[Idgit]

Originally Posted by Hostile

I have never seen an injury bug like this for this team. Someone told me the Packers a couple of years ago. No way. They lost JAGs. No one they lost comes close to Sean Lee, and we lost not only him but the guy who stepped up for him and was awesome, despite people assuring me he couldn't be.

It's not an excuse, we have to keep going. I am just blown away by the injuries.

It's definitely not an excuse. I've pointing out the injury bug in a number of threads now, and it's only to highlight that we need depth on the team in order to get where we want to get, not to excuse the overall play of the team.

It *is* a factor in evaluating the job individual players or coaches have done, though, obviously. If you cant point to a dozen injuries that are the primary reason why the defense collapsed, for example, and find that even the backups were well-coached on the fly and are just being beat on talent, then it makes no sense to blame the coordinator. When you're on your 4th Center, you have to take that in mind when you evaluate the job Callahan did here in year one with the OL.

To your GB point, I'd have to go look at their injury list that year, but one thing I remember clearly thinking is that the players they brought in as replacements all played as well or better than the starters. That's not a knock on their starters in my book so much as a real testament to the job they did assembling depth and talent over the course of 3 or 4 drafts. Those guys get 2-3 starters or add quality role players every draft. Over the course of 3 years or so, that really adds up for a good team. You need that in December.

I thought (still think, actually) we had as much or more depth as we've had on any team in Dallas since 2007 here at the start of the season. We were think at S and at C, and OT, but looked really good everywhere else (well, WR was a huge question mark, too, but I thought we'd have a player or two from that position group step up, which, finally, appears to have happened).

Then we promptly lost 4 C, took repeated hits at S (though only one was season-ended), and our OTs both crapped the bed relative to expectations (and the RT has struggled by any objective measure). Add to it the damage we've had at ILB losing two really standout players. It's been brutal.