Cowboys made mostly the right personnel moves this past year

[keds]

Did not overpay Bruce Carter...

Dunbar if he had stayed healthy and if Randle were still on team, along with McFadden would have been an adequate replacement for Murray...

Did not overpay for Murray...

Found a replacement for Dwayne Harris in Lucky Whitehead...

Drafted a swing tackle as needed...

Did not overpay for Justin Durant...

Drafted defense which was our weakness...

Drafted a defensive back first round as needed...

... We essentially had bad luck with injuries to key players, experienced subpar coaching and had a substantial loss of key, productive free agents...

 

[Hardline]

Letting Callahan walk was a very bad decision.

 

[Reality]

Letting Callahan walk was a very bad decision.

During the offseason, I said he was the biggest loss. That said, Callahan had been demoted. He was not staying in Dallas so there was no "decision" made by the Cowboys, just Callahan.

 

[Hoofbite]

Dunbar if he had stayed healthy and if Randle were still on team, along with McFadden would have been an adequate replacement for Murray...

So they made the right move in relying on injury plagued players and an idiot if we pretend the injuries never happened and the idiot didn't behave like an idiot?

I also think Whitehead has a ways to go to replace Harris.

 

[BAZ]

The biggest mistake was keeping Weeden around. I don't fault them for picking him up, but keeping him on after last year was a horrible mistake that I completely lay at the feet of Garrett because as a career back up he should know the importance of that position and he should be able to evaluate if a player is capable of performing when he puts in that many reps.

 

[TheSport78]

Found a replacement for Dwayne Harris in Lucky Whitehead...

You lost me here.

 

[gimmesix]

Did not overpay Bruce Carter...

Dunbar if he had stayed healthy and if Randle were still on team, along with McFadden would have been an adequate replacement for Murray...

Did not overpay for Murray...

Found a replacement for Dwayne Harris in Lucky Whitehead...

Drafted a swing tackle as needed...

Did not overpay for Justin Durant...

Drafted defense which was our weakness...

Drafted a defensive back first round as needed...

... We essentially had bad luck with injuries to key players, experienced subpar coaching and had a substantial loss of key, productive free agents...

There was some good and some bad in the moves that they made.

I don't agree with you on the running back situation. I said at the time that bringing in McFadden for what it cost was a good move. However, I didn't agree with relying on the combination of two backs who haven't shown they could carry a load and a veteran who struggled the previous three years. McFadden has stayed healthy for the most part and exceeded my expectations, but what happened with Randle and Dunbar showed we needed to address RB better than we did.

Harris hurt us in the second game against New York, so I can't say we won that trade-off, and Murray hurt us in the second game against Philly. I'm not upset about Dallas not paying the price to keep both of them, but we did suffer from them going to division rivals.

I also think it was foolish to let Sterling Moore go and then turn around and pay Corey White similar to what it would have taken to keep Moore. That move backfired.

Hardy hasn't been near what we were hoping to get IMO, but the expectations there might have been unfair.

Also, it's hard to calculate all the moves Dallas failed to make that could have impacted this team ... such as giving up on Weeden after last season and going after a better backup, or not signing Chris Johnson and having him and McFadden rather than McFadden and Randle.

 

[Idgit]

On paper, they made what I thought were going to be great moves, with the only question mark being they didn't handicap themselves at RB sufficiently and didn't move more aggressively to upgrade QB2. Losing Durant was the biggest personnel loss we had, in my opinion. Losing Callahan was a blow, but it was inevitable.

But football's funny. There are so many variables that you can't see at the 40K foot level. The season wasn't right from the get-go. The Dez hold out, the neck injury to Martin, the suspensions to key players and early roster-juggling that created. Whatever the background drama was with Randle. The injury to Scandrick and then to Dunbar. The injuries to Dez and Romo turned out to be backbreakers.

Basically, sometimes the Universe conspires to give you the finger.

 

[Doc50]

Did not overpay Bruce Carter...

Dunbar if he had stayed healthy and if Randle were still on team, along with McFadden would have been an adequate replacement for Murray...

Did not overpay for Murray...

Found a replacement for Dwayne Harris in Lucky Whitehead...

Drafted a swing tackle as needed...

Did not overpay for Justin Durant...

Drafted defense which was our weakness...

Drafted a defensive back first round as needed...

... We essentially had bad luck with injuries to key players, experienced subpar coaching and had a substantial loss of key, productive free agents...

I agree with your position on Murray, Durant, Carter, and Byron Jones.

But I firmly believe that building a successful team requires focus on depth, considering the inevitability of injuries.

1) We started the year with 3 suspect RB's, and two of them didn't make it.
2) We probably overpaid for our #1WR, delayed his development during negotiations, and had minimal proven talent behind him, which showed when we went down.
3) We did not secure a winning backup for our elite but aging QB.
4) We needed a swing tackle, but drafted one who could not play this year.
5) We needed a viable replacement for the
Important contributions we lost in Harris, but only got about half of that in Whitehead.
6) We needed a true FS, and drafted a candidate who was not allowed to develop in that position (or get comfortable at any single position).
7) We needed to start working in Witten's replacement with more involvement of our 3 other TE's, but we have still failed to do that.
8) We have needed a true 1-tech to replace Hayden, but failed to secure one.

I'd say that we failed to address several obvious needs in how we procure and use personnel, and it ruined our season.

I give the FO a C-

 

[keds]

If Romo, Dez, Dunbar, Scandrick, Randle, Gregory don't get hurt early this team competes and probably wins the the NFC East and the front office moves all of a sudden look good...

Our moves were probably good enough in absence of the above injuries, however in hindsight signing Dwayne Harris over Beasley probably would have been a better short term move, as well as drafting a stout interior lineman would have been better than drafting Gregory,

 

[Beast_from_East]

Another "it was just bad luck" thread

LOL

 

[AbeBeta]

Harris seems a loss. 30+ catches, great as a returner, and perhaps the best blocking WR in the league?

 

[cowboyblue22]

they did lots of things wrong or they wouldn't be 4 and 12

 

[big dog cowboy]

they did lots of things wrong or they wouldn't be 4 and 12

Like letting Romo and Dez getting hurt? Both those men healthy we win the easy and everyone breathing air knows it.