We need good defensive coaches. The offense wasn't bad. The defense kept giving up the big plays.
The fetish we had for offense during the Romo era really crippled the team.
He was penciled in as our starter for 10 drafts (2007 through 2016), and during that span, we spent 7 picks on offense and only 4 on defense. That's almost a 2-to-1 disparity in how much more we valued offense at the expense of defense.
And a lot of those offensive picks were real luxury picks. A backup RB in Felix (in the same offseason after we already locked up Marion Barber to a big extension to be our workhorse). A #3 WR in Roy Williams. Interior o-linemen who turned out great but, still, it's big resources to spend on interior line positions. And of course a top 5 pick on a RB even though we'd just proven that a journeyman off the street who no one else wanted could walk into our offense and finish as the 4th leading rusher in the league with our line.
Granted, if we'd just *hit* on the 4 defensive picks we made, things might be different.
In an 8-year career, Spencer gave us one double-digit sack season where he played well enough to justify his 1st round status That's 7 years where he wasn't worth it. If you invert that number and he gives us 7 really good seasons instead of just the 1 really good one, Romo probably retires with a ring.
If Claiborne lived up to the "best corner in the draft class" hype, Romo probably retires with a ring.
So far, we've been more interested in defense during the Dak drafts, and that mere interest in defense is at least reason for optimism that we're perhaps going to prioritize defense in a way that might keep us from squandering the Dak era like we did with the Romo era. Taco in 2017 and LVE in 2018 before gong offense with Amari 2019. Granted, I don't like the economics of needlessly spending 1st round resources on a 43 linebacker in this day and age when the pass rush and secondary are the premium spots, but whatever.