For those of you who hate Romo or Dak, what's your true motive in doing so?

[kskboys]

Close race between the couple that say he will be better than any Cowboy QB in history vs the couple who think freaking Cooper Rush is better

Rush shouldn't be on an NFL roster.

 

[Haimerej]

I've been critical of Dak since the get go. I was one of a few at DC.com fighting the ill-fated battle of wanting Romo to return during Dak's rookie year. My argument was then what it is now- in 2016 Romo was the better QB.

Don't care about Romo spitting the bit in earlier years. He played at an elite level at that point in his career. That 2014 offense was near unstoppable and Zeke blew Murray out of the water. Dak played well enough, but he (and by extension, the offense) was obviously limited.

Don't care about, "chemistry." "Chemistry," is for those who seek camaraderie. It sounds like a millenial sentiment. Sure, it's nice to work with people you like, but professionals shouldn't have to like each other to perform. For all the talk about his leadership problems, Romo didn't seem to suffer from them late in his career. I'm sure a few drives down the field resulting in touchdowns would magically create chemistry.

Don't care about Romo's health. If it was that bad, he should've never been cleared. He was cleared. If he got hurt again- that's the nature of the game. I always thought that argument was idiotic. If we shouldn't play guys based on the chance they could get hurt real bad, then get out the shorts and flags.

"But we're winning!!!!" Me- no rookie has ever won a SB. I don't want to see us go into the playoffs and lose. The guy who has been top 3 the last few years gives us a better chance. Opponents will eventually shut down Zeke, stop biting on every play-action, stay at home defending the rollout, and force him to play from the pocket. Dak hasn't even taken a 5 step drop (at the time, he hadn't).

But they kept winning in the regular season. I was labeled a hater. Many who have made the migration here intimated or even flat out stated my, "hate," was melanin based. Those people are morons who couldn't deal with actual critiques of Dak's play and believe, "wins," are a QB stat.

Didn't matter that I actually praised Dak, either. I even acknowledged he was likely the QB of the future. Just my completely rational view that the guy who was predicting plays on TV a year later was better suited to lead the team caused apoplectic fits among Dakolites, who, coincidentally I'm sure, seemed to be regulars of the, "I hate Romo," subforum at DC.com. Not all... not all...

So... do I hate Dak? No. I've been critical. My criticisms were completely validated after Zeke's suspension. Has he gotten better? Yeah. I think he started looking better in the latter half of last year. He seemed more decisive and saw the field well. I'm hoping it really has clicked and he can be a complete QB.

But I'm not waiving any banners yet. I think Zeke's holdout is directly related to all the love Dak has been given the last few years. What still bothers me is even his biggest fans still praise him for things unrelated to his job. "Intangibles!" "Leadership!" Who cares? Can he stand in the pocket, find the open guy, make the throw, and score touchdowns?

It also makes me nervous when his fans say things like, "he needs to run more!!!!" It's like an acknowledgement that he's not a complete passer. As validated as I felt when Dak couldn't score for 10 quarters, it still sucks to see my team suck. I am an optimist at heart so I hope he continues to get better. But as I've been saying since he was a rookie, I don't believe you can win a Super Bowl without a true pocket passing QB.

Rollouts cut the field in half. Play-action doesn't work if they stop your running game. Read-options aren't as tricky if the defense prepares for them. There's a reason guys like Montana, Brady, Manning, and all the greats were pocket passers. It's the same reason Romo played so well late in his career. Passing plays are designed to work if the right read is made and the ball is thrown well. It's why a standard NFL QB always looks good in 7 on 7.

 

[CowboyRoy]

Roy, I understand the NFL is a passing league and everything must be damn close to great around Dak for him to be successful. I would rather roll the dice on Trevor Lawrence or someone similar rather then spending a huge portion of our cap on Dak. I like him. I respect what he accomplished. Purchased his jerseys for me and my son his rookie year.

He is not great. He is OK. I want great. It is much easier to build a long running contender around a great QB. I want multiple championships.

Says who? You? This perfect nonsense around Dak is what a troll says.

So the last two years have been perfect? Garrett is perfect?

 

[sean10mm]

He is not great. He is OK. I want great. It is much easier to build a long running contender around a great QB. I want multiple championships.

Well no kidding. Welcome to the party, pal.

Seriously though, I have zero heartburn with this point of view, as long as you're honest about the risks involved.

Many teams have not had one of those guys for their entire existence. If you purge every QB who isn't an obvious Hall of Famer you could literally be dead from old age before they get one. Maybe your children, too. You could also miss out on a guy who just needed 1 more season for everything to click.

Also realize that many teams have won Super Bowls with guys who spent most of their careers being just OK. If you purge every starting QB who looks like they leveled off at just OK after all of 3 seasons, you're mostly going to be starting guys who are WORSE than that. Imagine if the Ravens purged Joe Flacco after 4 years being camped out around the league average in passing stats while playing on loaded teams that couldn't get over the hump.

e: Here are the QBs with a Super Bowl ring that aren't within 5,000 miles of being "great" before they got a ring (or ever, in most cases):

Jim Plunkett (x2)
Jim McMahon
Joe Theismann
Phil Simms
Doug Williams
Jeff Hostetler
Mark Rypien
Trent Dilfer
Brad Johnson
Eli Manning (x2)
Joe Flacco
Nick Foles

 

[sean10mm]

So we're purging Dak after 3 seasons for looking "Just OK." I wonder how Troy Aikman looked after 3 seasons. Was he an obvious Hall of Famer and sure-fire multiple champion QB?

Uh... no. Not even remotely.

Year    Age  Tm Pos No.  G GS  QBrec Cmp Att Cmp%  Yds TD TD% Int Int% Y/A   Y/G Rate
1989     23 DAL  QB   8 11 11 0-11-0 155 293 52.9 1749  9 3.1  18  6.1 6.0 159.0 55.7
1990     24 DAL  QB   8 15 15  7-8-0 226 399 56.6 2579 11 2.8  18  4.5 6.5 171.9 66.6
1991*    25 DAL  QB   8 12 12  7-5-0 237 363 65.3 2754 11 3.0  10  2.8 7.6 229.5 86.7

Until Troy Aikman turned into Troy ******* Aikman in 1992, he was just a guy who peaked throwing 11 TDs in a season and spent his first 2 years mostly passing the ball to opposing defensive backs.

 

[JBond]

Says who? You? This perfect nonsense around Dak is what a troll says.

So the last two years have been perfect? Garrett is perfect?

Lol. Tolling? Nope. Picking on a low IQ football guy? Clearly.

Dak is average. He production is average. It is tough to win Championships with an average QB. You can recognize the truth or continue to ignore it. I don't really care.

Unless Dak makes dramatic improvements paying him $35 million a year will screw the team for a decade.

 

[CowboyRoy]

Lol. Tolling? Nope. Picking on a low IQ football guy? Clearly.

Dak is average. He production is average. It is tough to win Championships with an average QB. You can recognize the truth or continue to ignore it. I don't really care.

Unless Dak makes dramatic improvements paying him $35 million a year will screw the team for a decade.

Only a fool would expect league leading stats from a QB in a run first, conservative offense.

Most wins in the NFL in 3 years, most clutch QB in the NFL last 3 years, 18 rushing TD's in 3 years. Another troll debunked.

Only thing that is going to happen for a decade is a handful of cry baby trolls are going use up a lot of tissues.

 

[75boyz]

I've been critical of Dak since the get go. I was one of a few at DC.com fighting the ill-fated battle of wanting Romo to return during Dak's rookie year. My argument was then what it is now- in 2016 Romo was the better QB.

Don't care about Romo spitting the bit in earlier years. He played at an elite level at that point in his career. That 2014 offense was near unstoppable and Zeke blew Murray out of the water. Dak played well enough, but he (and by extension, the offense) was obviously limited.

Don't care about, "chemistry." "Chemistry," is for those who seek camaraderie. It sounds like a millenial sentiment. Sure, it's nice to work with people you like, but professionals shouldn't have to like each other to perform. For all the talk about his leadership problems, Romo didn't seem to suffer from them late in his career. I'm sure a few drives down the field resulting in touchdowns would magically create chemistry.

Don't care about Romo's health. If it was that bad, he should've never been cleared. He was cleared. If he got hurt again- that's the nature of the game. I always thought that argument was idiotic. If we shouldn't play guys based on the chance they could get hurt real bad, then get out the shorts and flags.

"But we're winning!!!!" Me- no rookie has ever won a SB. I don't want to see us go into the playoffs and lose. The guy who has been top 3 the last few years gives us a better chance. Opponents will eventually shut down Zeke, stop biting on every play-action, stay at home defending the rollout, and force him to play from the pocket. Dak hasn't even taken a 5 step drop (at the time, he hadn't).

But they kept winning in the regular season. I was labeled a hater. Many who have made the migration here intimated or even flat out stated my, "hate," was melanin based. Those people are morons who couldn't deal with actual critiques of Dak's play and believe, "wins," are a QB stat.

Didn't matter that I actually praised Dak, either. I even acknowledged he was likely the QB of the future. Just my completely rational view that the guy who was predicting plays on TV a year later was better suited to lead the team caused apoplectic fits among Dakolites, who, coincidentally I'm sure, seemed to be regulars of the, "I hate Romo," subforum at DC.com. Not all... not all...

So... do I hate Dak? No. I've been critical. My criticisms were completely validated after Zeke's suspension. Has he gotten better? Yeah. I think he started looking better in the latter half of last year. He seemed more decisive and saw the field well. I'm hoping it really has clicked and he can be a complete QB.

But I'm not waiving any banners yet. I think Zeke's holdout is directly related to all the love Dak has been given the last few years. What still bothers me is even his biggest fans still praise him for things unrelated to his job. "Intangibles!" "Leadership!" Who cares? Can he stand in the pocket, find the open guy, make the throw, and score touchdowns?

It also makes me nervous when his fans say things like, "he needs to run more!!!!" It's like an acknowledgement that he's not a complete passer. As validated as I felt when Dak couldn't score for 10 quarters, it still sucks to see my team suck. I am an optimist at heart so I hope he continues to get better. But as I've been saying since he was a rookie, I don't believe you can win a Super Bowl without a true pocket passing QB.

Rollouts cut the field in half. Play-action doesn't work if they stop your running game. Read-options aren't as tricky if the defense prepares for them. There's a reason guys like Montana, Brady, Manning, and all the greats were pocket passers. It's the same reason Romo played so well late in his career. Passing plays are designed to work if the right read is made and the ball is thrown well. It's why a standard NFL QB always looks good in 7 on 7.

HOF level post. Wish you posted more often. I admit to a man crush on your posts since your last debate v. percyhoward and how expertly you debunked his 4th quarter defense is gassed stats theory. Your writing style is extremely factual, insightful and convincing. Keep on posting bro. I appreciate it.

 

[Bob-Lillys-War]

Well , with or without our opinions i think Dak will get signed .

 

[75boyz]

Well no kidding. Welcome to the party, pal.

Seriously though, I have zero heartburn with this point of view, as long as you're honest about the risks involved.

Many teams have not had one of those guys for their entire existence. If you purge every QB who isn't an obvious Hall of Famer you could literally be dead from old age before they get one. Maybe your children, too. You could also miss out on a guy who just needed 1 more season for everything to click.

Also realize that many teams have won Super Bowls with guys who spent most of their careers being just OK. If you purge every starting QB who looks like they leveled off at just OK after all of 3 seasons, you're mostly going to be starting guys who are WORSE than that. Imagine if the Ravens purged Joe Flacco after 4 years being camped out around the league average in passing stats while playing on loaded teams that couldn't get over the hump.

e: Here are the QBs with a Super Bowl ring that aren't within 5,000 miles of being "great" before they got a ring (or ever, in most cases):

Jim Plunkett (x2)
Jim McMahon
Joe Theismann
Phil Simms
Doug Williams
Jeff Hostetler
Mark Rypien
Trent Dilfer
Brad Johnson
Eli Manning (x2)
Joe Flacco
Nick Foles

So I guess my questions would be, in your opinion, "does Dak make this list or is 2019 his one more season for everything to click or ...is his actual ceiling comparable to Aikman as Aikman stats were very lackluster his first 3 years?"

Or maybe a combination of all of these questions some where in between.

 

[Ring Leader]

Well no kidding. Welcome to the party, pal.

Seriously though, I have zero heartburn with this point of view, as long as you're honest about the risks involved.

Many teams have not had one of those guys for their entire existence. If you purge every QB who isn't an obvious Hall of Famer you could literally be dead from old age before they get one. Maybe your children, too. You could also miss out on a guy who just needed 1 more season for everything to click.

Also realize that many teams have won Super Bowls with guys who spent most of their careers being just OK. If you purge every starting QB who looks like they leveled off at just OK after all of 3 seasons, you're mostly going to be starting guys who are WORSE than that. Imagine if the Ravens purged Joe Flacco after 4 years being camped out around the league average in passing stats while playing on loaded teams that couldn't get over the hump.

e: Here are the QBs with a Super Bowl ring that aren't within 5,000 miles of being "great" before they got a ring (or ever, in most cases):

Jim Plunkett (x2)
Jim McMahon
Joe Theismann
Phil Simms
Doug Williams
Jeff Hostetler
Mark Rypien
Trent Dilfer
Brad Johnson
Eli Manning (x2)
Joe Flacco
Nick Foles

This can't be right. I've been told many times in this forum how "great" Eli is.

 

[PhillyCowboysFan]

What is their reason? I’ll tell you, stupidly!

 

[DandyDon1722]

In this thread, I would like to ask that we avoid discussing things like stats, Super Bowls, playoff wins, QB rating, turnovers, efficiency on third down or so forth - we've already done those topics dozens of times before already. Whether Romo/Dak is clutch or not, good or bad, has been done to death. So no need to talk about that. We don't need to talk about the bobbled snap in Seattle or Dak's deep ball.


What I do want to talk about is this: Let's just address the elephant in the room. There is a certain segment of the Cowboys fanbase that quite openly hates Romo or Dak, and takes a personal vested interest in seeing to it that Romo's career is perceived as negatively as possible, or wants Dak to fail.

So - for those of you who do (and we all already know some posters who fit one of those descriptions - I won't name them by name, but you and we know who you are) - what's your real motive in this? Do you, as a Romo fan, feel that trashing Dak somehow elevates Romo? Do you, a Dak fan, feel that trashing Romo somehow elevates Dak?

What are your real motives? No need to be shy, let's hear them. I'm not starting this thread to be judgmental, I really do want to see what people's honest motives are here.

All I did was hit the reply button because I have neither the time nor the inclination to argue with other posters so this is like a one on one response and I think it’s an interesting post.

As I’ve stated many times the Romo haters are the 5%ers. Just about everybody else gets it. He was an undrafted free agent and he kept 4-12 teams (along with Jerry) relevant for most of his career. He’s going into the ROH and after a 20 year broadcast run probably the HOF if he continues with his career.

Dark is harder to pin down. He’s a good QB who has saved us from Quincy Carter hell. I think Dak scares us with the notion that 30 million plus will doom the franchise and for me it’s an easy fix. Let him play one more year on his contract. One more will absolutely slot him where he needs to be salary wise and nobody should begrudge him if after this year he truly proves he’s a franchise QB. If not we will all know.

Finally, in 40 years I can honestly say there is only one Dallas Cowboy I have ever hated.

T.O.

 

[DallasEast]

Don't care about, "chemistry."

Don't care about Romo's health. If it was that bad, he should've never been cleared. He was cleared. If he got hurt again- that's the nature of the game. I always thought that argument was idiotic. If we shouldn't play guys based on the chance they could get hurt real bad, then get out the shorts and flags.

"But we're winning!!!!" Me- no rookie has ever won a SB. I don't want to see us go into the playoffs and lose.

Didn't matter that I actually praised Dak, either. I even acknowledged he was likely the QB of the future

I cannot like everything but I can like all of the above. I have repeatedly stated the same things since October 2016. It is a mad mad mad mad world but solace can be achieved knowing there is some sanity mixed in too.

 

[sean10mm]

So I guess my questions would be, in your opinion, "does Dak make this list or is 2019 his one more season for everything to click or ...is his actual ceiling comparable to Aikman as Aikman stats were very lackluster his first 3 years?"

Or maybe a combination of all of these questions some where in between.

Mostly I'm just saying people are jumping the gun on wanting to bury Dak this soon.

It's easy to explain Aikman's struggles in retrospect because we already know he's a 3 time champion. But before he did that he was a nice game manager in 1991 and an inaccurate, turnover-prone punching bag in 1989-1990. If this forum existed in 1991 everyone would be crapping on Aikman for having worse volume numbers than Staubach in a more pass-happy era, and for getting wiped out in the playoffs by the beepin' Lions, and what success he had would be attributed to roster improvements around him.

I don't believe in quarterback "ceilings" much unless we're talking about somebody with a gross talent deficiency like Ken Dorsey, or just seems hopelessly unable to learn like Tim Tebow, or a guy whose body just broke down in the NFL game like Chad Pennington. Almost all quarterbacks are mainly limited by their mental capacity for the game and technique, and every guy's rate of progress on those fronts is completely different and notoriously hard to predict. Unfortunately for Dak those things also depend a whole lot on coaching, which is the part of the Cowboys I trust the least.

 

[CB61]

Rose colored glasses - Aikman has stated he didn’t step up to the loudmouth leader until Jimmy left (and it was mostly due to frustration)

There are different kinds of leaders. And this isn’t any Romo bias either, I believe Prescott has decent leadership qualities as well.

Well I guess I should be more clear what I was speaking about is the time that Aikman went over to the offensive line and screamed at them but it was a f****** embarrassment out there that's the kind of things I'm talking about calling people out during the game. I remembered the divisional round loss to the Giants after the Cabo incident, the only one I saw chilling anybody out on the sidelines was Tony sparano everybody else is just sit there and take it attitude and I see way too much of that on the Cowboys like I've said before and many others have said here it has to be a culture change for us to be really successful and win a Superbowl Imo

 

[kskboys]

Mostly I'm just saying people are jumping the gun on wanting to bury Dak this soon.

It's easy to explain Aikman's struggles in retrospect because we already know he's a 3 time champion. But before he did that he was a nice game manager in 1991 and an inaccurate, turnover-prone punching bag in 1989-1990. If this forum existed in 1991 everyone would be crapping on Aikman for having worse volume numbers than Staubach in a more pass-happy era, and for getting wiped out in the playoffs by the beepin' Lions, and what success he had would be attributed to roster improvements around him.

I don't believe in quarterback "ceilings" much unless we're talking about somebody with a gross talent deficiency like Ken Dorsey, or just seems hopelessly unable to learn like Tim Tebow, or a guy whose body just broke down in the NFL game like Chad Pennington. Almost all quarterbacks are mainly limited by their mental capacity for the game and technique, and every guy's rate of progress on those fronts is completely different and notoriously hard to predict. Unfortunately for Dak those things also depend a whole lot on coaching, which is the part of the Cowboys I trust the least.

And your last sentence is what has given me new hope. We now have 2 heady guys in charge of the O. Will it work? I don't know, but I do know different might be better. I do know that we need new schemes and Moore will bring some. I do know that Romo had struggled mightily w/ leadership and being a good teammate before Kitna got here and taught him how. I do know that Kitna and Moore both know how to play QB, albeit limited by their skillsets.

IMO, the future is bright.