On Cowboys Break, Broaddus had a series of questions to predict how you think next year will go. You either "buy" stock in a prediction (agree), or "sell" (disagree). Some of my answers differed from the other hosts' responses, so I'm curious what y'all think.
Here were the predictions:
BUY OR SELL:
- Cowboys run defense finishes first in the NFL (they were first in 2016... 83.5 yards per game)
- Cowboys finish better than 23rd in the NFL in passing yards per game
- Cowboys will be Top 5 in scoring offense (they were 5th in 2016... another random note, they were apparently 18th in field goal percentage)
- Cowboys hold opponents under 38% on third down (they held them to 39% in 2016)
- NY Giants will hold Dak to 51% passing in two games, like they did in 2016
- Cole Beasley will have more games with double-digit targets than Jason Witten (in 2016, Cole had one game and Witten had three with double-digit targets... Dez had five)
- Zeke will have 6 or more games with 130+ rushing yards (he had five in 2016)
- Anthony Brown will have more passes defended than Scandrick (they both had 8 in 2016)
- Collins gets six sacks this season (five in 2016)
- Cowboys hold opponents under 19 points per game
BONUS: Which player will be primed for their first Pro Bowl this year (they ended up discussing if Collins could make it)
?
1. Sell. They may be better than last year and it not show up on the stat sheet. Too optimistic to predict we will do that agin. But we should be top 5.
2. Buy. This offense will be better than last year and Dak will pass the ball better. This defense will be better overall. That will include the pass defense, even playing lots of young players. If Marinelli can't do better than that he needs to go.
3. Buy. This one is a bit closer of a call. We have the ability to be top 5, but if we are winning games by a significant margin, then we may get conservative at the ends of games which could cost us that too 5 ranking. If Dak or Zeke get hurt I would SELL.
4. Buy. I think this defense is going to be a lot better than anyone expects it to be.
5. Sell. I think Dak will struggle against the Giants this year, but will be better than he was last year. I think Switzer will be the Giant killer. He was drafted to help Dak defeat defenses which stack the box.
6. Buy. Great question. This one is close. I went buy because I think Beasley will have a career year. Witten will eventually get injured and will concede some of his snaps this year. He isn't very effective anymore and even the blind Cowboys staff will eventually have to accept that he isn't a great player anymore.
7.Buy. Barring injury Zeke will gain more yards than he did last year unless we are in lots of blowouts.
8. Buy. Brown is an emerging talent. Scandrick is likely to get injured again as well.
9. Buy. Collins is going to have a better year because the talent around him is much better.
10. Sell. In a statistical outlier teams are going to have to score more points on us to keep up with with this offense. The margin of win should be greater this year even though we may give up a few more meaningless points.
Bonus: I am going to go WAY out on a limb here and say Jeff Heath. I think his interception total will be better than anyone thinks it will be and he will be in the pro bowl discussion based on that fact. Yeah that's way out there. I realize that, but things never really play out like you expect them to play out.
