Does the negativity seem unusually high this year?

InmanRoshi

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Aside from the high expectations, this team (and this coaching staff) lost a lot of their benefit of the doubt goodwill last December when they did their "Nothing to see here. Everything's great. Move along." song and dance leading into the playoffs. Now whenever I hear Wade defensively argue that "everything's fine", I get the feeling I should start worrying.

Maybe it's talk of "Final Eights" after crushing playoff defeats, but this team does give off the vibe that it's pretty happy just being 'good enough'. I wanted to see this team come into training camp angry and with a chip on it's shoulder. I watch Hard Knocks and it's all a big dog and pony show. I went to training camps under Jimmy in Austin, and they did not have the vibe that these training camps do. It was extremely no nonsense on the field. There was a intense silence on the field, the only thing breaking up the sounds of pads click-clacking was Aikman, Irvin and/or a coach breaking their foot off in someone's posterior. There's too much meaningless jibber-jabber on this team with guys like TO and Tank. Guys talking just to hear themselves talk. I don't care about preseason W and L records. But in the preseason games I see too many reminders of the Giants game, where it feels like we're dominating and we should be 24 points ahead and I look up at the scoreboard and we're up by 4 points, because of inept special teams, penalties, turnovers and just a complete inability to get out of our own way.
 

cowboyed

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Chocolate Lab;2211498 said:
Me neither. Maybe that's what I really meant.

But even then, it's not like our starters are getting crushed out there. Denver's the only game you'd say they "lost".

Good point from zrin about the new fans, too.

I think there is or was legitamite concern about malperformance, mainly excessive penalties and blown plays in the pre-season having carried over from last year, particularly December and during the playoffs. There was concern that maybe the coaches weren't up to task but that was dispelled on Hard Knocks Episode 3. Although I am still leery over Bruce Read.

Now speaking about being a Negative Nancy, who has been getting on Jerry Jones case for allowing Hard Knocks in there and being an unnecessary distraction. :)
 

LittleBoyBlue

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Skepticism is ok in my opinion.

This team has been talking the talk for a couple. Not backing it up.


If they dont start winning some playoff games then the following are mere footnotes in Cowboys history.

  1. Getting TO
  2. The Romo find or the Romo development(whatever you want to call it
 

Chief

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InmanRoshi;2211626 said:
Aside from the high expectations, this team (and this coaching staff) lost a lot of their benefit of the doubt goodwill last December when they did their "Nothing to see here. Everything's great. Move along." song and dance leading into the playoffs. Now whenever I hear Wade defensively argue that "everything's fine", I get the feeling I should start worrying.

Maybe it's talk of "Final Eights" after crushing playoff defeats, but this team does give off the vibe that it's pretty happy just being 'good enough'. I wanted to see this team come into training camp angry and with a chip on it's shoulder. I watch Hard Knocks and it's all a big dog and pony show with towel snapping and all around general grab-#$@ery. The preseason games I see too many reminders of the Giants game, where it feels like we're dominating and we should be 24 points ahead and I look up at the scoreboard and we're up by 4 points, because of inept special teams, penalties, turnovers and just a complete inability to get out of our own way.


Well said. Those are the "looming elements" I mentioned.
 

Idgit

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bbgun;2211575 said:
Since when have we not cared about pre-season games? I guarantee you the game threads last August were just as long as this year's games.

I agree. But it's too much to hope for that last year taught us anything about overreacting to preseason games?

bbgun;2211575 said:
The so-called "negativity" is proportional to the situation we find ourselves in attitude-wise and injury-wise. If anything, underreacting is just as dangerous/annoying as overreacting.

How so? Is there reliable data anywhere that says useful conclusions about a team can be drawn from preseason games? I've seen some general statistics that correlate going winless in the preseason and a higher likelihood of missing the playoffs in the ensuing season. Nothing beyond that. It seems to me that not-reacting or under-reacting is imminently more sensible than over-reacting to a game 'plan' or set of circumstances nobody outside the organization really understands.

bbgun;2211575 said:
I also blame Hard Knocks for our case of the jitters, because it's dispiriting to realize that your genial head coach is a placid, befuddled, uninspiring pepaw who knows just enough about defense to keep getting hired--post-season failures notwithstanding.

This is true. I blame Hard Knocks. Not that I didn't already know Wade was a befuddled, uninspiring pepaw.
 

TellerMorrow34

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Chocolate Lab;2211452 said:
I know fans are emotional creatures, but I swear the negativity around here seems unusually high this year. I don't remember so many people being so down on our players, our coaches, our schemes, our everything... In preseason. Preseason!

And before the self-proclaimed "realists" call me out, I'm not above criticizing parts of the team. You should know that. But we haven't even played a game yet, and it's not like we've had some Browns vs. Giants or Skins vs. Panthers beatdowns in the exhibition games we have played -- our starters have actually looked pretty good. Yet there's still an overwhelming sense of foreboding about this team. Why?

I don't know, but at this rate I can't imagine if we lost a few games during the regular season... Which, guess what, is probably going to happen.

Has it been like this every year, and I've just missed it?

Anyone?

Combination of the high expectations, the sudden end last year, and the fact that it just seems more and more people fancy themselves as some sort of talent scout, or great talent evaluator, from their desk in their home or their 9-5 job.
 
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