12-4 with Romo?

[Miller]

Wait, wut???

Less injured? Let me remind you that the 2013 team had TWENTY-TWO DIFFERENT PLAYERS start at least one game on the defensive line alone, due to injuries. That same team lost each of its starting LBers for five games (Lee and Durant missed six), including two where all three were out.

Better all-around teams is even more laughable. The defensive front seven is much better now than what we had in '11-13. The OL has added Frederick, Martin, and Collins since then.

I said for years that those 8-8 teams - especially the ones in 2011 and 2013, had no business winning more than 5 games. It was an outstanding feat by Romo that kept them from being 5-11.

Again you are playing simple games with your figures here and not taking reality into effect. I'm not looking at number of injuries, I'm looking quality of players injured...Scandrick(our top D player last year), Dez, etc. You add that to losing your stud MVP RB and replacing him with a knucklehead and a 1000 yard guy who didn't have same burst. The Oline you are pumping up was not the 2014 line. That's your issue. You are adding guys to 11-13 and acting like we had the 14 team sans Romo. The line played horribly at times this year even with Romo. The D line was getting drilled late in games and Mincy and others did nothing. Even Hardy was mediocre compared to his past unless you think $2 mil a sack is good. We had a subpar season on all those fronts.

We both agree Romo is the difference maker and helped them be better in must years. He did. But that doesn't translate to every year or we'd be rolling yearly. Each year is different and the 4 games Tony played he didn't look good, we played inferior teams in 3 and the Giants gifted us a game. I think 9-7, 8-8...a 4-5 game difference with how the team played is very logical. As great as Romo is, he isn't making up 7-8 games with how our line/D played and with how the coaches schemed. People are taking it personally like it's a shot at Romo. It's not. It's a shot at the team in general who looked bad on many other fronts compared to 2014.

 

[dfense]

Yup, so many problems. Deep rooted. right. But basically the same 50 other guys and coaches that just went 12-4. Maybe, just maybe it's losing your franchise QB and #1 WR to start.

Just like a team like the Colts who without Manning went belly up. 11 wins to nothing. All because of 1 player. It can happen. How far do any of the top 5 teams go without their Franchise? really.

Domino effect. Romo goes down. Teams stack the line since your backup has shown he is either unwilling or unable to attack a defense vertically. Offense is stagnant, 3 and out a lot. Defense is good early but starts to decline as game and minutes or plays increase. People start to question everything. Personnel, coaching, ownership. And my favorite of the games they did win. "aren't winning by enough" comments.

 

[hornitosmonster]

Impossible to know the final record but it is much better than 4-12.

 

[dfense]

He had a horrible game in Carolina---similar to the Eagles Thanksgiving game last season.

Miami, he was rusty....and I remember a couple tips leading to interceptions through the first two games leading to interceptions. I truly don't look at those interception numbers as a sign he was doing too much. I remember Romo taking what the defense gives him without pressing the issue, a lot of check downs and underneath stuff those first two games.

Regardless, we didn't see enough of Romo to know enough about this team. Our defense had problems but they were good enough, our running game was solid....We had the worst QB play in the league, that is why we were so bad.

Plus the 0 takeaways after like 32 last year.

 

[robjay04]

Plus the 0 takeaways after like 32 last year.

I agree though I do think it is all linked. Teams haven't had to be aggressive or press the issue on us all season. There were times this season where I believe opposing offenses could just down the ball all game and still win---that is how bad our offense has been at scoring points. If our offense could score more points, we would've had more turnovers in my opinion.

 

[LatinMind]

I usually don't get into the what-if scenarios, but I can't help but wonder how this season would have gone with a healthy Romo.

We went 3-1 with Romo (so maybe the easy thing to do is multiple that for the season to reach 12-4; but who wants to take the easy way?)

Now, I could be wrong, but I believe having Romo is worth at least a touchdown more than we scored in any game (not having Dez could bring down that average, though), That gives us at least five more victories, plus the Giants game that we lost by seven, to put us at 10 victories.

I think we would have lost to the Patriots and Panthers no matter what. The Packers also beat us pretty handily. So those three I'll count as losses even with Romo to make us 10-3.

I think we would have beaten the Bills, who only scored 16, for 11-3, and lost to either Atlanta (defense played poorly) or Washington at the end of the year for 12-4.

Yes, before anyone says it, I know this is an exercise in futility, but considering how futile this season has been, I have to go to my happy place ... and 12-4 makes me happy.

For the season Dallas finished with a point differential that avgd 6.8. I would put all my money that the team could score 7 puts with romo

 

[gmoney112]

Anyone thinking 8-8 or something like 7-9 is absolutely ridiculous. It's hard for me to imagine the guys that post here all the time that still don't know anything about their team. They list a whole bunch of arguments that are easily refuted if they knew the game or actually put 2 and 2 together every once in a while.

The best one is how much the "OL sucked at the beginning of the year." as if it extrapolated across an entire season. They post here every day, but apparently never reasoned that an OL banged up over the entire preseason, barely playing any snaps together, if at all, with our former All Pro guard also still injured, managed to underperform for two games while missing the guy they blocked for in an offense that handed him the ball 400 times a year ago.

It's just common sense.

We lost 4 games by 4 points or less. Took the Saints and Eagles to OT. Lost to the Giants on a last second KR. Dropped one to the Bills in a horrendous offensive showing. And give me Romo over Ryan any day in an offensive shootout.

It takes little to no effort to see the differences even a mediocre QB would make not only on our offense, but opposing offenses as well. For instance I very highly doubt our defense would still have 11 takeaways if our offense was averaging 20+ per game.

It's called cause and effect. 12-4 is optimistic, but it's not crazy. 10-6 is more "realistic", but 8-8 is just stupid and quite frankly lazy.

 

[BrAinPaiNt]

Don't know if we would have won that many games.

I don't THINK we would have easily won the NFC East since it was so terrible this year.

Beyond that I don't know if we would have done much in the playoffs.

 

[gimmesix]

For the season Dallas finished with a point differential that avgd 6.8. I would put all my money that the team could score 7 puts with romo

That to me is one of the biggest arguments for Dallas finishing with a much better record. I find it hard to believe that Dallas wouldn't have scored more with Romo.

My only question is whether some of the teams we faced played conservatively knowing we weren't going to score much. Would they have taken more shots? Would our defense have been able to stop that?

 

[LatinMind]

That to me is one of the biggest arguments for Dallas finishing with a much better record. I find it hard to believe that Dallas wouldn't have scored more with Romo.

My only question is whether some of the teams we faced played conservatively knowing we weren't going to score much. Would they have taken more shots? Would our defense have been able to stop that?

Dallas has the same defense basically. Add a hardy that can pin his ears back and go after the qb with a lead from the offense. Think this team forces a lot of turnovers. Fans who are on the whole doom and gloom just don't want to admit just how much romo being out hurt the whole dynamic

 

[gimmesix]

Wait, wut???

Less injured? Let me remind you that the 2013 team had TWENTY-TWO DIFFERENT PLAYERS start at least one game on the defensive line alone, due to injuries. That same team lost each of its starting LBers for five games (Lee and Durant missed six), including two where all three were out.

Better all-around teams is even more laughable. The defensive front seven is much better now than what we had in '11-13. The OL has added Frederick, Martin, and Collins since then.

I said for years that those 8-8 teams - especially the ones in 2011 and 2013, had no business winning more than 5 games. It was an outstanding feat by Romo that kept them from being 5-11.

Based on this year, I'm not sure those teams would have won five games without Romo.

 

[gimmesix]

Dallas has the same defense basically. Add a hardy that can pin his ears back and go after the qb with a lead from the offense. Think this team forces a lot of turnovers. Fans who are on the whole doom and gloom just don't want to admit just how much romo being out hurt the whole dynamic

The defense wasn't as good as we would have liked for it to be. It had opportunities to protect leads and failed. It didn't generate as much pass rush as we would have liked for various reasons. And obviously, the lack of turnovers was an issue.

The turnover argument really is the only one I believe has any merit for last year's defense being as good as this one.

 

[LatinMind]

The defense wasn't as good as we would have liked for it to be. It had opportunities to protect leads and failed. It didn't generate as much pass rush as we would have liked for various reasons. And obviously, the lack of turnovers was an issue.

The turnover argument really is the only one I believe has any merit for last year's defense being as good as this one.

I think they weren't as bad as it is believed. If u look at two of Dallas worst quarters. 2nd and 4th, how many time did we see teams to hurry up at the end of the half? Last yr it was romo doing that to teams. And by the 4th in games this def was gassed all yr because the offense just wasn't able to get going. Sure the def had games where they blew it but this defense held it own for the most part of the season. If the offense wouldve just been able to do something anything this defense imp would've gotten this team a few wins

 

[gimmesix]

What would have made 2015 with a healthy Romo significantly different from 2014?

Apparently, the fact that we barely beat the Giants with Romo despite badly losing the turnover differential. Or the fact that we didn't blow out the Eagles with Romo despite committing 18 penalties. Or the fact that a rusty Romo only led Dallas to a 10-point victory over Miami and then dared to play poorly against Carolina the next game back.

Some apparently extrapolate from that that if Romo had played the whole season we would have lost the turnover battle in every game and had double-digit penalties in every game. Instead, we had yet to put our entire defense on the field in those first couple of games and were still feeling out the running game.

The Miami game was closer to what we could have been even though Romo was clearly shaking off the effects of being off for months. The Carolina game showed that even what we could have been, though, likely still wasn't good enough overall, although I would love to see how a completely healthy Dallas team would have fared.

 

[gimmesix]

I think they weren't as bad as it is believed. If u look at two of Dallas worst quarters. 2nd and 4th, how many time did we see teams to hurry up at the end of the half? Last yr it was romo doing that to teams. And by the 4th in games this def was gassed all yr because the offense just wasn't able to get going. Sure the def had games where they blew it but this defense held it own for the most part of the season. If the offense wouldve just been able to do something anything this defense imp would've gotten this team a few wins

I don't really like the gassed excuse. I do think it was a factor at times, but there were games where the defense shouldn't have been gassed and still gave up the lead. Now, I think it's difficult (and unrealistic) unless your defense is great to basically shut out offenses, which is what Dallas would have had to do in some of the games. When your offense scores less than 17 points, it's asking too much of a defense to win the game.

Now, I wish we had that kind of defense, but just because we don't doesn't mean this defense wasn't good enough to win with if the offense had been up to Romo standards.

 

[percyhoward]

We both agree Romo is the difference maker and helped them be better in must years. He did. But that doesn't translate to every year or we'd be rolling yearly.

It hasn't translated to every year because the team changes over time. We were never gonna be rolling anywhere when our defense and running game were bottom 5. The improvements in those two areas are the reason we were 12-4 in 2014.

You have to understand that it wasn't just luck.

 

[Miller]

It hasn't translated to every year because the team changes over time. We were never gonna be rolling anywhere when our defense and running game were bottom 5. The improvements in those two areas are the reason we were 12-4 in 2014.

You have to understand that it wasn't just luck.

I never said it was luck but as you just said, every year is different and our defense and O-line/running game was nowhere near the same this year. That's a huge difference that made Romo even more effective. To have a 2014 you need some things whether you call it luck, breaks or whatever and that includes lack of injuries, chemistry in the locker room, etc and those were missing too due to obvious injuries and losing Murray.

 

[percyhoward]

I never said it was luck but as you just said, every year is different and our defense and O-line/running game was nowhere near the same this year. That's a huge difference that made Romo even more effective. To have a 2014 you need some things whether you call it luck, breaks or whatever and that includes lack of injuries, chemistry in the locker room, etc and those were missing too due to obvious injuries and losing Murray.

I didn't say every year was different -- you did. I said every team changes over time. Since the 8-8 seasons, our defense and running game have improved. How do you come to this conclusion that our defense, our OL, and our running game were "nowhere near the same?"

 

[ufcrules1]

yeah 12-4 is a stretch definitely. Probably 10 wins. They didnt look like the same team right from the get-go. That first game, I saw those 8-8 teams written all over it. With Romo out, well thats a 4 win team. And thats what we got.

Yup, they looked messed up from the beginning. They ignored the winning formula from last year and it showed. Joe Randle the starting RB after your team dominated the year before with Murray? Really? Lot's of stupidity. Oh well, another season down the drain with no playoffs. I'm excited about that 4th pick though.. hopefully they don't go TE.

 

[ufcrules1]

An elite QB is worth about 10 points a game . Add 10 points to all of our losses see what the outcomes would have been .

An elite QB? lol.. please.