I wont argue that the offense doesn't need to improve but if you look at the time of possession stats its not as lopsided as you would think. Dallas does hold the ball a fair amount they just don't score td's. Its true the opponent has held the ball longer in all but 1 game though.
the defense is giving up points at historical levels and its not because they are worn out its because they suck! BAD!!! The offense is 1 dimensional and to my surprise the OL is worse than last year. I didn't think that would happen.I thought at the very worst it would be a push.
https://www.statmuse.com/nfl/ask/time-of-possession-in-a-game-by-dallas-this-season
I will not argue any of that. But, from my post that he was quoting:
"4 drives, 14 plays for -1 yard, 4:06 TOP, over 20 minutes of the game, when the outcome was still close."
This isn't about the defense being gassed. It is about the offense doing anything when the game is on the line before they have to become one-dimensional. If they were just able to put 1 drive together and score one TD in those 20 minutes of the first half, we could have kept the Lions from scoring a TD late and gone into the half down 20-13 instead of 27-6.
Against the Ravens, we were down 14-3, what the the offense do? Fumble, 3 and out, 3 and out, before a short field goal drive right before the half. Then they start the 2nd half with a punt then a turnover on downs. By that time the game was all but over.
The Saints game was all on the defense, not going to argue that, but even in the three wins this offense disappeared for long stretches.
We have invested 50% more salary on our offense than our defense (40 million more this season), they should be controlling the TOP and limiting opponent opportunities, it's where we spend our resources. We are literally built as an offensive team.
We have the 4th most expensive offense in the NFL this season and they are ranked 29th in time of possession, 14th in yards per game, 21st in points per game, and 31st in giveaways (one away from last in the NFL). This isn't just because of Dak's extension either, we were ranked 5th last season, 2nd in 2022, and 2nd in 2021 in offensive spending.
We have the 25th most expensive defense in the NFL this season and they are ranked 24th in yards, 29th in points per game, 29th in time of possession, and 21st in takeaways.
This is the problem, we are looking at both sides of the ball as if they should be equals, but we really should be looking at the fact that we are a spend-heavy, offensive-minded team. It is what we have been for years. The defense sucks. Yes, they do, but given the resources spent on the other side of the ball, the offense sucks just as bad.
We give Quinn a lot of flack lately but given what he has had to work with, he did a great job, they over-performed most of the time. The truth is this defense (without top coaching) is closer to what we see now than what we saw last year (though I didn't expect it to fall quite this much).
Honestly, both sides of the ball are shooting the other side in the foot right now. Not blaming just the players or the coaching. It is everything. We are built wrong. We have invested poorly for the returns we are seeing. We are just a bad football team right now everywhere but special teams. And it all starts at the very top.