Which was better: Dak 2016 or Dak 2019?

Bill Parcell's, who has 0 posts on this site but 30 years NFL experience, called 2016 "a perfect storm." Speaking of both Dak and Carson Wentz he said, "Although it is apparent that they are acclimating well, to deem them successful at this point is a bit premature."

"It's like a perfect storm," Parcells said. "Good coaching. Help from the supporting cast. Opportunity."

What changed between 2016 and 2019? He didn't get the help from his supporting cast and the team didn't take advantage of the opportunities they had.

Dak could be Ken Anderson or Dan Marino. He could be Jim Kelly or Warren Moon. He could be Alex Smith or Dan Fouts. What he's not is Joe Montana, Troy Aikman, Aaron Rodgers, Brett Favre, or Drew Brees.

He's most likely Jeff Hotstetler, a Parcell guy who needed a great defense and a ball control offense to win Super Bowl XXV.

CowboyRoy said:

Nope. 2016 still had Garrett and a mediocre defense.

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Romo at that time was a much better QB than Dak, I think everyone could agree on that, Romo would have torched the 31st passing D in GB.
But I do agree with you on the Garrett thing, tough to overcome awful coaching.

2016 Dak. That Dak played to win and brought the Cowboys back against the Packers in the divisional playoffs before the D blew the game.

2016 Dak was better. Defenses hadn't figured him out yet!

Aviano90 said:

The desire of people to pump Romo up at every turn is amazing. Romo was pouting on the bench for crying out loud. He even mentioned during an in game interview that 2015 was much easier to deal with on the sidelines than 2016 was. In 2015, he felt like he was needed but in 2016 he knew he wasn’t and it was hard to sit on the sidelines watching it unfold and not really being part of it.

Sanchez was Romo’s mentor and I had thought it was pretty well known, but some people continue trying to give credit to Romo. Funny thing is, Dak’s play seemed to dip late in the season when Romo was actually the back up QB forced to be more engaged.

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What a load of feces this post is. Wow.

Outright lying because God forbid anyone give Romo credit for anything. Thank goodness Dak has come out and said otherwise or people might actually take this trash seriously.

dragon_mikal said:

What a load of feces this post is. Wow.

Outright lying because God forbid anyone give Romo credit for anything. Thank goodness Dak has come out and said otherwise or people might actually take this trash seriously.

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Do tell, what is an outright lie? Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's false.

dragon_mikal said:

What a load of feces this post is. Wow.

Outright lying because God forbid anyone give Romo credit for anything. Thank goodness Dak has come out and said otherwise or people might actually take this trash seriously.

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Aviano90 said:

Do tell, what is an outright lie? Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's false.

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Sorry, I caught the lie. I said Sanchez was Romo's mentor. I meant, Sanchez was Dak's mentor. My bad.

Coy said:

Romo at that time was a much better QB than Dak, I think everyone could agree on that, Romo would have torched the 31st passing D in GB.
But I do agree with you on the Garrett thing, tough to overcome awful coaching.

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Romo at times threw the ball better I can agree. But it appears Dak is gaining on him there. Game management and leadership I give to Dak already.

Movement on the pocket is still what Dak needs to work on. Dont think he will ever be elite at it.

Would Romo have stopped GB from running for 250 yards and 4 TD's? Probably not.

Dak was better in the right games in 2016 than he was in the clutch in 2019.

We won a lot of games by a few points in 2016. You could very well argue that results based, 2016 Dak was better-the team was better too. You could also argue that Dak just doing what he was told with simple reads was much better than Dak reading the D and deciding what to do.

We'd best hope the 2020 Dak is better than either of them.

Let's just see if MM and his cohorts can make that happen!

Brax said:

It's not garbage time it's asterisk stats and it is real. they just do not put the asterisk by it. Be honest yes Dak had a good year but all this great year #1 is just hot air inflated by stats because of his failure to produce in the first 3 quarters. Say or believe what ever you like but Dak being #1 and the Cowboys being #1 offense is just stats nothing more and all those stats mean is it was a struggle to 8-8, sorry maybe it really is garbage time offensive stats.

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Be honest yes Dak had a good year but

Nice to see you finally admitted as such. Best year for Dak, no question about it individually. Certainly wasnt perfect.

But you are absolutely correct. Stats dont mean diddly from a team standpoint, if the team goes 8-8. Nothing to brag about for the Cowboys.

CowboyRoy said:

Romo at times threw the ball better I can agree. But it appears Dak is gaining on him there. Game management and leadership I give to Dak already.

Movement on the pocket is still what Dak needs to work on. Dont think he will ever be elite at it.

Would Romo have stopped GB from running for 250 yards and 4 TD's? Probably not.

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They ran the ball that much because they had a big lead because our O couldn’t get going until the 2nd half.
Anyway, not important right now, Dak has gotten better the last few years.

Coy said:

Simple answer, if we had Dak 2019 in the 2016 team we would have won the SB... Come to think about it, we kind of had a better version of him in Tony Romo.

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Uh no. Rodgers would have beat us regardless. It was the Def that lost us that game. Rodgers owns Dallas

I mean, 2019 Dak has a better understanding and skillset. But 2016 Dak had much better o-line play, a more effective Zeke, the benefit of opponents being less familiar with fundamental things about us thanks to the unexpected QB change, and he had an offensive philosophy that matched our personnel and helped the QB more.

2016 Dak just had it all click into place for a magical season. 5.75 TD passes for every 1 interception is bananas, and even most all-time greats took years into their career to progress their ball-protection and decision-making to a place where that kind of TD-to-INT ratio is possible. A 13-win season and a TD-to-INT ratio like that are the kind of thing that only happen for a QB a couple times in their entire career, if they happen at all.

Given the anachronistic way we built our team/offense during the mid-2010's, I think it's clear we were built in a way such that we got harder to beat when we were serious about the run. And it helped the QB.

Romo was never better than his one magical 2014 season behind that great o-line with an offense asking him to throw less than ever before. Those runs we had in 2014 and 2016 were special made both QBs shine more than they do in more conventional pass-obsessed offenses.

We didn't do Romo any favors by making our offense a sloppy, conventional, pass-happy mess for most of his career. I'm afraid we're not doing Dak any favors either by choosing to become a more conventional, generic, passing offense. It'll pad his counting stats, and the Joneses might think that's what justifies the salary. But it'll likely make us easier to beat.

Remember, Tony had a season similar to Dak's 2019.

It was 2012, when we asked Romo to throw 650 times and, like Dak in 2019, he threw for 4900 yards. Romo had Dez and Austin in their primes and Witten when he was still a thousand-yard weapon. And as nice as all those yards were, we were a very beatable team and offense. Romo couldn't make it result in anything better than 8-8 either. Wasn't until we asked him to throw the ball 200 fewer times two years later that Romo hit his peak and became the best version of himself, QB'ing the hardest to beat version of a Cowboys team on his watch.

1992 Dak!!

daboyzruleperiod said:

2016 because Dak had Romo on the sidelines as a mentor and it showed.

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So why couldn't Romo mentor the 2015 class? Did he lose his headset or ability to teach in 2015?

2019 and it's not even close.

The question is which scheme was better. He's not a prototypical pocket passer. Gey him on the move and he'll be a pro bowler. Not to mention it will make your running game unstoppable.

CowboyRoy said:

Would Romo have stopped GB from running for 250 yards and 4 TD's? Probably not.

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This is where I will disagree! But Romo would move the ball during the regular season against good teams. He was a constant threat to make a big play. Romo wouldnt continually go 3 and out which is what led to the Dallas defense getting worn down in the first half. GB just running the heck out of the ball. If Dallas keeps pace with GB in scoring the Dallas defense is also inspired to make a play. The QB indirectly affects the play of the whole team. Dak didnt score a TD until there was 1 min left in the 3rd quarter.

Personally not a big fan of running the read option without the option. I am not a big defender of fat Zeke these days but handing it off to him in the shot gun with no running start to go up the gut with no threat of any run option was pretty tiresome to watch.