Can we talk about the Front Office?

[gmoney112]

With Johnson we're still 2-4.

I bet the FO was thinking, "We were about a half-assed pass rush away from being in the NFC Championship. If we dedicate some more resources to our defense, especially our pass rush, we'll probably be the favorites in the NFC."

Which they did. The only slight on the FO is their not realizing how terrible Weeden is.

Not many teams are going to win many games missing their #1 WR, and potentially HoF QB, especially not when they're missing they're two best pass rushers for the first 4 games at the same time. In this era, injuries play a factor.

Does ATL win a game without Ryan/Jones? How many games do the Pats win with Gronk/Brady out? The Packers might win a few just because it seems like they have a billion receivers every year, but if Rodgers is out they're going to drop more than a couple.

It's just the way it is. A RB not named AD wasn't going to change our fortune.

 

[Shotgun Dave]

McFadden put up 160 yards or so, and Cassel displayed some good accuracy for the most part. That pick 6, I put on the WR who didn't finish his route. I don't have an issue so much with NOT bringing in CJ2K really, but I NEVER understood keeping Weeden as the backup. I never understood him being brought here to begin with. What IS clear, at this point, is that Weeden has no future on this team. He may be here through the end of the year...maybe...but it wouldn't surprise me to see us cut him when Romo returns. He is not a developmental guy nor is he our backup, so...

 

[jobberone]

Fair to criticize Weeden....in hindsight. And to be more fair no one I saw ever jumped up and down for joy over him coming to Dallas. Hoping he would develop under Romo, Wilson and Garrett behind this OL was the best one could do concerning him. If he had turned out to be decent....what I thought would be his ceiling...then we'd hear nothing from the I told you so crowd. No crow no nothing. So no one I've seen here is surprised he failed.

As far as RB goes, we are fine. I posted yesterday (I think) we are averaging 4.5 and we did 4.6 last year. We don't have the total yardage because our Sc% is poor. We can't sustain drives. RB nor PR/KR is our problem although we certainly could get better at the latter. Many have pined for a good or better PR for years. And while Harris was better than average he wasn't a huge threat.

Which leads to the real problem.

Our problem is we lost our QB. And Weeden failed. You can win with a decent backup IF you have the defense to hold the other team to 17 maybe 20 a game. Hence what someone mentioned about the Steelers. Otherwise you are likely to lose. And I remind all we expected the defense to rise from the top of the bottom half of the league to maybe the top ten possibly better. But that was a great hope not something to bet on. Too many question marks still remain including depth, safety and CB. We still are wrestling with the heart of the defense in the DL esp the pass rush.

You cannot leave the defense on the field too much esp with poor field position and expect great things.

You should strongly consider the lack of turnovers as the second biggest cause of our fall. Last year near the top and today we are at the bottom of the league.

All this leads back to the FO. We are still digging out of the hole Jerry kept us in for a very long time. Yes, we are almost out but not quite hence the hole at safety and somewhat at CB.

 

[Bleu Star]

I'm not necessarily complaining in terms of thinking thy aren't the right fit. I just feel some of these moves, which have led us to the current predicament, are worth disussion.

Very impressed with DMC's resurgence. I think some of that is La'el and some of it can also be attributed to a more open offensive game plan with Cassel in there.

 

[PA Cowboy Fan]

I'm not necessarily complaining in terms of thinking thy aren't the right fit. I just feel some of these moves, which have led us to the current predicament, are worth disussion.

Very impressed with DMC's resurgence. I think some of that is La'el and some of it can also be attributed to a more open offensive game plan with Cassel in there.

Lets see if it lasts. I'm not ready to jump on board after one game.

 

[Bleu Star]

Lets see if it lasts. I'm not ready to jump on board after one game.

Yeah. Neither am I. It is the most encouraging effort so far though without Romo on the field. We need to be sure to spell DMC with (yes my boy...) CM so he doesn't get worn out. We need both rbs fresh in the 4th quarter.

 

[Bleu Star]

Blurb from BSPN today.


NFC EAST

Dallas Cowboys: Darren McFadden's 152-yard effort against the New York Giants has earned him more work in the Cowboys' running back by committee role, but maybe not the lead role just yet. Joseph Randle suffered an oblique strain after his second carry and did not return, giving McFadden his best opportunity to date. It was the first 100-yard game by McFadden since 2013. Only twice in his career has McFadden had back-to-back games with 20 carries, and he has had none since 2011. McFadden came out of the game OK, according to coach Jason Garrett, but the Cowboys will make sure to monitor him during practice. -- Todd Archer

-----
If they start Randle again, I might self destruct.

 

[RS12]

The Weeden signing was a huge mistake, and everyone here who had seen him play suffered near cardiac arrest when it was announced. I can't imagine what the front office was thinking.

As far as McFadden goes, I'm hoping he's a Miles Austin type who just needed a chance to play to show what he's got.

You mean Cleveland who hasnt had a QB since Bernie Kosar, blowing Wedone out in two ears didnt tell us everything we needed to know?

 

[Aven8]

Let's not get the anointing oil out just yet on Dmac. It was one game after a bye week. Against NE he looked done, tiptoeing around and getting tackled by his shoestrings.

Cmike is going to get more and more chances.

 

[daveferr33]

Weeden is an inexcusable mistake.

McFadden's performance last week is pretty good evidence that they were right about the running back position--that with this line and with a qb who can keep defenses honest, we could plug in almost anybody and be successful.

And as far as Demarco Murray. He's not even the best running back on his own team right now:

 

[JoeyBoy718]

Let's not mention Demarco. Let's just completely leave that one buried in the past where it rightfully belongs. Ok?

Let's start with Chris Johnson. I would like to quote a snippet from a CJ interview back in May.

Johnson said this week when asked if the Cowboys would serve as a solid landing spot, per TMZ.

What were we thinking? Many of us couldn't understand why the FO wouldn't give him a look. I recall that area of time where we all hoped & wondered. Dude is now the 2nd leading rusher in the league and making himself known in Arizona. Wow. That all still gets under my skin.

Then you have Brandon Weeden. How were we able to go into this season with him and his winless streak as our primary backup to Romo. We placed this guy in a spot that was surely to get some PT this year given Romo's history of injuries. Something was bound to happen.

Let's approach it this way. Can you imagine having Chris Johnson and Matt Cassel together early on when Romo went down? One can speculate but I will go out on a limb and say we are at least 4-2 at this point in the season.

There is just no good excuse for not properly preparing for contingency. It's a long grueling season. In basketball, If you have no bench you have no real semblance of a championship makeup. That's kind of the way it has felt early on this season.

I like where the FO is going with Stephen and Willie but also feel they have a lot of work to do with regard to coming together during the offseason both via the draft and FA to place us in the best possible position for success. On the offensive side of the ball, they came up short this offseason.

La'el was mostly a Jerry move. I also call Hardy a Jerry move unless someone has evidence otherwise. Jones looks to be the part. Gregory might pan out. But, beyond that, it gets very fuzzy in terms of what we have done on the offensive side of the ball to improve.

If I recall correctly people were praising the moves this FO made. If Romo didn't go down I doubt people would be complaining. A lot of fans were skeptical that CJ2K could ever be the same again. He hadn't been very good since his 2000+ yard season years back. I also don't doubt McFadden (or even one of our other RBs) wouldn't have had similar success if not for the O-line issues, offensive injuries, and lack of running the ball. Look what McFadden did this past week. Outside of trading for AP or drafting Gurley there was no RB to be had who was clearly a better option than McFadden or Michael.

And it's also hard to really fault us for the backup QB situation. Most backups aren't very good. Heck, most starters aren't that good. I'm not convinced Cassell is that much better than Weeden, and Cassell was almost a starter in Buffalo this season. There are probably worse backup QBs than Weeden. He was efficient and didn't make any mistakes. He was also too cautious. He's a backup. You're not gonna have a perfect QB like Romo. Heck, Cassell almost threw 4 INTs and 2 pick-6s. My point is, as with RB, I'm not convinced there was another QB to sign who would've been significantly better than Weeden or Cassell.

 

[Wolfpack]

I don't get how they have Weden on the team for two years and didn't know he wasn't going to be able to get the job done. Either that or he was coached to play like that….its a clear screw up either way.

 

[BigStar]

I was on board with it. As I recall most of CZ wasn't.

Definitely...hindsight going on here. Most thought he would be McFadden redux and we needed a different type of runner(power).

 

[DandyDon52]

This just goes to show that last season was all Romo who made the ginger look much better than he actually is. It's as simple as that.

exactly, been doing that for many years now.

 

[DandyDon52]

I don't get how they have Weden on the team for two years and didn't know he wasn't going to be able to get the job done. Either that or he was coached to play like that….its a clear screw up either way.

yeah bad eval , but many of us wondered why they would sign him in the first place.

 

[AKATheRake]

I was just thinking about Chris Johnson.

McFadden looked like he had his old wheels this week.

Was he holding back? I don't know but he certainly has then when he wants them and he's not lacking vision either.

Just not looking to be eating too many hits. He's on a light contract but if he kicks it up he can get a little more $ I'm certain.

So if we get this weeks version of Run DMC the rest of the season then I'm not worried about CJ2K because the front office was right.

If we don't get this weeks version of Run DMC, then the FO is wrong.

 

[kiheikiwi]

Not on the Johnson wagon. Think his resurgence is the exception not the rule. Good to see Dmac have a great game - his speed is still there, this week tho is a different animal. He's gonna get smacked - hard. This is where we should see Cmike and the new guy too ! This will be physical, if our RB's can get through this game without injury we should be OK in the run department for the rest of the season.
F.O. concerns are numerous - same ol same ol, backup QB, DT and FS. Are the big 3. Followed by WR and CB.
Said on another thread - as much as last year was a pleasant surprise, this year has been an unpleasant disappointment. And its bigger than just the Romo injury.

 

[Bleu Star]

I call bs on the rationale behind not even giving Chris Johnson a look. Dude is a beast. We didn't even give him the time of day! We gave him the Demarco treatment. Dang. I asked not to go there then what do I do.... lol

 

[xwalker]

Let's not mention Demarco. Let's just completely leave that one buried in the past where it rightfully belongs. Ok?

Let's start with Chris Johnson. I would like to quote a snippet from a CJ interview back in May.

Johnson said this week when asked if the Cowboys would serve as a solid landing spot, per TMZ.

What were we thinking? Many of us couldn't understand why the FO wouldn't give him a look. I recall that area of time where we all hoped & wondered. Dude is now the 2nd leading rusher in the league and making himself known in Arizona. Wow. That all still gets under my skin.

Then you have Brandon Weeden. How were we able to go into this season with him and his winless streak as our primary backup to Romo. We placed this guy in a spot that was surely to get some PT this year given Romo's history of injuries. Something was bound to happen.

Let's approach it this way. Can you imagine having Chris Johnson and Matt Cassel together early on when Romo went down? One can speculate but I will go out on a limb and say we are at least 4-2 at this point in the season.

There is just no good excuse for not properly preparing for contingency. It's a long grueling season. In basketball, If you have no bench you have no real semblance of a championship makeup. That's kind of the way it has felt early on this season.

I like where the FO is going with Stephen and Willie but also feel they have a lot of work to do with regard to coming together during the offseason both via the draft and FA to place us in the best possible position for success. On the offensive side of the ball, they came up short this offseason.

La'el was mostly a Jerry move. I also call Hardy a Jerry move unless someone has evidence otherwise. Jones looks to be the part. Gregory might pan out. But, beyond that, it gets very fuzzy in terms of what we have done on the offensive side of the ball to improve.

Dallas is 7th in rushing yards per game and Arizona is 10th.

Arizona has not had a bye, but if you just take out their last game, then the total rushing yards are:
Dallas 766
Arizona 729

Chris Johnson has a lot of rushing yards because he has gotten most of the carries on that team (Their other RB has had injury issues). You're trying to compare stats for a RB that gets more of the carries on his team to RBs that are in a RRBC.

McFadden rushes for 152 yards and C-Mike finally got some carries and only got 18 yards. Is this the issue and reason that you're calling out he front office?

The front office thought that the RBs were good if the blocking was good and there was a QB that was at least a threat to throw which kept the defense from loading up against the run. It appears that they were correct with 233 yards rushing in the Giants game. Broaddus and others have shown they made some changes to the blocking scheme and that the blocking was much improved including getting Hanna back and replacing the injured Leary with Collins.

In regards to Cassel that has not proven to bet a huge upgrade yet. The Giants game showed why the coaches wanted to be conservative in the early games without Romo but were pushed by Jerry and fan pressure to be more aggressive. Cassel is hopefully an upgrade but that was not really a guarantee at any point in the off season prior to the preseason games Some outside observers think Weed's extreme conservative issues were caused or exacerbated by the head injury he sustained in the preseason. They think it made him too conscious of getting injured which prevented him from functioning effectively. If that's true then there was no way to know in the Spring which is when another QB would have to have been obtained. Regardless of Weed's issues, there just are not a lot of quality QBs available. Many teams struggle to find a starter; therefore, find 2 QBs (Rom and a backup) that can be quality starters is very difficult.

If I had the choice in the off-season of getting Hardy or getting a better backup QB, I would pick Hardy every time.

 

[xwalker]

If you would have posted this thread last week at this time it would make a lot more sense. McFadden just went off, however and we rushed for over 200 yards. The health, continuity and play of the offensive line has been the biggest factor in the running game, not the back.

Did you give up on Michael?

The Cowboy have more yards/game than Arizona. He does not seem to understand that Johnson has been basically the solo RB there with their other RB dealing with injury while the Cowboys are using a RBBC. Also, AZ has played 1 more game because they had not had a bye which pushes Johnson up above any RBs that have not played 7 games.

I'm sure the he is upset that in a game that people claimed C-Mike might start, that even after Randle was injured C-Mike only had 5 carries for 18 yards.