Sabbatical Year

[Bobhaze]

If our defense is as good as it was this year, we'll probably win around 12 games again. But one and done with this offense.

Micah Parsons is a total stud and this D got way better last year for sure. But I think it still has a long way to go. Having all those TO’s last year masked some major deficiencies that were very evident in games where they didn’t have multiple TO’s.

When the Cowboys got behind early, teams could run on us pretty easily as evidenced by the niners game. Our best pass rusher last year was our stud rookie LB. Diggs made a ton of great int’s but he was also beaten like a drum too many times for big yardage.

I agree with you that the offense was terrible toward the end of the year and the defense was better. But both sides of the ball must get better to win 12 games next year. And that’s assuming we keep a few of the 21 Free Agents we are looking at and have an excellent draft. We’re facing a first place schedule next year so it will be more difficult to replicate what this team did this year.

 

[DuncanIso]

McCarthy will be in year 3 of a 5-year contract. He is not any more of a lame duck than any other coach on the "hot seat." I would say McCarthy's seat isn't even the hottest of the coaches who will be on the hot seat next season. As far as Payton, I don't think he is waiting for the Dallas job. He may have interest if things line up but I don't think he stepped away from New Orleans to put himself in position for the Dallas job.

except Jerry is almost 80…

and wants a ring now.

 

[DuncanIso]

A 12-5 season is a train wreck? There's about 25 teams in the league that would trade their entire roster for the Cowboys' straight up.

The doom and gloom on this board is just dramatic nonsense.

Enjoy your sabbatical and whiskey sir!

6-5 vs non NFC E.

 

[doomsday9084]

So JJ has decided to maintain the status quo with MM while allowing rumors to swirl about Payton— and retaining Quinn at DC, and Moore likely returns at OC.

The handwriting is on the wall for McCarthy. JJ has created a lame duck scenario for Mike… so this is just a wasted year of Dallas treading water.

We will lose some FAs this year due to the cap situation. We likely aren’t signing any FA that will make a difference. Moore and Dak will return with the same offense we have seen. Playing on a 1st place schedule—We will win 8-9 games. Mike will be fired. Quinn will be promoted to HC next year— or Payton will.

So what is the point of watching this year? JJ may be alright with wasting the talent on the roster— but doesn’t mean I’m gonna let him waste my time.

After the clown-show end to this season…. I may just shift into sabbatical mode. Watch a game here or there. Just don’t see them doing anything worth a damn in 2022. Might as well focus on other things for a bit.

Still enjoy this forum and chatting with you all… but this team is up Crap Creek so nothing to do but sit back and laugh at the train wreck JJ has created lol

You forgot to mention the part where Jerry hypes the draft class, says he likes his guys and mentions super bowl before the season to get people to buy tickets.

But yeah, for the most part the next two years are likely toast. I kind of hope Jerry bites the bullet and takes the cap hits this year to give us hope for future years instead of trying to squeeze a few more wins out of the team and get a 1 and done wild card birth.

I would just prioritize the guys who look to be here 2 years from now:
Dak, Diggs, Parsons, Lamb, Kelvin Joseph, Osa plus a few others. Man I hope they have a fantastic draft and the lines need a lot of work.

Would be nice to trade a few of the older guys too in order to get more draft assets.

 

[doomsday9084]

6-5 vs non NFC E.

6-6 including the playoffs. 5-6 in games Dak played.

And that's before they lose Cooper, Shultz, LVE, etc. as free agents or cap hits.

 

[khiladi]

Jerry was pretty livid in one of the post-interviews after the game. He knew the team was about to get decimated via free agency and basically stated it’s hard to keep talented players together and this this year was a completely wasted opportunity that doesn’t come around often.

 

[visionary]

If our defense is as good as it was this year, we'll probably win around 12 games again. But one and done with this offense.

defense will not be as good
No way we’re getting near as many turnovers this year

 

[visionary]

Part of me thinks this season will be a dumpster fire with MM staring out from the sideline dreaming of a rack of ribs. But part of me thinks maybe cutting some dead weight from the past in FA and retooling one more time gets us a surprise season.

if we lose 2-3 in a row at some point it will unravel very quickly

 

[Flamma]

Micah Parsons is a total stud and this D got way better last year for sure. But I think it still has a long way to go. Having all those TO’s last year masked some major deficiencies that were very evident in games where they didn’t have multiple TO’s.

When the Cowboys got behind early, teams could run on us pretty easily as evidenced by the niners game. Our best pass rusher last year was our stud rookie LB. Diggs made a ton of great int’s but he was also beaten like a drum too many times for big yardage.

I agree with you that the offense was terrible toward the end of the year and the defense was better. But both sides of the ball must get better to win 12 games next year. And that’s assuming we keep a few of the 21 Free Agents we are looking at and have an excellent draft. We’re facing a first place schedule next year so it will be more difficult to replicate what this team did this year.

Take a step back for a second and recognize the pattern. Yeah our D has issues, but it has been the only reason Dallas went 12-5. Our offense is the same as it was since 2019. The D is the only difference. The offense has the same pattern of slow starts, or total ineptitude against good teams. Peek the 2019 schedule. Same thing for 2020 except it's a bit harder to spot due to how bad the D was. It's probably the offensive line or our OC. He took over in 2019 and our OL isn't getting any younger.

On Diggs. He looks back at the QB. That's why he gives up yards. He doesn't just chase the butt of the WR. He can only improve, but he's still going to give up plays looking back. But he'll get INTs too.

 

[Flamma]

defense will not be as good
No way we’re getting near as many turnovers this year

We're absolutely screwed if that's the case.

 

[Meat-O-Rama]

We went from a losing season with no hope of playoffs to a 12 win season and runaway division champs, a vastly improved defense and the league's highest rated offense. We lost a playoff game to the same team that went into Green Bay and shut down the mighty Aarron Rodgers and Nathaniel Hackett/Matt LaFleur. We certainly regressed offensively in the second half of the season, but blowing it all up and starting over with a new head coach and OC is not a recipe for success.

There was a lot to like about our season and there's plenty not to like, but some of you act like the only possible outcome next year is failure. I choose to be optimistic and believe these coaches are not idiots and are capable of identifying and fixing our weaknesses. And I choose to believe that Will McClay and the front office will find enough new talent to take the next step and compete for the Super Bowl.

 

[Risen Star]

Another incorrect lame duck reference.

Yes, he's a lame duck in that if he wins he stays making him not a lame duck at all.

 

[Risen Star]

Really? An 80 year old Jerruh Jones is willing to just throw a season away and wait until he's 81 to figure it out? Ok. Got it.

Fans are upset.

If you can't see why this head coach must go now to replace him with someone with the same resume you just don't know football.

 

[Hawkeye19]

No lie man, they murdered a part of my fanhood this year.

I knew we were in trouble when the run game stopped working, but I hoped against hope we'd make adjustments. Then inserting Cwill back into the line up helped, at least initially.

I knew we had lost to higher caliber teams and gotten alot of easy wins vs poor teams. It's was deceptive though. We lost close games to good teams and beat the ever loving crap out of bad teams. Consequently I thought maybe we could catch fire and make a run.

Nope they proved to be frauds. The run game was non-existent, the oline sucked, the qb fell apart AND KM never adjusted. Even worse, MM refused to help bring up a struggling, inexperienced coordinator. The demise was inevitable.

Which is why if Jerry is going to force MM on us again and he doesn't at least replace the offensive coordinator and line coach I will be waiting to fail all season. Wake me up for the playoffs. It would be great to field a winning team in consecutive years, but it's a task not accomplished in recent memory.

Preach

 

[Hawkeye19]

Really? An 80 year old Jerruh Jones is willing to just throw a season away and wait until he's 81 to figure it out? Ok. Got it.

He is not intentionally throwing it away. He is delusional and can’t stop doing the same thing over and over again and getting the same result

He actually believes “we’re close to winning a SB”

Cowboys!

 

[Hawkeye19]

Another incorrect lame duck reference.

Yes, he's a lame duck in that if he wins he stays making him not a lame duck at all.

MM has zero authority and has been undermined by the man in charge. No one will listen to anything Mike says.

Quinn coming back seals it. When failure occurs— and it will— Mike will get to have the bag of crap around his neck and take all the blame. JJ gets to “re-energize” the franchise by promoting Quinn and we get to do it all over again.

He is a HC in title only.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lame duck

Definition points 1 and 3 apply

 

[Creeper]

I had low expectations for 2022 before the 2021 season even started. One look at the salary CAP and the list of Cowboys free agents is like reading the tea leaves. We already know what Jerry is going to do in free agency. Just go back to 2017 and review how the Cowboys dealt with a similar CAP problem.

Dallas will sign one or two of their own free agents to avoid a total collapse in morale among the fans, but will do most of their FA shopping at K-Mart. Jerry will convince us, or try, that the players he signed to cheap one year deals will be stars because the excellent Cowboys coaches will know how to use them better than how they were used in the past. All the players he signs to fill out the roster will be better fits in Dallas, according to the Cowboys PR.

Then we'll get to the draft and of course, whoever they draft in the first round will be the next Micah Parsons, Zack Martin or Jason Witten. The 2nd round pick will have lots of upside.

The best chance Dallas has to win in 2022 is going to be the development of the Cowboys 2nd and 3rd year players. Guys like Gallimore and Odighizuwa will have to make big leaps in performance from 2021. Kelvin Joseph will have to replace Anthony Brown and be a sticky CB opposite Diggs. Most importantly Parsons will have to repeat his 2021 season while Cox comes back from injury to be a stud sideline to sideline tackling machine.

One other thought on 2022. The Cowboys were actually fairly lucky with injuries in 2021. They had almost everyone back by the playoffs. That is good fortune that is unlikely to continue in 2022. But they will need to stay healthy in 2022 again.

Then somehow, they will need to learn to play better againsts top competition because they will get a lot of it in 2022.

 

[J_Allen]

Cut demarcus Lawrence and Cooper and cap probably solved.

 

[blueblood70]

So JJ has decided to maintain the status quo with MM while allowing rumors to swirl about Payton— and retaining Quinn at DC, and Moore likely returns at OC.

The handwriting is on the wall for McCarthy. JJ has created a lame duck scenario for Mike… so this is just a wasted year of Dallas treading water.

We will lose some FAs this year due to the cap situation. We likely aren’t signing any FA that will make a difference. Moore and Dak will return with the same offense we have seen. Playing on a 1st place schedule—We will win 8-9 games. Mike will be fired. Quinn will be promoted to HC next year— or Payton will.

So what is the point of watching this year? JJ may be alright with wasting the talent on the roster— but doesn’t mean I’m gonna let him waste my time.

After the clown-show end to this season…. I may just shift into sabbatical mode. Watch a game here or there. Just don’t see them doing anything worth a damn in 2022. Might as well focus on other things for a bit.

Still enjoy this forum and chatting with you all… but this team is up Crap Creek so nothing to do but sit back and laugh at the train wreck JJ has created lol

NO he hasnt

no guarantees SP is coming here there other interested party's and lots to discus over compensation so no no its not a lame duck year but the pressure is on MM to be sure a coach like MOORE doesn't fail and take play calling duty's if and when its apparent KM isnt growing.

.if at the bye its same old Moore i expect MM to TAKE Play calling duty's back to preserve his job for sure. if we have bad or super slow start its is possible DQ is elevated, and Moore and MM is let go and some of those other Offensive coaches also elevated.

doubt it happens but tits out there and MM knows he can't allow what happened the 2nd half of he season happen again without stepping in and making changes, particularly with the OL and run game.

 

[blueblood70]

Cut demarcus Lawrence and Cooper and cap probably solved.

ITs NOT not even close too much dead money to pay players 70% of their salary to not be here..thats for 2023