I agree pretty much with what you said.
I’m still not of the opinion that Dez was the sole issue. I have a hard time reconciling that fact since every wr had a down year. I know people want to lay all the blame at his feet and there’s a lot of blame there, but nobody has a real answer as to why every single wr had a down year.
So who is to say the passing game wouldn’t have been better this year under the new WR coach with Dez? I’m still not sold on addition by subtraction here. I still think he would’ve helped with the transition.
He definitely was not the only issue. And I agree that this year could have been different for Dez if some of those other issues had been cleaned up.
I'm not a big addition by subtraction fan, either. I believe in contingencies. However, if we are going to move on, other than replacing Dez with another bona fide No. 1, this is the only other way to do it IMO ... give yourself multiple options so that maybe enough of them will work out. If we had straight up just replaced Bryant with Hurns, I would totally disagree with that. Instead, Dallas is using a mix of veterans and draft picks to try to change up their receiving fortunes.
I'm less pleased with what we did at tight end, adding just a later-round pick and a UDFA to the mix of what we already had. That's just essentially hoping someone will step up, which is all that we're left with as fans concerning that position.
Hurns (189 catches), Thompson (77) and Austin (194) have all proven that they can contribute as receivers, even if none of them are No. 1s. Gallup was an early-round addition. Our tight ends have nine career catches, all by Geoff Swaim.
