ARLINGTON, Texas — In the first minute that cornerback Trevon Diggs addressed the media following the Dallas Cowboys’ 44-19 loss to the New Orleans Saints, he answered three questions. In that span, Diggs said “unacceptable” four times.

“It was just unacceptable,” Diggs said. “I’m not going to make no excuses but it’s unacceptable. We didn’t come to play today.”

It’s the perfect assessment of the abomination that took place at AT&T Stadium, where the Cowboys’ performance mirrored their playoff loss to the Green Bay Packers a lot more than the 16-game regular-season home winning streak they were riding coming into Sunday.

After the game, Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones heaped a lot of credit on the Saints. Players talked about being blindsided by this kind of performance. Linebacker Eric Kendricks said it was “a good piece of humble pie, for sure.” Multiple players vowed that this effort would not be repeated, and that if it had to happen, it’s good that it occurred this early in the season. The mistakes will be corrected.

Those are all valid points.

The Saints do deserve credit for winning the game. Evaluating the Saints’ Week 1 blowout win was tough because of how bad the Carolina Panthers are but the Saints, despite missing the playoffs, were 9-8 last year. Alvin Kamara (four touchdowns) is a great player and Derek Carr — who posted a whopping 99.4 QBR (out of max 100) — is a good quarterback. It is better to lose a game in September than it is in December or January.