There can be a bunch of "what ifs" and yet still during the course of 2007 and 2014, the Cowboys roster was still viewed by many Cowboys fans and sports media as being one of the best teams in the NFL or one of the top ones that could win the Super Bowl. The Cowboys were good enough to get a number 1 seeding. And Romo's best teams in 2007 and 2014 both happened to have a top rushing attack and RBs who were having break out seasons. Murray won offensive player of the year in 2014 and yet for some reasons some act like Romo never had a solid running game behind him. Also after Murray left, lots of people, Cowboys fans included said that his success was due to the Cowboys OL.
But now some are acting like the Cowboys were never viewed as having great OLs, until 2016. When the Cowboys OL reputation started in Romo's era.
Your argument does zero in relation to the point, which is Romo MASKED how over-rated we were.
1. Julius Jones was our starter in 2007.. man rushed for 588 yards at 3.6 YPC in 16 games. His longest was a 25 yarder. He had 1 1000 yard rushing season in his career. It was Marion Barber as a second string back that took advantage of the deep coverages on second and long and he never could reproduce at that level as a starter. We were still 21st in attempts, 17 in yards and 10 on YPC.
2. Our OL reputation starter in Romo’s career, because it was Romo that carried these over-rates OL. Gurode and guys like Kosier were never on the map until Romo. Rivera when he came to Dallas had a bad back. Holland was a journeyman and so was Columbo. Leonard Davis was considere a bust for years in Arizona and so on. Our only legislate OL that was considered really good was Flozell Adam’s period.. the OL was considered Dallas weakest link until Bledsoe got benched. When Flozell went down in like 2005, the OL gave up like 40 plus sacks in 10 games. This included guys like Gurode. 2012, Hudson Houck was given a graceful retirement and we were horrible outside Tyron Smith and we lucked into Callahan who completely revamped our blocking schemes and our RG.
NONE of these guys carved any niche outside the shadow of Romo.
And Zeke was drafted for Romo, not Dak, after Murray left, even though Romo lobbied for Jerry to sign Murray. And I’m not even sure why you keep bringing up 2014, because everybody acknowledges that was Romo’s best roster, meaning that late in his career and he was the guy involved in game planning meetings and Garrett out the way. Romo had to force it via his contract in 2013 to be given power over Garrett, who lost any influence in 2014. Which is why, Romo was arguably the BEST QB in the NFL. So it was completely asinine to bench Romo when he finally had this roster with Zeke and the OL consistency with at least 3 all pros for a mediocre QB experiment like Dak who profited off a talented roster that carried him to 13-3.
Dak has been surrounded by gold and stability for years. He’s just peaked and mediocre.