1. Awful coaching. Our schemes are very predictable on both sides of the ball. QB's know where to go with the ball. Opposing defenses know what we are going to call on offense. We also use shotgun way too often and throw the ball way too much.
2. Lack of Attention to Detail. We've lost this in part because we felt that talent would always win out. We can't be deceving on defense because our players are too undisciplined and some are just too dumb.
3. Some key players have clearly bought into their own hype and are looking to make the big play at the risk of killing the team so they can make the highlights.
4. Poor coaching. There are ZERO reprecussions for bigger named players who fail to live up to expectations and play undisciplined. Most teams bench players for doing this when they are losing. The good teams will do this even when their team is winning. The Cowboys do it when they are 1-7.
5. Lack of any sense of urgency. The problem with players with a lack of sense of urgency is that when they finally start to have some urgency, it's too late and things get out of their control and because they already dug themselves a hole, now the hole is too insurmountable to get out of.
6. Hudson Houck and Dave Campo have been horrific here. Houck turned a pretty good O-Line in '07 that was sometimes dominating to one of the worst in the league and he has 2 healthy OT's. Campo turned a promising secondary into the league's worst secondary and he still is getting good play from Terence Newman.
7. The regression of Jason Garrett. I would've loved it if Garrett had a couple of years working with Parcells under his belt. He needs a mentor to teach him the importance of runnign the ball and how to be tough on players when needed. Instead, Garrett has had mentors of Dave Wannstedt and Wade Phillips.
8. The regression of key young players like Felix, Jenkins, Scandrick, Spencer and Ratliff. Some for buying into their own hype, some for bad coaching, some for whatever reason.
9. The erosion of special teams play. In '09, we didn't give up big plays on defense and we didn't turn the ball over in our own territory. So we would have a lot of punts (McBriar) and a lot of kickoffs (Buehler). We led the league in opposing starting field position and teams would have to make long drives that took up a lot of plays to score on us. That would usually result in them screwing up with a penalty or a missed pass or a dropped ball and stall the drive. We have none of that this year and while our punt coverage has been good, our kickoff coverage is abysmal.
10. An owner more worried about style than substance.
YR
