The Dallas Cowboys- Now What?
January 19, 2024
The Dallas Cowboys are preparing for the 2024 season. No, the NFL season is not finished but the Cowboys are finished for the 2023 season. The beating they received at the hands of the Green Bay Packers showed the overall weakness of the Dallas Cowboys. It actually showed the overall mediocrity of the Dallas Cowboys.
Yes, mediocrity. Sure there are some really good players on the team. Micah Parsons, Zac Martin, DeMarcus Lawrence, Brandon Aubrey, Bryan Anger, Trayvon Diggs, and………. That’s the point. This team is full of mediocre players. They perform well and really pad their statistics when they are playing teams that are not very good and with losing records. When they play teams who are playoff teams or teams with winning records, they fail. Don’t talk to me about beating the Detroit Lions late in the year. We all know if the referee had not made a mistake the Cowboys would have lost that game. Don’t talk to me about the win over Philadelphia in Dallas. Philadelphia was on the slide to oblivion themselves at the time and bowed out of the first round of the playoffs too and not looking good as they lost. The reality is the Dallas Cowboys are a team of mediocre players put together by a bad General Manager.
The General Manager isn’t changing so we can just about predict, neither will the team. Head Coach Mike McCarthy has led a team to a Super Bowl win before so people who want to see him gone are asking for a Super Bowl winning coach to leave. The General Manager has said McCarthy will be back for the last year of his contract so that isn’t going to change.
The problem is on the field, not the coaching. There is an offensive line that can no longer create space for the running backs to run. The running backs are good but it’s hard to tell since there is such little space to run. There are wide receivers who are world beaters against other poor or mediocre players but when they play good defensive backs, they cannot get open for love or money. They may be fast, but they are not NFL quick and can’t get open. The defensive line has been slow to respond to other good teams’ running game. Green Bay ran all over the Cowboy defense. Where were the linebackers? Who knows? Where were they all season? We were told they were playing. Who are the Cowboy linebackers. In fairness, the Cowboys secondary did have some injuries that hampered people and took Trayvon Diggs off the field for the year. They ended up being inept.
There is one other position on the field. It is the most important position on the field. The quarterback. Dak Prescott is still the same quarterback he was when he came out of Mississippi State. He’s a mediocre quarterback. His statistics, like the rest of the team, are great against mediocre teams, but he’s a mess against good teams until the outcomes have been determined. In mop up time, he can put up some statistics. The quarterback is not changing. He is making a massive amount of money and no other team in the league wants any part of that contract for a quarterback that struggles to read defenses.
The Dallas Cowboys have too many mediocre players on this team to change results for next year. Remember the General Manager isn’t changing, and the quarterback isn’t changing. This will require several years of changes through the draft and maybe some free agents, but it will also require someone who can evaluate a player and know whether they can compete with good teams or not. It doesn’t appear that person works for the Cowboys at this point.
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