown in a Philadelphia stadium is no reason for either of us to stop now.