Chuck 54
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Or, “Why Complimentary football is a requirement for winning.”
Even if we had avoided all injuries/retirement on offense....TSmith, Williams, Frederick, Martin, Collins, Jarwin, Dak, Zeke, Cooper, Gallup, CeeDee....even if the offense was humming along, with this defense, these players in the front seven and secondary, any hope of being better than 8-8 at the end of the year would be a pipe dream.
Even if your secondary blows a coverage every game, you have a chance if you can take away the run and make a team 1-dimensional. If you have an excellent secondary, at least you can use your safeties in run support or blitz packages from time to time. Facts, with no thought about what Diggs or Hill may be in the future.....our CB’s as a group are BAD! Our DT’s are TERRIBLE! Our safeties are INVISIBLE! Our DE’s are over-rated and weak vs the run. I’ll defend DLaw, not his salary, because his win rate vs pass blocking lists him #4 in the NFL despite a lack of sacks, and he is the only lineman occasionally making a run stop behind the line. Griffen is simply awful and seems interested in sacks only, probably for next year’s contract. Aldon Smith should be playing DE with his hand in the dirt, not standing as an OLB.
With all the injuries to our OL, a team might still play close games and win a few IF the defense is at least decent. Everyone shares blame, players, coaches, ownership, but when you have no balance at all between offense and defense, you are absolutely doomed when you have injuries on the only strong part of your team. Other teams have injuries as well, but they can lean a little on the other side of the ball to manage games and try to find chances to win.
And before anyone chimes in about salary cap and future contracts, that has little to do with it. Dallas has been significantly below the cap the past two years. Other teams find ways to pay players without gutting the other side of the ball. The bottom line is that Jerry and his front office, probably the new staff included, have been awful at evaluating the defensive roster for years. We keep and depend on players who cannot play, and we sign older players who cannot or will not sell out on 1-year contracts. Meanwhile we trade, release, or or allow players to walk in free agency who still manage to contribute in other defenses.
Someone has done an excellent job evaluating receivers, OLmen, etc, but they stink at evaluating the defensive side. No matter what success this offense has in the future, the Dallas Cowboys will struggle and underperform every year until someone figures out how to draft/sign the right defensive players who can contribute to an above average defense.
Even if we had avoided all injuries/retirement on offense....TSmith, Williams, Frederick, Martin, Collins, Jarwin, Dak, Zeke, Cooper, Gallup, CeeDee....even if the offense was humming along, with this defense, these players in the front seven and secondary, any hope of being better than 8-8 at the end of the year would be a pipe dream.
Even if your secondary blows a coverage every game, you have a chance if you can take away the run and make a team 1-dimensional. If you have an excellent secondary, at least you can use your safeties in run support or blitz packages from time to time. Facts, with no thought about what Diggs or Hill may be in the future.....our CB’s as a group are BAD! Our DT’s are TERRIBLE! Our safeties are INVISIBLE! Our DE’s are over-rated and weak vs the run. I’ll defend DLaw, not his salary, because his win rate vs pass blocking lists him #4 in the NFL despite a lack of sacks, and he is the only lineman occasionally making a run stop behind the line. Griffen is simply awful and seems interested in sacks only, probably for next year’s contract. Aldon Smith should be playing DE with his hand in the dirt, not standing as an OLB.
With all the injuries to our OL, a team might still play close games and win a few IF the defense is at least decent. Everyone shares blame, players, coaches, ownership, but when you have no balance at all between offense and defense, you are absolutely doomed when you have injuries on the only strong part of your team. Other teams have injuries as well, but they can lean a little on the other side of the ball to manage games and try to find chances to win.
And before anyone chimes in about salary cap and future contracts, that has little to do with it. Dallas has been significantly below the cap the past two years. Other teams find ways to pay players without gutting the other side of the ball. The bottom line is that Jerry and his front office, probably the new staff included, have been awful at evaluating the defensive roster for years. We keep and depend on players who cannot play, and we sign older players who cannot or will not sell out on 1-year contracts. Meanwhile we trade, release, or or allow players to walk in free agency who still manage to contribute in other defenses.
Someone has done an excellent job evaluating receivers, OLmen, etc, but they stink at evaluating the defensive side. No matter what success this offense has in the future, the Dallas Cowboys will struggle and underperform every year until someone figures out how to draft/sign the right defensive players who can contribute to an above average defense.
