I know this post is negative, but all the offseason signs point to another losing season following a great season.
The offensive line lost 40% of last season's starters and it doesn't appear that we have the answers in place yet. L. Collins really struggled in pass protection the other night against the Ram's back-ups. What will he do against JPP and VonMiller? The left guard spot is in shambles right now-and Chaz Green and Tyron Smith can't stay healthy. The depth we had last year is now gone. Any injuries to Zack or Travis Fredrick will have this line looking like the 2012 version.
Losing Zeke Elliott for six games is going to kill the start or our season I believe. We have a real good chance of losing our first three games and it'snot out of the question that we start out 2-4 or even1-5.Zeke is the straw that stirs the drink. Dak had well-defined reads because of how the opposing defenses were geared to stop Zeke. He could take any carry to the house and they knew it. No team out there is going to fear McFadden or Alfred Morris.
This means that Dak is going to see much more diverse coverages and different looks. It will be a huge learning curve for him in my opinion. If Dak struggles to read these coverages the offense will grind to a halt and He stands to lose some of the confidence that he portrayed last year. We must also keep in mind that the QB sophomore slump is a very reall thing. There is a reason that sophmore QB's have struggled throughout the history of the NFL. The defensive coordinators within the division have had all offseason to evaluate that QB's strengths and weaknesses.
With all the suspensions on defense and the young defensive backs does not bode well for a team that may need to win games with their defense early on. As much as this defense overachieved last season, they will likely need to overachieve at an all-time level to carry the team for six games.
Last season the Cowboys benefitted greatly from a last place schedule.This season it is a first place schedule and it is absolutely brutal. Aside from our own, always tough division, we play the Packers, Seattle, Arizona, Oakland, Kansas City and Atlanta. We also play the dreaded three games in eleven games and finish the season with three of four games on the road. Getting the season off to a good start was going to be paramount.
Again I know this sounds extremely negative, but since Jason Garrett has been a coach on this team we have yet to put together two consecutive good seasons. We have a very disturbing precedent of getting complacent after we have success. We also seem to fold like a cheap tent with any sign of adversity (see 2010 and 2015). I'm sorry to have to write this but I think it is best if we get ourselves ready for another long and wasted season.
