I am a die hard fan for over 50 years. I played high school football and a little in college until I hurt my right knee.
I have a tremendous natural memory bank of Cowboys' teams. My memory never fails me.
I do not care about offensive statistics, as the intelligent people know you can do anything you want with them. A running back who averages 3.2 yards a carry has one run for 55 yards and all of a sudden his average is 4.2. A QB whose teams fall behind by two TD's who wakes up late in the game when the opposing team lets up, puts up big numbers in garbage time and pads his stats.
Here is what I see: a horrible offensive line, not opening holes to give Zeke a chance to get to the second level. Time after time, I see every defense rise to the occsion and stop our running game. It all starts upfront. Our OL is terrible right now.
You all remember Demarco Murray's huge year? Huge holes as wide as a soccer goal net. Romo having 4-5 seconds and sometimes more to find an open receiver. That was a true great OL.
The OL today does not give the Boys a reliable runing game. It is not Zeke's fault. Without the threat of a succesful running game, opposing teams are able to concentrate on defending the pass. That is where Dak's less than stellar QB skills are exposed. He is no Aaron Rodgers. Rodgers does not need a running game. He is better than Brett Favre.
Dak fails so often, it makes me sick. He has some streaks when he is hot, but that is when his OL is dominating. A QB must raise his team, carry his team. Dak cannot do that. He is missing that QB talent. Rodgers has it and is light years better than Dak.
Dak needs to run for first downs. His ankle is stronger than before.
Joe Philbin is the OL coach. He is doing a terrible job. He has no recipe for improving the OL performance. The talent on the OL tells me that it may be the coaching and strategies used are poor.
My eyes see a frightening future this year. There is no chance the Cowboys can beat Green Bay in Green Bay. They have an awesome offensive line, less heralded and less talented than we have, and they are dominating, creating a tremendous running game which can dominate from the start to finish, and close out games. We need an OL performance like Green Bay has right now to be a championship team. If we play them in the playoffs in the cold and wind, it wil be the better OL that prevails. Ours is simply not giving Zeke space. Pollard's superior burst gives us a much better chance, but he is not built for 20+ carries a game.
If the OL of ours can find a way to change their ways and dominate once again, Dak can shine with his less than stellar QB skills. Right now, I see a declined performance in the running game due to the lack of offensive line success.
Without Parsons and Diggs on defense, this team would be 4-9. We were deceived by early succeses offensively this year. The rest of the NFL has shut down our running game and Philbin is clueless what to do. Tom Landry and Jimmy Johnson were brilliant strategists who knew how to counter other teams' adjustments. The current coaching staff remains dumfounded.
If we play the Rams, their menacing DL will probably shut down our running game.
We need a Travis Frederick, Nate Newton, Larry Allen, Erik Wiliams' types who would knock down two defenderss, creating huge running lanes. We need our running game badly to enable Dak to be better, to have any chance to beat the Packers and Rams.
That is why he was not drafted higher. The Boys actually tried to draft several other QB's before they settled on him at the end of the 4th round.
