CFZ This off-season has made the offense more of a gamble

Hawkeye0202 said:

Just me, talent was NOT why we lost the playoff game. Coaches and penalties.....I'm 100% confident w/o these impacts, we beat the 49ers.

Click to expand...

Talent doesn't relate to penalties?

The defense better step up because we’re not going to be leading the league in offense this season. I’m just hoping we still have a top 10 offense.

atlantacowboy said:

Justin Jefferson was a first round pick from LSU not a long shot from a small school. There is no way Tolbert is going to replace the quality of a healthy Amari Cooper.

La'el was not dependable but he was really good and probably the best run blocking right tackle in the NFL. You can't just cut a guy with that talent and potential and get nothing back. At the very least we should have kept Amari and La'El through the draft and used them as trade bait. The market for WRS was HUGE this draft. Those teams trying to find one in round 2 might have parted with that pick for Amari. This team struggles b/c it is poorly managed.

Click to expand...

exactly. or at worst, we still have them plus additional players. for the life of me i can't understand the logic being presented of "well we can replace their production" ok? that got us a first round exit lol. now adding to it? and/or replacing it and supplementing it w/ additional draft compensation? seems like pretty easy to tell which are the better options

With regards to free agency or trades, did any NFC team take a real step except the Rams? They are the only NFC team with an "our time in now" attitude.

What would you say the Joneses' goal was in this off season? Keeping up with the Rams or trying to stay ahead in the East?

First off, you need to ask yourself this question because the Joneses are very aware of it. What team wins the least in actually winning it all? Are they going to lose the ratings, revenue, coverage or Forbes ranking to any other team if they don't win it all? They do not have to win to win.

The Joneses can do just enough because good enough is good enough and better than any other team in what matters to them.

The fact is in order to get better, they have to know how to get better, think they do? They have no reason to change the way they do things and they like their guys and so do the fans because they keep showing up to watch their guys play.

The truth is that the Joneses think they are doing a great job.

G2 said:

I don't see what Cooper & Wilson did that is irreplaceable.

Click to expand...

I think the answer on Cooper was draw coverage. Does anyone remember how bad Dak and the O was before him? His numbers didn’t warrant the contract but I think he did more to open the offense up than people think.

Reid1boys said:

The avg. roster turnover rate from year to year is 25%. So this is nothing new to the Cowboys or NFL teams. It is simply the way the NFL world operates. out of the 11 starters from last years team, we lost Amari, Collins(wasnt really a starter last year) and Williams. Seeing how most in here said Williams was awful, Id see that as a good thing.

Replacing Wrs is a never ending thing in the NFL in todays world. So drafting a 3rd round Wr and expecting them to play is the norm. Ultimately, the Wrs will go as Dak goes. Im not worried about it.

Click to expand...

I agree with the team’s decisions regarding the replacement of Collins and Cooper. How they handled their leaving was not that good. And I agree that Tyler Smith should be an upgrade on Connor Williams- I mean that bar is pretty low anyway. But…at this point it's still an assumption. Hopefully he is an immediate upgrade. But even the Cowboys say he’s raw and needs developing.

And I agree that roster churn is a part of good team development. All for it. I’m just saying we won’t know if any new player works out until the live bullets start in September.

I 100% agree that WR is not that difficult to replace production. But…it does take a little time to get the QB and WRs in sync. Dak is a QB who really likes WRs who run very precise routes. That was one of Coop’s best qualities. Will Tolbert be an immediate good route runner? Well…maybe.

My point is, we may start the season not as good as we will be later when these young guys have grown. Again, maybe these guys will be an upgrade. But right now, it’s not a certainty.

CouchCoach said:

With regards to free agency or trades, did any NFC team take a real step except the Rams? They are the only NFC team with an "our time in now" attitude.

What would you say the Joneses' goal was in this off season? Keeping up with the Rams or trying to stay ahead in the East?

First off, you need to ask yourself this question because the Joneses are very aware of it. What team wins the least in actually winning it all? Are they going to lose the ratings, revenue, coverage or Forbes ranking to any other team if they don't win it all? They do not have to win to win.

The Joneses can do just enough because good enough is good enough and better than any other team in what matters to them.

The fact is in order to get better, they have to know how to get better, think they do? They have no reason to change the way they do things and they like their guys and so do the fans because they keep showing up to watch their guys play.

The truth is that the Joneses think they are doing a great job.

Click to expand...

And…I think the Jones don’t know how to keep up with or exceed a championship team’s model. Without Will McClay’s excellent scouting, this is an embarrassingly bad front office.

My issue is that they got next to nothing for a couple former All Pros in their late 20s. Makes no sense. Plus the Cooper move frees up cap space. For what? This team just refuses to make FA splashes. I also hate the potential acrimony with McCarthy. It’s not helpful at any level. This team needs a win now attitude. Zeke, Smith, Lawrence, Martin are in the final phases of their careers. We wasting those guys too?

Bobhaze said:

I agree with the team’s decisions regarding the replacement of Collins and Cooper. How they handled their leaving was not that good. And I agree that Tyler Smith should be an upgrade on Connor Williams- I mean that bar is pretty low anyway. But…at this point it's still an assumption. Hopefully he is an immediate upgrade. But even the Cowboys say he’s raw and needs developing.

And I agree that roster churn is a part of good team development. All for it. I’m just saying we won’t know if any new player works out until the live bullets start in September.

I 100% agree that WR is not that difficult to replace production. But…it does take a little time to get the QB and WRs in sync. Dak is a QB who really likes WRs who run very precise routes. That was one of Coop’s best qualities. Will Tolbert be an immediate good route runner? Well…maybe.

My point is, we may start the season not as good as we will be later when these young guys have grown. Again, maybe these guys will be an upgrade. But right now, it’s not a certainty.

Click to expand...

And that is the case every year. You just never know if the guys your replaced is an improvement or not. Im banking on Gallup coming back and being darn good. If he is not, we are in trouble.

Bobhaze said:

And…I think the Jones don’t know how to keep up with or exceed a championship team’s model. Without Will McClay’s excellent scouting, this is an embarrassingly bad front office.

Click to expand...

Funny how McCaly gets all the credit... yet it was Mcclay that wanted us to take... damn what was his name, Taco over Watt.

Where is the slap in Mcclay's face for that?

Hawkeye0202 said:

Just me, talent was NOT why we lost the playoff game. Coaches and penalties.....I'm 100% confident w/o these impacts, we beat the 49ers.

Click to expand...

so where exactly does Dak's Int come into play with that loss? It was the play of the game IMO, and it had zero to do with coaching.

Certainly, I think we'll be seeing an influx of lesser experienced offensive linemen in the upcoming season. Hopefully, their talent levels will make up for the lack of experience to compare with that of their predecessors. I think Tyson Smith will take a physically imposing play style with him that more than makes up for the greater experience of Connor Williams. If nothing else, it should encourage a brighter outlook for the future.

Let's also take note if Terence Steele continues to improve at the pace that he did in 2021. I think that'd help tremendously. I'd be willing to bet that Dak will benefit from better pass protection and more help from the running game. If the defense allows the offense more time on the field, so much the better. It's a gamble that could become a very pleasant surprise for the Cowboys' fans if it pays off.

Unless Tolbert is the second coming of TO, there is no way we are upgraded at WR. Get that notion out of your head, right away.

I’m not sure how we can expect to be better losing as much talent ad we did regardless if they were sound or needed financial moves . This league is about talent and we simply lessened ours. That has to have an impact. How much is yet to be seen .

But if our Revamped OL can’t protect our QB and or create lanes for our running game this offense will not be what it was last year. And it might not be enough to carry our defense . Any injuries to Smith who hasn’t played a complete season in years or Martin and we can pretty well begin looking to 2023.

And this doesn’t even take into consideration how much our divisional foes have improved . Unfortunately our leadership doesn’t ever want to admit that a season like 2022 could be a transitional year for us . That doesn’t sell more interest but this is certain to be a season we need to revamp our OL which has long been considered a strength.

Good news is we have more hope on defense after a much improved year last year although we lost some key talent there as well as we are also hoping more of existing talent will continue to develop.

Id argue it’s paramount for this years draft class to make an immediate impact this season if we expect to be near the contenders we were last year. But If this season is down from last year that’s not necessarily a bad thing as most of us expect it and hope we are revamping more moving forward. We just won’t ever get that from our leadership.

Whyjerry said:

My issue is that they got next to nothing for a couple former All Pros in their late 20s. Makes no sense. Plus the Cooper move frees up cap space. For what? This team just refuses to make FA splashes. I also hate the potential acrimony with McCarthy. It’s not helpful at any level. This team needs a win now attitude. Zeke, Smith, Lawrence, Martin are in the final phases of their careers. We wasting those guys too?

Click to expand...

Surely, the bad mouthing that Jerry and Stephen offered for the performance of Amari Cooper was damaging to the compensation that was paid for his trade. Making excuses for the offense's failures to perform as hoped certainly didn't augment our chances of getting a beneficial deal.

If Dan Quinn finds a way to help the new youngsters have successful outings this season, it would surely help. I'm intent on being patient with them early-on so that they can come on impressively as the inexperienced youngsters hopefully develop at a good pace. I do like the additions.

Bullflop said:

Surely, the bad mouthing that Jerry and Stephen offered for the performance of Amari Cooper was damaging to the compensation that was paid for his trade. Making excuses for the offense's failures to perform as hoped certainly didn't augment our chances of gettomg a beneficial deal.

Click to expand...

I think what hurt the trade more than anything was Stephen Jones absolutely telegraphing the team’s intentions to not keep Cooper on his radio show- not once but twice. If he had just acted like Coop was still in their future (even though he wasn’t) they should have been able to get more than a 5th.

Front office 101- don’t talk too much. A fundamental of good front office practices completely lost on the two Jones boys who have had more than decades of experience- and no SB in two and a half decades. If those two knuckleheads just shut up, it would be an immediate improvement for this team.

Bobhaze said:

You may be right. I agree that Cooper’s production had declined and was not worth the price he was being paid. But thinking Tolbert alone can replace Coop’s production is certainly a gamble. Maybe it will work out.

Click to expand...

I never said that Tolbert would replace him. It's not Tolbert alone that will do anything. We will fill the roster with the best WRs we have and roll on. It's not JUST on Tolbert just like it was clearly not JUST on Cooper.

Miller said:

I think the answer on Cooper was draw coverage. Does anyone remember how bad Dak and the O was before him? His numbers didn’t warrant the contract but I think he did more to open the offense up than people think.

Click to expand...

Not really. We can go back 4 years and claim Cooper "saved the season," or we can look at the collection of work and more importantly, the recent past. I encourage you to watch the all 22 and focus on Cooper.

links18 said:

Unless Tolbert is the second coming of TO, there is no way we are upgraded at WR. Get that notion out of your head, right away.

Click to expand...

Expecting every rookie to match the losses of experienced WRs that were lost would be stupid. I just hope what we have does better than how some of us fear they might perform. I think Tolbert has a chance of doing better than many of us might expect, even though he's a rookie. We'll just have to wait and see. It wouldn't be the end of the world if we had to struggle through the 1st half of the season. Expecting instant gratification is never clever.

Bobhaze said:

This has been one of the craziest off-seasons I’ve seen in Cowboys history. (I won’t rehash all the craziness like upskirt shots, a love child revealed, fender-benders, a weak FA haul, etc) Let’s just say it has been at the very least an interesting off-season.

But honestly, until the live bullets of the regular season start flying in September, we won’t really know if this team is better or not. But as we always do this time of year- we can speculate.

I want to start with the offense- After the off-season we’ve had so far- is it better than it was at the end of last year? To me, we are rolling the dice on several guys. Let’s look at some indicators:

• OL- We lost 2 starters with a combined 10 years of NFL experience and replaced them with a rookie and a 3rd year UFA. To be clear, I’m glad we parted ways with Connor Williams and his holding penalty parade and Collins with his wacky undependable ways. But questions remain.
  • Will rookie Tyler Smith be able to upgrade what we got at LG last year? Maybe he can but it is an assumption until he proves it. I like Tyler Smith as a project but I would have felt better if the team wasn’t counting on him day one. It’s a risk.
  • Losing La’el Collins was somewhat understandable with his undependability but he certainly had talent. I like Terrance Steele but can we confidently say we are as good as we used to be at RT? It’s a gamble.

• WR- Amari Cooper was deemed too expensive, and his production has dropped off the last two years. Let’s look at Coop’s downturn in production:

• He only averaged 57 yds per game last year and was only 6th on the team in YAC behind Lamb, Schultz, Cedric Wilson, Pollard, and Zeke. Wow.
• He only averaged about 12 yds per reception the last 2 seasons. Down from nearly 15 yds per catch the previous seasons. Those are slot receiver numbers, not star receiver stats.
• It’s not true that he wasn’t thrown the ball enough. He was 2nd on the team in number of passing targets behind only Lamb.

• We've replaced Cooper and Cedric Wilson with 3rd round rookie Jalen Tolbert and FA James Washington. Is that an upgrade? Maybe. But It’s also a gamble.

IN SUMMARY: Between Amari Cooper, Cedric Wilson, Connor Williams and Lael Collins, we lost 21 years of NFL experience and replaced them with 6 years of NFL experience. If the talent is better, the experience numbers won’t matter. But it is somewhat of a gamble.

Is our offense better as a result of this off-season? Maybe it will. But it’s a gamble.

Click to expand...

I take issue with this statement:

• It’s not true that he wasn’t thrown the ball enough. He was 2nd on the team in number of passing targets behind only Lamb.

Cooper ranked 47th in average number of targets per game. That’s unacceptable for a #1 receiver you’re paying $20 million a year. It’s unreasonable not to factor that in to an assessment of his productivity.

https://www.fantasypros.com/nfl/reports/targets/