Cowboys rank 7th on Bill Barnwell's offensive playmakers list

[Kwyn]

Last year he had us at #11 because he was leery of Pickens, which obviously sold him short

11. Dallas Cowboys​

2024 rank: 18 | 2023 rank: 7


2024 was low because CeeDee and Ferg had both had drop-off years.

 

[Kwyn]

The only ones that should be over the cowboys are the rams and lions, and the lions are debatable.

You've gotta be smoking Crack to have those other teams ahead of dallas.

Dude, come on.

Lions debatable? Their RB and TE are better and only. St Ra is at least equal to CeeDee. Pickens and Fluornoy gIve the Cowboys the edge at WR2 and WR3

Atlanta clearly has an edge in TE and RB while the Cowboys have the edge at WR due to Pickens

I love our offense, but outside of QB and WR, it is pretty average. I know it’s the offseason where fans of every team are huffing hopium, but we need to actually take the mask down every once in awhile and breath real air

 

[TheMarathonContinues]

Dude, come on.

Lions debatable? Their RB and TE are better and only. St Ra is at least equal to CeeDee. Pickens and Fluornoy gIve the Cowboys the edge at WR2 and WR3

Atlanta clearly has an edge in TE and RB while the Cowboys have the edge at WR due to Pickens

I love our offense, but outside of QB and WR, it is pretty average. I know it’s the offseason where fans of every team are huffing hopium, but we need to actually take the mask down every once in awhile and breath real air

Javonte was better than average.

 

[thunderpimp91]

There is not an argument. The cards are terrible and Harrison was one of the worse wr last year. The guy was one of the worse against man coverage.

That offense ran thru mcbride and their RB rotation.

TE and RB is literally half of the equiation here, and that alone makes an argument for Dallas vs Arizona.

Cowboys win WR1 and WR2. Arizona wins TE and RB. Its fair to take either side.

 

[thunderpimp91]

Javonte was better than average.

Personally I'd put Javonte firmly in the average category. His 2025 numbers were excellent, but largely supported by massive success early in the year. Since week six his yards per carry dipped down to just over 4.3 which is still productive, but is more in line with typical average runners like Travis Etienne, Tony Pollard, Rico Dowdle, etc. We can't completely rule out his early season dominance, but its a fairly small sample size to use, and that 4.3 YPC closely reflects his career average and is in line with this 4.3/4.4 YPC numbers pre injury.

The other thing with Williams is he benefited from facing the 2nd fewest number of average defenders in the box this past season. Only Chase Brown of the Bengals got to run against fewer light boxes. Having two elite level WRs is clearly a hack for rushing the football.

Last piece of evidence I'll throw out there is his salary. Williams was a FA this year and recieved just $8m per year putting him tied with JK Dobbins and Dandre Swift for 18th paid RB by AAV. To me that screams that the league views him as an average player.

 

[TheMarathonContinues]

Personally I'd put Javonte firmly in the average category. His 2025 numbers were excellent, but largely supported by massive success early in the year. Since week six his yards per carry dipped down to just over 4.3 which is still productive, but is more in line with typical average runners like Travis Etienne, Tony Pollard, Rico Dowdle, etc. We can't completely rule out his early season dominance, but its a fairly small sample size to use, and that 4.3 YPC closely reflects his career average and is in line with this 4.3/4.4 YPC numbers pre injury.

The other thing with Williams is he benefited from facing the 2nd fewest number of average defenders in the box this past season. Only Chase Brown of the Bengals got to run against fewer light boxes. Having two elite level WRs is clearly a hack for rushing the football.

Last piece of evidence I'll throw out there is his salary. Williams was a FA this year and recieved just $8m per year putting him tied with JK Dobbins and Dandre Swift for 18th paid RB by AAV. To me that screams that the league views him as an average player.

Salary doesn’t determine how good someone is especially for running back. But I’m not arguing how good of a player he is. I’m saying last year wasn’t an average year.

And I’m not a fan of excluding rushes or weeks. Christian McCaffery also was around that 4.

He also had more touchdowns than guys like McCaffery and Achane.

 

[SoupcanSam]

Dude, come on.

Lions debatable? Their RB and TE are better and only. St Ra is at least equal to CeeDee. Pickens and Fluornoy gIve the Cowboys the edge at WR2 and WR3

Atlanta clearly has an edge in TE and RB while the Cowboys have the edge at WR due to Pickens

I love our offense, but outside of QB and WR, it is pretty average. I know it’s the offseason where fans of every team are huffing hopium, but we need to actually take the mask down every once in awhile and breath real air

The lions lost Montgomery and their TE room had injury with a backup who hasn't proved anything. We have Ferguson who has been more consistent than laporta, and the potential of trigg and spann-Ford is better than anything the lions have behind laporta. Laporta also still has a Q tag on him even in the offseason. Lions only have a leg up in the RB room and that isnt by much if blue pans out. The lions have Pacheco but he has been injury prone.

Like I said, lions are debatable

 

[SoupcanSam]

TE and RB is literally half of the equiation here, and that alone makes an argument for Dallas vs Arizona.

Cowboys win WR1 and WR2. Arizona wins TE and RB. Its fair to take either side.

The cards have a one year bust so far at WR with probably the worse depth in the league behind him. Dallas has better TE depth, one injury to McBride may just be their season. They have an unproven RB who hasn't taken a carry. Jentys proved the nfl is a different beast. They have brissett at QB. What are we talking about here.

 

[thunderpimp91]

The cards have a one year bust so far at WR with probably the worse depth in the league behind him. Dallas has better TE depth, one injury to McBride may just be their season. They have an unproven RB who hasn't taken a carry. Jentys proved the nfl is a different beast. They have brissett at QB. What are we talking about here.

Brissett at QB really doesn't matter because the rankings are only about WR/TE/RB. If anything having a bad QB helps the narrative for the rest of the Cardinal skill players as all thier numbers would be expected to take a slight hit.

Really I'm not sure that either Harrison or Michael Wilson are bad WRs at all. They were both right around 1.6 yard per route WRs in 2025 which is solid WR2 territory. With better QB play I doubt it has too drastic of an impact, but it seems reasonalbe that those WRs could be 1.8y/rr types which is low end WR1 territory. Obviously still short of the Lamb/Pickens combo, but those guys aren't exactly JAGs either.

32 out of 32 GMs are going to take the Cowboys WRs. 32 out of 32 GMs are going to take the Cards RB room and TE room.

 

[thunderpimp91]

Salary doesn’t determine how good someone is especially for running back. But I’m not arguing how good of a player he is. I’m saying last year wasn’t an average year.

And I’m not a fan of excluding rushes or weeks. Christian McCaffery also was around that 4.

He also had more touchdowns than guys like McCaffery and Achane.

I'd agree that the entirety of Williams 2025 season was stronger than average, but rankings like these are about projecting for 2026. The overall talent level of a Javonte Williams seems to be that of a league average RB.

Don't completely exclude his week 1-5 success, but when we are projecting future performance you want to weigh larger sample sizes and more recent performances higher. For that reason I would project a player like Williams to more closely resemble the player he was in weeks 6-18 than he was in weeks 1-5.

I'm hoping I'm wrong, but if we put the under/over on Williams at 4.8ypc again I'm taking the under....which can still be a very good year for him though.

 

[SoupcanSam]

Brissett at QB really doesn't matter because the rankings are only about WR/TE/RB. If anything having a bad QB helps the narrative for the rest of the Cardinal skill players as all thier numbers would be expected to take a slight hit.

Really I'm not sure that either Harrison or Michael Wilson are bad WRs at all. They were both right around 1.6 yard per route WRs in 2025 which is solid WR2 territory. With better QB play I doubt it has too drastic of an impact, but it seems reasonalbe that those WRs could be 1.8y/rr types which is low end WR1 territory. Obviously still short of the Lamb/Pickens combo, but those guys aren't exactly JAGs either.

32 out of 32 GMs are going to take the Cowboys WRs. 32 out of 32 GMs are going to take the Cards RB room and TE room.

QB doesnt matter, yet the wr, te and rb to a certain extent depend on the QB to be somewhat dependable. The offense ran thru mcbride because their wr's suck. Harrison sucked because he was probably the worse at beating single coverage. I really dont know what else you are looking for my friend.

 

[Risen Star]

So we can all admit now that the Cardinals have better weapons?

 

[Risen Star]

Robert Belt will not tolerate this kind of disrespect.