No matter how you slice it or dice it....

[adallastiger]

....there is plenty of blame to go around. Agreed. However, what has not been mentioned is this.

The Cowboys have no running game. First of all, Felix Jones showed promise, but he is out.

Second, not sure if Marion Barber is entirely healthy. In either case he only averaged 3.7 ypc this year. Under NO circumstances is Marion Barber a starting running back in this league. He is awesome down near the goal line, but does not have breakaway speed and has very little in the way of shiftiness.

One play today is typical of the above, and is probably the reason Jason Garrett should be fired. Third one one? And you pass? You simply are telling the other team that you don't believe you can make one yard rushing. You are admitting defeat right there. I would have said to my team, run it twice, if we can't make it, we don't deserve to win this game.

Yes, I agree with many other posts, and absolutely agree a coaching change is necessary.

Really like Tashard Choice, he will be a good back, but starting Marion Barber means you are in the hole to begin with. He is a second string back, should never be a starter in this league. The injury to Jones really hurt more than most of us think.

Having the worst team chemistry in the league did not help. But really think the loss of Jones put this team in a hole. Simply MUST be able to run the ball.

Only question I have is this: Will a coaching change be announced before the first of the year?

Amazing how right other posts have it where people have said you don't hire an offensive co-ordinator before you hire a head coach. Duhh....

 

[RainMan]

Your post is good, but fairly wide ranging, so I'll reply to the points that I remember (sorry, it's late!!).

I agree on Barber. I think he's a tremendous No. 2 running back who can shoulder the load of getting 12-15 carries a game, getting primarily nearly every goal line, short yardage and fourth-quarter carry available. Unfortunately, the huge money we gave him seems to make us think we have to use him like a Tomlinson or Peterson, despite him not being in that class.

But Garrett's mismanagement of runners goes beyond Barber. First, he didn't know how to use Felix. He promised creativity but rarely did anything with Felix but a simple handoff -- and that's when Garrett remembered to get him on the field at all. Then we sat with just Barber for several weeks, as Choice wasted away on the bench for whatever reason. Then, forced into action, the kid plays as if he's our best offensive player. What gives? Where's our staff's ability to evaluate the talent on hand and use those players to the best of their ability?

And as for the running game itself, it's clear Garrett doesn't value the ground game. It's essentially a decoy to his passing attack to just keep the defense at bay every once in a while.

I don't think we'll ever be a run-first team, and don't necessarily think we should be. But we need to have an offensive toughness about us that allows us to run when we want. IMO, we have the stable of backs. Look at the Giants. They don't have one superstar -- they've got a trio of backs that is unmatched, despite there being no Peterson in the group. I'm not going to compare us to them, because we've yet to accomplish what they have, but I think their ground game is what we need to aspire to be, only relied on a little less frequently since we are a more potent passing team.

But if we are so scorned as to have Garrett return next season, he needs to spend a good portion of his offseason learning: a) how to use the running game and b) how to use his stable of three backs to the team's advantage.

Can't you just envision next season already? We're all stoked to see what a Barber-Jones-Choice backfield looks like, only to have us run the ball 13 times in the opener -- 12 of which are from Barber.

Ugh.

 

[khiladi]

Your post is good, but fairly wide ranging, so I'll reply to the points that I remember (sorry, it's late!!).

I agree on Barber. I think he's a tremendous No. 2 running back who can shoulder the load of getting 12-15 carries a game, getting primarily nearly every goal line, short yardage and fourth-quarter carry available. Unfortunately, the huge money we gave him seems to make us think we have to use him like a Tomlinson or Peterson, despite him not being in that class.

But Garrett's mismanagement of runners goes beyond Barber. First, he didn't know how to use Felix. He promised creativity but rarely did anything with Felix but a simple handoff -- and that's when Garrett remembered to get him on the field at all. Then we sat with just Barber for several weeks, as Choice wasted away on the bench for whatever reason. Then, forced into action, the kid plays as if he's our best offensive player. What gives? Where's our staff's ability to evaluate the talent on hand and use those players to the best of their ability?

And as for the running game itself, it's clear Garrett doesn't value the ground game. It's essentially a decoy to his passing attack to just keep the defense at bay every once in a while.

I don't think we'll ever be a run-first team, and don't necessarily think we should be. But we need to have an offensive toughness about us that allows us to run when we want. IMO, we have the stable of backs. Look at the Giants. They don't have one superstar -- they've got a trio of backs that is unmatched, despite there being no Peterson in the group. I'm not going to compare us to them, because we've yet to accomplish what they have, but I think their ground game is what we need to aspire to be, only relied on a little less frequently since we are a more potent passing team.

But if we are so scorned as to have Garrett return next season, he needs to spend a good portion of his offseason learning: a) how to use the running game and b) how to use his stable of three backs to the team's advantage.

Can't you just envision next season already? We're all stoked to see what a Barber-Jones-Choice backfield looks like, only to have us run the ball 13 times in the opener -- 12 of which are from Barber.

Ugh.

How do you get safeties to bite, when you don't run an effective play-action?

 

[RainMan]

How do you get safeties to bite, when you don't run an effective play-action?

I'm pretty sure Garrett's "scheme" worked a few times for him in Madden -- you know, the dumb computer AI will cause the safeties to bite inexplicably at times -- and figured it was a sound strategy to move forward with.

 

[TheMarathonContinues]

If Barber is nothing but a #2 like you guys admit than the Cowboys severly overpaid for him and should've just let him walk and drafted Mendenhall or any other back they felt could take 25 carries a game. I disagree but I have nothing to back this up with. Barber's first year carrying the load he's been hurt which would point to the fact that maybe he can't carry the load. I think he can but i'll just have to wait another year to be proven wrong.

 

[RainMan]

If Barber is nothing but a #2 like you guys admit than the Cowboys severly overpaid for him and should've just let him walk and drafted Mendenhall or any other back they felt could take 25 carries a game. I disagree but I have nothing to back this up with. Barber's first year carrying the load he's been hurt which would point to the fact that maybe he can't carry the load. I think he can but i'll just have to wait another year to be proven wrong.

I think Barber is an elite situational player. I'd argue he's the best short-yardage, goal-line and fourth-quarter running back in the game.

Now, is that worth $45 million? I don't think so, and I think most here admitted we overpaid for him when he signed him last offseason, but were glad to see him return and figured, "Hey, there may be no cap in the future so maybe it won't hurt us too much down the road."

My thing is this: Just because you overpaid for the guy doesn't mean you should change his role to the point where he's no longer effective. I think th sort of role he played for the majority of 2007 -- a non-starter who received the bulk of the carries, particularly late, but not all the carries -- is ideal for him. Now, the whole "starter" thing is just window dressing; I'm only concerned with the amount of carries he gets and when. It's ridiculous that it took injuries to get our other backs in the game.

Again, going back to last season our running game was quite effective minus the fact we needed someone better than Julius performing Julius' role. So we go and get that replacement -- a HUGE upgrade, by the way, in Felix -- and then re-up Barber, and then change Barber's role and forget all about how to implement Julius' replacement.

Just silly.

As for why I don't think Barber is an every-down, elite back, he simply isn't that effective early. There's a handful of games where he has 1 yards on his first 5 carries, or at least it sure seems that way. I think we'd be better served letting someone else chip away at a defense early, and then start busting them with Barber more and more as the game wears on.

 

[TwoSteppinJJ]

You make some good points but I disagree with you. Barber is a legit starter in this league he would be the starting running back on a good number of other teams and do just fine. He makes guys miss, breaks tackles, catches the ball, and leaves it all out on the field. Sure the 3.7 average stinks but the Run blocking this year has stunk, all year long. There was a stretch of games when we had Kosier and the ground game was getting sufficient blocking but other than that the run blocking was terrible. Having defenders in the backfield before hes even across the Line of scrimmage really doesn't suit his style.

I say chill.... Barber is a beast and will obviously benefit having Felix back next year. Who knows how we use our runnning backs though. Thats all up in the air.

Mendenhall? give me a break...