Tuesday, June 07, 2016 4:26 PM CDT
Rob Phillips
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- Why is Kellen Moore the frontrunner to back up Romo? He showed the coaching staff he can get the ball down the field. In roughly 11 quarters of play in late December/January, Moore delivered 13 pass plays of 20 yards or more. How many did the rest of the Cowboys’ 2015 quarterbacks have in the season’s other 53 quarters? 27. There certainly are times when Moore’s lack of height works against him and he’ll get a pass batted down at the line of scrimmage, but he does have some mobility to buy an extra second in the pocket, even though he’s not much of a scrambler. “He keeps plays alive. He scrambles a different way, if that makes sense,” offensive coordinator Scott Linehan says. Another thing the coaches like about Moore as a backup: he can run the offense without the coaching staff having to make many tweaks
- Randy Gregory played only 244 defensive snaps as a rookie due in part to injuries, and now he’s facing a four-game NFL suspension, but he’s clearly still the most fluid pass rusher on the team. You can tell his defensive teammates see it, too, based on the encouragement they give him in drills before the snap. It’s like they expect him to capture the edge. Shame he won’t be eligible to play the first month of the regular season, because this D-Line needs him.
- As a rookie, receiver Lucky Whitehead was listed at 180 pounds. By the end of the season he said he checked in at 170 pounds. Now he’s up to about 183, the extra weight and strength there to help him battle through the upcoming 16-game grind. But don’t worry: he doesn’t believe a few extra pounds will compromise his speed. Whitehead said he also worked on improving his lower-body strength this offseason so he can better carry the extra weight.
Kellen Moore is the backup simply because there really isn't much out there from a price vs performance standpoint. He knows the offense and is considered very smart and has just barely enough physical talent to get by. Counting on him for any more than that is silly. As far as the coaches liking him because he can run the offense without having to make many tweaks, that might just explain why we couldn't win last year without Romo. The coaching staff should be easily able to adjust the offense to each QB....do you really go through a whole offseason of work and not know that your QB won't challenge the defense down the field?
The Gregory hype is cool and all, but we heard the same last year...he was supposedly holding his own against Tyron Smith, he was getting sacks in preseason play and he was going to be a difference maker...then he hurt the ankle and might as well have been shut down then. Hopefully the hype will play out this year even if it starts in game 5.
So Lucky was 180 last year, and is now 183 and it is supposed to be a huge difference? I don't think 3 lbs is gonna make that much of a difference...when it was being reported that he gained 10-15 lbs from last season I was hoping that he was going to be in 190 range, I was hoping to see him closer to Dwayne Harris size. They both are listed at 5'10 but Harris is listed at 208. My hope is that he does become more like Dwayne.
Phillips talks about not trading away depth and I agree to an extent because injuries always seem to happen and it would be nice if it was at a spot where you had a starting level replacement like Leary or McFadden. By the same token, if you have positions of weakness, the argument is to use that depth to strengthen your weak spot. As they always say, you are only as good as your weakest link.
Finally, I am definitely looking forward to seeing what Brice Butler can do with Romo and Bryant in the lineup. I think we all see the writing on the wall with Williams. Williams has performed well enough that he should be able to sign for a deal averaging 4 to 5m a year but everyone wants to put him in the Hurns class. He is nowhere near that and if that is his value range going forward we can't pay that.
