Cowboys in longest playoff appearance drought in 24 years

[Idgit]

This is worse than the Campo years. You expect down years when your franchise QB retires. Plus, we were coming off our SB contending years and you can be patient while the team struggles to find a QB. When you trot out the likes of Anthony Wright, QC, Hutch, Clint Stoerner, Ryan Leaf, etc., you realistically don't expect to win. The only difference between now and then is Tony Romo. It's really too bad that the prime of his career was wasted on some mystical multi-year rebuilding project.

Nobody who actually sat through the abject hopelessness of the Campo years honestly thinks being effectively out of contention the first third of a season is anywhere close the the last three game-17 clinchers we've played in.

 

[Dwight]

No. We don't.

We have realists who have to resort to pure fantasy to try to score points with other realists, though. And that goes for a lot more than just your post above, by the way.

Interesting. I would like to hear your perspective about this team.

Does this fact not concern you?

 

[Dodger12]

Nobody who actually sat through the abject hopelessness of the Campo years honestly thinks being effectively out of contention the first third of a season is anywhere close the the last three game-17 clinchers we've played in.

I don't look at the last 3 games of the past 3 seasons as some barometer for success. We have a franchise QB who will have every Dallas passing record by the time he hangs it up. He may even be top 10 in some statistical categories in NFL history. QB is the hardest position to find and fortunes change when teams find a franchise QB. I didn't expect much in the Campo years; I expected much more in the Garrett/Romo era.

 

[Idgit]

Interesting. I would like to hear your perspective about this team.

Does this fact not concern you?

Seriously? My post history is there to take a look at if you care to, but of course the four-year playoff draught concerns me. How can that *not* concern any Cowboy fan?

What's more....how can anybody read our boards regularly and come away with even the pretend notion that that's not a concern for any of us? It's literally a topic is just about every single thread on the board.

 

[Idgit]

I don't look at the last 3 games of the past 3 seasons as some barometer for success. We have a franchise QB who will have every Dallas passing record by the time he hangs it up. He may even be top 10 in some statistical categories in NFL history. QB is the hardest position to find and fortunes change when teams find a franchise QB. I didn't expect much in the Campo years; I expected much more in the Garrett/Romo era.

We all expected more in the Garrett era than we did in the Campo era, because the teams were better. That obviously doesn't mean the product on the field was worse.

That said, if you're saying you've enjoyed the last three seasons less than the Campo seasons because of your personal expectations, I can't argue with you. That's entirely a matter of your personal preference. I can't imagine another fan preferring irrelevance to win-or-go-home. I can imagine fans making the case that they prefer it in order to vent frustration with the current product. But just because I can't imagine something, I guess it doesn't necessarily mean it's not real. For me, those Campo seasons--along with the Vinny Testeverde season under Parcells--were, by far, my worst seasons in memory as a Cowboy fan.

 

[casmith07]

Welcome to the salary cap NFL. They envisioned parity, and they got it.

 

[casmith07]

Seriously? My post history is there to take a look at if you care to, but of course the four-year playoff draught concerns me. How can that *not* concern any Cowboy fan?

What's more....how can anybody read our boards regularly and come away with even the pretend notion that that's not a concern for any of us? It's literally a topic is just about every single thread on the board.

Silly Idgit - because if you're not bally-hooing the organization in every post, you're a homer-*** homer and should take your homer talents to homer beach and join the Homer Heat.

 

[TheDude]

We all expected more in the Garrett era than we did in the Campo era, because the teams were better. That obviously doesn't mean the product on the field was worse.

Que? Dont know if I get the second sentence relating back to the first

 

[Idgit]

Welcome to the salary cap NFL. They envisioned parity, and they got it.

You'd think parity would provide the opposite, no? More teams qualifying for the playoffs than they had previously?

I think the draughts due more to a combination of things. One, our good team that peaked in 2007 was on its way down. Two, our cap was tight by plan, but we misjudged the significance of the impact of the new CBA on the cap for a few seasons. Coupled with the cap penalty for Austin's deal, we left ourselves operationally short-handed in terms of our ability to acquire veteran talent. Three, defensive injuries handicapped fairly competitive teams in 2012 and 2013 where we lost key personnel at positions of need and were unable to compensate because of the aforementioned thin roster (a similar thing happened in 2011 (?) at the C position, where we were playing our fourth option after rolling the dice on cutting Gurode. Four, we dithered around on what we wanted to do defensively in terms of scheme, and that affected our coaching hires and our talent acquisition and development and led to fielding one of the absolutely worst units in the entire league the last two or three years under Garrett.

Note, these are reasons, not excuses. The bottom line is that the team wasn't good enough, the coaches didn't do enough to develop depth. It's not a fluke that we're close, but not good enough. But that doesn't mean we have to pretend that we haven't also done some things well or that we shouldn't try to keep the circumstances in a meaningful context.

 

[Dwight]

Seriously? My post history is there to take a look at if you care to, but of course the four-year playoff draught concerns me. How can that *not* concern any Cowboy fan?

What's more....how can anybody read our boards regularly and come away with even the pretend notion that that's not a concern for any of us? It's literally a topic is just about every single thread on the board.

You are correct; however, this is a concern that continues to growth that has handicap this organization after Jimmy's firing and after Parcells retirement.

If it was not for Parcells, our team's overall regular season record after 95 or 96 season would probably be below .500. That's a major issue.

The issue needs to be address if not we will continue to see this extended.

Keep in mind I want to see this team succeed but I can't foresee this with the current GM running this organization.

 

[Wolfpack]

Darn injuries.

 

[Idgit]

Que? Dont know if I get the second sentence relating back to the first

Yeah. That was a dumb way of saying that. I'm saying that the team might have underperformed more relative to fan expectations in the Garrett era, but that still doesn't mean the product on the field was worse than it was under Campo.

 

[Idgit]

You are correct; however, this is a concern that continues to growth that has handicap this organization after Jimmy's firing and after Parcells retirement.

If it was not for Parcells, our team's overall regular season record after 95 or 96 season would probably be below .500. That's a major issue.

The issue needs to be address if not we will continue to see this extended.

Keep in mind I want to see this team succeed but I can't foresee this with the current GM running this organization.

There are a ton of reasons to be concerned about the current organization. I'd not say otherwise. It sounds like you're higher on the results under Parcels than I was, and lower on the results under Garrett than I am overall, but I don't think you can look at four years of missing the postseason and think there hasn't been something fairly significant going on that's kept us from being the organization we fans expect it to be.

And I sounds like we'd agree that those issues have a lot to do with Jerry Jones. I agree that he's a significant liability to the Cowboys in a lot of important ways.

 

[pancakeman]

What can I say? It's a lengthy process.

Amazing to me that the "process" joke still gets multiple "likes."

 

[PA Cowboy Fan]

Yeah.

People were riding high because of all the talent. Season went south and suddenly the team didn't have any talent at all.

That's the way it is. Revisionist history is fun!. There were tons of talent on that team. Poor coaching and players that quit on their head coach were the cause of it. That team finished up 5-3 and that was without Romo.

 

[Idgit]

Silly Idgit - because if you're not bally-hooing the organization in every post, you're a homer-homer and should take your homer talents to homer beach and join the Homer Heat.

Seriously. I get so tired of slapping down the imaginary arguments that nobody has ever tried to make. There's enough stuff that we can actually disagree on. Let's not pretend people thought Ben Bass was a superhero when they didn't. We don't all think this team's made the playoffs the last four years. We're not all expecting a top-10 defense this season. We are what we've been: a team on the borderline with a weak defense and a productive offense (largely because of a very good QB). We can go from there without the caricatures.

 

[Idgit]

That's the way it is. Revisionist history is fun!. There were tons of talent on that team. Poor coaching and players that quit on their head coach were the cause of it. That team finished up 5-3 and that was without Romo.

People aren't really making that argument. The level of talent relative to the years prior had dipped. The attitude and effort had dipped. The team had legitimate holes at OT and in the secondary that were exploited. It wasn't without talent, though. It was locked into a salary cap and was upside down in terms of its personnel and had a really weak bench from poor drafting the years preceding. That's what made the process lengthy. And then we were close-but-no-cigar for three seasons largely due to the reasons I cited above.

 

[Dwight]

There are a ton of reasons to be concerned about the current organization. I'd not say otherwise. It sounds like you're higher on the results under Parcels than I was, and lower on the results under Garrett than I am overall, but I don't think you can look at four years of missing the postseason and think there hasn't been something fairly significant going on that's kept us from being the organization we fans expect it to be.

And I sounds like we'd agree that those issues have a lot to do with Jerry Jones. I agree that he's a significant liability to the Cowboys in a lot of important ways.

Yes, I feel Parcells contributed to our team significantly (Romo and Witten come to mind).

We are in an agreement about management. Good to have a conversation/ debate without any insults. I can respect that.

 

[chicago JK]

To me it is really sad the national book on Romo is already written. He is a really good QB. Sure he has made some mistakes but his benefits far outweigh the negatives. To only get one playoff win from his prime years is a direct reflection on our front office mismanagement( you can add one of the better defenders in cowboys history and a possible hall of fame tight end in their primes as well). Finding an excellent QB is so hard. When you have one, in most cases it puts you over 15 teams in the league immediately.

I don't expect this team to be rebuilt in the years romo has left unfortunately. It also makes me really sad what this franchise does after Romo is no longer elite. I expect a jake locker/Christian ponder type draft pick that sets us back another few years. As much as I am impressed with the offense, if you don't have a really good QB a good offense can look pretty average.

 

[KJJ]

Garrett did not inherit a playoff team. Had the Cowboys been that he wouldn't have gotten the job from Phillips.

He inherited a team that just won a playoff game the year prior and was picked by many to reach the SB in 2010.