It's clear that the main reason why the Cowboys keep losing is the defense

[dthahn]

the DEFENSE!!!!

Wow, I'm reading on this forum how it's Garrett's fault, Romo's fault, Jerry's fault, etc. etc.

I'm stating the obvious but when a team loses 7 projected starters from its defense and several key backup players while learning a NEW defensive scheme then that is a recipe for disaster!!

Projected starters missing: Spencer, Ratliff, Lee, Carter, Durant, Claiborne, Will Allen (was released)

Key backups missing: Tyrone Crawford, Ben Bass, Matt Johnson, Alex Albright, Robert Callaway, Ernie Sims

Backups to the backups: Marvin Austin, Edgar Jones (activated from IR)

Plus other backups that have been cut by the team in a desperate attempt to find serviceable players:
Caeser Rayford, Jerome Long, Landon Cohen, Jeris Pendleton, David Carter, Jason Vega, Everette Dawkins, etc.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand why the defense is the worst in the history of the NFL and the reason why we keep losing games.

I'm not defending anybody but look around the NFL and name me one other team's defense that has had so many injuries and so many poor performances. No team could overcome these circumstances. It's a miracle that the Cowboys are still in contention to win the division.

 

[WhizKid]

the DEFENSE!!!!

Wow, I'm reading on this forum how it's Garrett's fault, Romo's fault, Jerry's fault, etc. etc.

I'm stating the obvious but when a team loses 7 projected starters from its defense and several key backup players while learning a NEW defensive scheme then that is a recipe for disaster!!

Projected starters missing: Spencer, Ratliff, Lee, Carter, Durant, Claiborne, Will Allen (was released)

Key backups missing: Tyrone Crawford, Ben Bass, Matt Johnson, Alex Albright, Robert Callaway, Ernie Sims

Backups to the backups: Marvin Austin, Edgar Jones (activated from IR)

Plus other backups that have been cut by the team in a desperate attempt to find serviceable players:
Caeser Rayford, Jerome Long, Landon Cohen, Jeris Pendleton, David Carter, Jason Vega, Everette Dawkins, etc.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand why the defense is the worst in the history of the NFL and the reason why we keep losing games.

I'm not defending anybody but look around the NFL and name me one other team's defense that has had so many injuries and so many poor performances. No team could overcome these circumstances. It's a miracle that the Cowboys are still in contention to win the division.

I think most people realize it is the defense. But given yesterday's circumstances, we would have, and should have won that game had our coach done his job and used what was working and ran the ball. Running the ball yesterday does some very important things. It keeps the opposing offense off the field and more importantly it keeps the historically bad bad bad defense off the field. They likely keep GB from obtaining one or two more drives and they win the game. The defense is bad, garrett knows it, Jerry knows it, we know it, and the world knows it. But the coach did not do what was necessary to win a very very winnable game. Instead, in the process of trying to outsmart the other team, he outsmarted himself. I'm with you on the injuries, but the ratio of run to pass is inexcusable.

 

[ScipioCowboy]

Jay Ratliff was never going to play for this team again. Everyone knew that.

What does the Will Allen situation have to do with injuries? Allen was cut and replaced by players who the coaching staff deemed superior. If those players turned out to be worse, that's a failure of personnel management.

Tyrone Crawford, Ben Bass, Matt Johnson, Alex Albright, and Robert Callaway have no more proven NFL experience than the players who replaced them: George Selvie, Nick Haydon, JJ Wilcox, Jeff Heath, and Drake Nevis. In fact, Selvie has been a pleasant surprise.

The defense wasn't any better when Sean Lee, Justin Durant, and Ernie Simms were healthy. In fact, Ernie Simms has been awful, and according to Jerry Jones, Kyle Wilber had replaced Justin Durant in the starting lineup.

The Cowboys lost only one defensive player of any known significance they didn't expect to lose: Anthony Spencer. Do you really think Spencer is the difference between the worst defense in Cowboys history and even a mediocre NFL defense?

Sorry, but the injury excuse doesn't fly. The Cowboys have been playing against backup quarterbacks for the past month. I don't know about you, but I'd much rather lose Anthony Spencer for the season than Tony Romo for just a handful of games. If injuries are an excuse to suck, isn't the inverse also true? Shouldn't we expect teams playing without their starting quarterbacks to perform just as poorly as the Cowboys defense? Shouldn't we expect to stop the Packers--a team without their number one receiver, a team starting fourth draft picks along its offensive line, a team starting a street free agent at quarterback--from scoring at least once in the second half?

The injury excuse doesn't fly...unless it's a brain injury that causes a coach to run the ball only four times despite a 23 point second half lead.

 

[wileedog]

You have to understand that Garrett, Jerry and the coaching staff are breathing a huge sigh of relief that the media and fans are once again running with the "Romo sucks in crunch time and in December" storyline.

It is totally covering their arses how poorly this team is built and coached.

 

[Lazyking]

When you have a 23 point lead in the second half and you know you have a crappy defense? Maybe you should run the ball more then 7 times in that half. OR maybe not leave 20 pts on the board because you can't execute in the redzone.

The defense is really really bad. However, the Packers had 3 pts in the first half. I don't care how bad they are, with that lead, that should be a win every time.

 

[hutch1254]

Of course the defense stinks. We all know it. Injuries, personnel choices, whatever. It's just awful. But there is no logic you can give me that tells me the offense needed to throw the ball 40 plus times in a game where they were up 26-3 at the half. It's not rocket science that we need to lean on the offense to keep our defense off the field as much as possible. But with the game in hand and a run game that is just killing them how in the hell are you not intelligent enough to keep running the ball to chew up clock and keep that crappy D off the field? That's a combination of plain old arrogance and stupidity regardless if it's the OC, the HC or the QB.

As a side note...Coby Fleener for the Colts had zero catches and one target yesterday. You know why? Because the Colts went up early in the game and "went with a run heavy attack to gobble up clock and protect the lead." Well crap...we might as well hire someone off the Colts coaching staff because someone over there knows what to do in those situations.

There is no player or scheme that is going to rescue this D the remainder of the year. The best way at this point is to be smart with your offense and special teams, get them to execute and be efficient. It's the only way to offset this dumpster fire of a D. Unfortunately we have a coaching staff that is not intelligent enough to understand that or at the very least execute the proper game management in those two areas.

 

[hutch1254]

You have to understand that Garrett, Jerry and the coaching staff are breathing a huge sigh of relief that the media and fans are once again running with the "Romo sucks in crunch time and in December" storyline.

It is totally covering their arses how poorly this team is built and coached.

You know who sucks in December? Jerry sucks in December. Why doesn't he put together a December winning team as a GM and bask in the glory? Because he can't. Because he sucks at his job. Giant finger in the middle of the hand to that piece of human debris.

 

[Deep_South]

the DEFENSE!!!!

Wow, I'm reading on this forum how it's Garrett's fault, Romo's fault, Jerry's fault, etc. etc.

I'm stating the obvious but when a team loses 7 projected starters from its defense and several key backup players while learning a NEW defensive scheme then that is a recipe for disaster!!

Projected starters missing: Spencer, Ratliff, Lee, Carter, Durant, Claiborne, Will Allen (was released)

Key backups missing: Tyrone Crawford, Ben Bass, Matt Johnson, Alex Albright, Robert Callaway, Ernie Sims

Backups to the backups: Marvin Austin, Edgar Jones (activated from IR)

Plus other backups that have been cut by the team in a desperate attempt to find serviceable players:
Caeser Rayford, Jerome Long, Landon Cohen, Jeris Pendleton, David Carter, Jason Vega, Everette Dawkins, etc.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand why the defense is the worst in the history of the NFL and the reason why we keep losing games.

I'm not defending anybody but look around the NFL and name me one other team's defense that has had so many injuries and so many poor performances. No team could overcome these circumstances. It's a miracle that the Cowboys are still in contention to win the division.

Nice post - the defense is at the core of our failure this year, yet gets relatively little press or discussion compared to Romo throwing a pick. (If the D could have made just one 2nd half stop after the 1st pick and held them to a FG, in all probability we would have won.)

I should add that Lee, Carter, Durant, and Sims were all hurt or not playing at all during crunch time against the Packers. Unless I missed something, there is no news as of yet whether any of them will be playing on Sunday. Plus Hatcher has disappeared since he was criticized about discussing his contract in the media, and Ware is having problems getting to the QB.

ps: I wonder if Ware can play middle linebacker, or is willing to give it a shot? Church maybe?

 

[BIGDen]

Nice post - the defense is at the core of our failure this year, yet gets relatively little press or discussion compared to Romo throwing a pick. (If the D could have made just one 2nd half stop after the 1st pick and held them to a FG, in all probability we would have won.)

I should add that Lee, Carter, Durant, and Sims were all hurt or not playing at all during crunch time against the Packers. Unless I missed something, there is no news as of yet whether any of them will be playing on Sunday. Plus Hatcher has disappeared since he was criticized about discussing his contract in the media, and Ware is having problems getting to the QB.

ps: I wonder if Ware can play middle linebacker, or is willing to give it a shot? Church maybe?

NO NO NO!!! The entire defense can suck and give up 5 straight TDs and it's not really their fault. You see they lost a couple of LBs during the game so nobody else could make a play the entire second half. Not one stop to hold on to a 23 point lead. It's OK. Romo can throw a TD pass to Dez to give the team a 12 point lead with 5 minutes left, but that's not enough. Romo made a bad audible and throw which gave the Packers the ball at the 50. The Packers still needed a TD to win and the defense again let them right in! Damn that Romo - this was all his fault! Romo didn't have a great game but to blame this loss on him is just beyond stupid.

 

[Doomsay]

The injury excuse doesn't fly...unless it's a brain injury that causes a coach to run the ball only four times despite a 23 point second half lead.

LOL, instant classic.

 

[Sarge]

Why limit it to the defense........or the offense? There is plenty of blame to go around from Jerry, to Callahan, to Garrett, to Kiffin, to whoever the hell is calling the plays. The team has issues across the board.

It's gonna be a while...............

 

[Next Years Champ]

You have to understand that Garrett, Jerry and the coaching staff are breathing a huge sigh of relief that the media and fans are once again running with the "Romo sucks in crunch time and in December" storyline.

It is totally covering their arses how poorly this team is built and coached.

This

It's just a bad situation.

It makes you sick as a fan and it makes you even sicker as a believer that the team can fix the problems.

I can't take any more lies or subtifuses of the fanbase.

We have to find more talent to put on the team and we have to find the coaches to lead them.

Which. comes first?

Coaches or players?

 

[Sasquatch]

When the success of your team hinges on the players listed above that tells me that success is unlikely and that your personnel department leaves much to be desired.

 

[Sasquatch]

Why limit it to the defense........or the offense? There is plenty of blame to go around from Jerry, to Callahan, to Garrett, to Kiffin, to whoever the hell is calling the plays. The team has issues across the board.

It's gonna be a while...............

This means that the problem is organizational, not just with the coaches, not just with a single unit of the team, and not just with a handful of players.

 

[Phoenix]

All of that, plus the sudden seeming demise of the once great Ware.

 

[Boyzmamacita]

I think most people realize it is the defense. But given yesterday's circumstances, we would have, and should have won that game had our coach done his job and used what was working and ran the ball. Running the ball yesterday does some very important things. It keeps the opposing offense off the field and more importantly it keeps the historically bad bad bad defense off the field. They likely keep GB from obtaining one or two more drives and they win the game. The defense is bad, garrett knows it, Jerry knows it, we know it, and the world knows it. But the coach did not do what was necessary to win a very very winnable game. Instead, in the process of trying to outsmart the other team, he outsmarted himself. I'm with you on the injuries, but the ratio of run to pass is inexcusable.

Is there a Love button? Because Like is not strong enough in this case.

 

[Sarge]

This means that the problem is organizational, not just with the coaches, not just with a single unit of the team, and not just with a handful of players.

Indeed it does....

 

[Alexander]

If it were "just the defense" these one point losses would not keep happening.

Is our number one problem defense? Of course it is.

But the same systemic breakdowns that are costing the Cowboys games this year have caused them all through Garrett's tenure as head coach. Inopportune Romo miscues, allowing the opposing defense to dictate tempo and even playcalling to the offense, simple clock and game management issues.

But sitting there pretending that if we just fire the defensive architect and get healthy on defense is exactly what the plan was this offseason and it blew up into this grotesque mess of a football team.

The most unfortunate part is if any of the other secondary issues other that the defense was working, we would have already wrapped up the division title by now.

 

[zack]

the DEFENSE!!!!

Wow, I'm reading on this forum how it's Garrett's fault, Romo's fault, Jerry's fault, etc. etc.

I'm stating the obvious but when a team loses 7 projected starters from its defense and several key backup players while learning a NEW defensive scheme then that is a recipe for disaster!!

Projected starters missing: Spencer, Ratliff, Lee, Carter, Durant, Claiborne, Will Allen (was released)

Key backups missing: Tyrone Crawford, Ben Bass, Matt Johnson, Alex Albright, Robert Callaway, Ernie Sims

Backups to the backups: Marvin Austin, Edgar Jones (activated from IR)

Plus other backups that have been cut by the team in a desperate attempt to find serviceable players:
Caeser Rayford, Jerome Long, Landon Cohen, Jeris Pendleton, David Carter, Jason Vega, Everette Dawkins, etc.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand why the defense is the worst in the history of the NFL and the reason why we keep losing games.

I'm not defending anybody but look around the NFL and name me one other team's defense that has had so many injuries and so many poor performances. No team could overcome these circumstances. It's a miracle that the Cowboys are still in contention to win the division.

Look, I understand that outside of the Cowboys fans, people want to blame the QB. But what I can't believe is how many Cowboys fans that blame the QB for our reason for losing. Over the past number of years, it has always been our defense that has killed this team. Last year, we couldn't get a turnover. This year we can, but we can't stop anyone from scoring. With having a defense that will go down as the worst in NFL history, how can people on this forum not see that this is the real problem?

 

[Boyzmamacita]

This

It's just a bad situation.

It makes you sick as a fan and it makes you even sicker as a believer that the team can fix the problems.

I can't take any more lies or subtifuses of the fanbase.

We have to find more talent to put on the team and we have to find the coaches to lead them.

Which. comes first?

Coaches or players?

Maybe the GM comes first. Tex Schramm built the early Cowboys. Jimmy Johnson (unspoken GM) built the second regime. I wanted to believe in Jerry, but there is too much heartache. I wish the Cowboys were completely healthy so there would be no question of whether or not change is needed. The injuries might indeed be the excuse to keep the status quo.