CFZ There is Some Hope For Cowboys (Most Super Bowl Ingredients in Place)

[CowboysFaninHouston]

I find it odd that the people that most vehemently fight Dak arguments...are the first ones to start them.

really!! really!!! do you want me to point you to the 134 other Dak thread started by Bash Dak Over Dallas Cult as well as them being the first one posting.

dude, I know I embarrassed you, so you are looking for revenge any chance you get. but don't make yourself look stupiid.

 

[T-RO]

#4 Super Bowl Criteria: Must have one elite playmaker and two others above average

-The '73 Cowboys team had Pearson, Bob Hayes, and Calvin Hill
-Dolphins champ years had Warfield, Czonka, Mercury Morris
-The '77 Cowboys team had Dorsett, Pearson, Tony Hill, and all-pro tight end DuPree
-90's Cowboys had Irvin, Emmitt, Novacek, Harper
-Niners in various Champ stages had Roger Craig, Clark, Freddie Solomon, Jerry Rice, John Taylor
-Steelers had Swann, Stallworth and Franco
-2002 Rams had greatest show on turf gang
-Steelers champ years had Bettis, Hines Ward, Holmes

Etc.

Yes there some championship teams that got by without this, particularly the Patriots in some of their championship years. But it's true more often than not.

 

[GimmeTheBall!]

Super Bowl winning teams must meet minimum requirements, right?

In this thread I invite you to join me in discussing what those requirements are, and how the Cowboys '23 team might stack up in meeting this criteria.

#1 Super Bowl Criteria: A top defense.
I ran some numbers on Super Bowl winning teams from 1970 to present, and discovered the following:

-49 of 53 (92%) of Super Bowl champs featured above average defenses (points allowed)​

and​

-42 of 53 (79%) of Super Bowl champs featured defenses that ranked in the top eight​

​

​

Want to bring it closer to home? All (5 of 5) Cowboys Super Bowl winning teams possessed top-8 defenses! And for a bit of a shock? Consider that Tom Brady, Joe Montana, Terry Bradshaw and John Elway never won a Super Bowl without a top 8 defense!

To refine the numbers: 30 of 53 (57%) of Super Bowl champs rocked top five defenses. 14 Super Bowl Champs were #1 in defense.

So though there are occasional exceptions... let's wrap this up as Rule #1: A Super Bowl team needs a top eight defense, and top five is where it's at.

Outstanding!
Bravo!
Defence, wot?
Defence is where it's at.

 

[T-RO]

This playoffs and Super Bowl game ie the dinner that needs the ingredients is on a whole other level if you can't bring that same team with the same effort of play and the same chef et cetera etcetera.
you're going to lose a game against the better team that has more of its components or ingredients, whatever you're wanting to call it let's stay on your storyline.

There is no self-help book with 7 steps for guaranteed Super Bowl success. If that's your point, which is seems that it kinda is...I sure don't disagree.

I do feel this exploration might help a tiny, tiny, tiny bit:
- Creating realistic expectations
- Better assigning credit and blame

It won't, but I like telling myself that. ;-)

 

[T-RO]

#4 Super Bowl Filter: Must have one elite playmaker and two others above average
Three remaining teams on our Cowboys Contender list crash and burn for failure at gate #4...they lacked playmakers.

1996, Switzer and Troy team... crashes
Michael Irvin was issued a drug suspension for the first five games of the season and things just weren't right with the man's work focus. Deion Sanders was thrust into playing a non-trivial amount of downs at WR, but it was asking too much. The team's top tight end? Eric Bjornson was nothing special. No Novacek. No Harper. The team's weaponry wasn't the same. I will also reference my previous asterisk with Switzer and Filter #2. Barry lost any last vestige of control over that team. Coke for everyone.


1999 Gailey and Troy team... burns
In game four Michael Irvin went down in Philly and never played again. Season felt a funeral procession. Aikman had one good (not great) receiver in Rocket Ismail and absolutely nothing else to help pass the ball. NO WEAPONS. It was an 8-8 season, and a quick playoff exit.


2022, Dak and McCarthy II...stalls
Michael Gallup was not only returning from an ACL in 2022, but he sustained two additional mid/late season injuries on his wheels. He was horrible. Another relied-on WR, Noah Brown wasn't any better. Zeke had lost two gears. The Cowboys seemed on their way to taking the lead over the 49ers when Tony Pollard went down. When you got no bullets you gonna lose and the Cowboys did.


Last standing:
2016, Romo and Garrett
2021, Dak and McCarthy

 

[T-RO]

As for the 2023 Cowboys? One elite weapon and two others above average?

If Tony Pollard is healthy, esp. when it counts...that's an above average weapon. Perhaps elite. Lamb has demonstrated he's a top ten receiver. If Cooks is what we think he is...that can be required weapon #3.

 

[T-RO]

What further requirements yet lurk? What might block passage?

 

[CowboyoWales]

Given the fact that Dallas' defense has been top 8 over the past 2 years, that Dan Quinn returns with the same system and that his troops are, if anything, only improved...Dallas looks poised to feature a top 8 defense again.

If not top five.

The team has an abundance of pass rushers, a complete secondary and adequate linebackers.

Yep certainly agree, but the biggest improvement (as somebody so eloquently mentioned a couple of days ago) is that we've improved the floor of the Defense. Weaknesses kill defenses and with a good CB2 that means teams just cant ignore Diggs and the potential in Mazi to stop (or at least hinder the run enough to provide more 3rd and long) should take our defense to another level.
If we allow this defense to come out and dictate strong and early, it'll off set any issues we have chasing a lead (I know I go on about it), we can play OUR game, rather than chase someone else's.
There's a lot to be excited about.

 

[PAPPYDOG]

If a top eight defense is a virtual requirement to win a Super Bowl...how many Cowboys teams since our last Super Bowl even meet criteria #1?

Cowboys Teams that Met Rule #1 of Champions - top 8 defensive ranking
1996, 3rd
1998, 3rd
1999, 5th
2003, 2nd
2009, 2nd
2016, 5th
2018, 6th
2021, 7th
2022, 6th

9 of 26 Cowboys team since our last Super Bowl passed Requirement #1

Ya man were going to the Superbowl.......again and again and again and again and again........where did I put that Jerry's Kool-Aid......and again and again and again.

 

[T-RO]

Ya man were going to the Superbowl.......again and again and again and again and again........where did I put that Jerry's Kool-Aid......and again and again and again.

Possessing some essential requirements to be a Super Bowl Team ≠ Going the the Super Bowl.

But the majority of the seasons over the past 25 years...if you were honest by midseason, if not by training camp... you knew: Cowboys had zero real chance. This year: a chance. Whether that's 10% or 25%...who can say?

All things being equal it's 1 Super Bowl win for every fan...every 32 years. Not good odds! Some years feature sunnier prospects.

 

[noshame]

Super Bowl winning teams must meet minimum requirements, right?

In this thread I invite you to join me in discussing what those requirements are, and how the Cowboys '23 team might stack up in meeting this criteria.

#1 Super Bowl Criteria: A top defense.
I ran some numbers on Super Bowl winning teams from 1970 to present, and discovered the following:

-49 of 53 (92%) of Super Bowl champs featured above average defenses (points allowed)​

and​

-42 of 53 (79%) of Super Bowl champs featured defenses that ranked in the top eight​

​

​

Want to bring it closer to home? All (5 of 5) Cowboys Super Bowl winning teams possessed top-8 defenses! And for a bit of a shock? Consider that Tom Brady, Joe Montana, Terry Bradshaw and John Elway never won a Super Bowl without a top 8 defense!

To refine the numbers: 30 of 53 (57%) of Super Bowl champs rocked top five defenses. 14 Super Bowl Champs were #1 in defense.

So though there are occasional exceptions... let's wrap this up as Rule #1: A Super Bowl team needs a top eight defense, and top five is where it's at.

Defense is not the concern. Top 3 easy. Will lead in takeaways and sacks. Along with QB disembodiments

 

[Rayman70]

although, "ingredients" do indeed look very good right now, keep in mind there are 31 other teams that feel the same. That said, ingredients can't always be measured, they must be "blended in," and "bake" if u will, before we see what the final dish actually is quality-wise. Let's wait and see. I think as the Turkey Day game gets closer, and the playoff run, we will know what this team is.

 

[blueblood70]

There is no self-help book with 7 steps for guaranteed Super Bowl success. If that's your point, which is seems that it kinda is...I sure don't disagree.

I do feel this exploration might help a tiny, tiny, tiny bit:
- Creating realistic expectations
- Better assigning credit and blame

It won't, but I like telling myself that. ;-)

while all that's all true and I agree and you add in a little luck too that would be the secret ingredient you know luck with injuries little luck with the referees luck with a few bounces....

however,

that wasn't my point I think my point is that your initial post about this was about needing specific rankings and the ingredients to all come together in order to make that run at the Super bowl as a team and I'm telling you that those rankings were accumulated for the regular season and given the regular season is long by the time you get to the playoffs especially if you make it to the second round, you're playing the best of the best, you can throw the rankings out you may have had the seven best defense during the regular season but when you're missing three of your best players, same thing on offense, you may have been rolling at one point mid season then all of a sudden your offensive line has been shuffled your run game is not there, guys are not playing as well, you know like our kicker you can add the special teams in where kevonte Turpin started making mistakes, Maher started getting the yips, it doesn't matter how you were ranked in the regular season if you don't carry it into the postseason...

and our problem is we have not had that same teams that were at their peak during the regular season show up in the playoffs due to lots of things like injuries and to some degree they're in a slump or something.

So to wrap it up I'm just saying to validate your point to where you think our teams may have the top three or four ingredients needed to make a Super Bowl run,

I'm saying you're taking these rankings from the regular season and it doesn't really apply to the postseason given they have different rankings for the postseason and we've been a different team a Jekyll and Hyde and it's not confidence it's not the game's too big for us like they try to infer with Prescott it's literally we don't have the same players or the same team coming into those games as we did when we earned those rankings.

which by the way is the same thing that happened to the 49ers, you really think they were gonna lose to the Eagles if Brock Purdy doesn't go down and all the things that happen after it, I mean the Eagles got to play the giants which we all know the Cowboys would easily probably have rolled over they also had a better chance of beating the Eagles but we had to play a full complement of the 49ers where they got to play the 49ers without their top quarterback.

 

[leeblair]

Super Bowl winning teams must meet minimum requirements, right?

In this thread I invite you to join me in discussing what those requirements are, and how the Cowboys '23 team might stack up in meeting this criteria.

#1 Super Bowl Criteria: A top defense.
I ran some numbers on Super Bowl winning teams from 1970 to present, and discovered the following:

-49 of 53 (92%) of Super Bowl champs featured above average defenses (points allowed)​

and​

-42 of 53 (79%) of Super Bowl champs featured defenses that ranked in the top eight​

​

​

Want to bring it closer to home? All (5 of 5) Cowboys Super Bowl winning teams possessed top-8 defenses! And for a bit of a shock? Consider that Tom Brady, Joe Montana, Terry Bradshaw and John Elway never won a Super Bowl without a top 8 defense!

To refine the numbers: 30 of 53 (57%) of Super Bowl champs rocked top five defenses. 14 Super Bowl Champs were #1 in defense.

So though there are occasional exceptions... let's wrap this up as Rule #1: A Super Bowl team needs a top eight defense, and top five is where it's at.

The Cowboys might have a chance if for some reason they change quarterbacks to get there. I really like Dak, but he is the biggest obstacle they have faced for the last three years; Garrett was the biggest obstacle before that, and he trained Dak in his ways.

 

[nyc-cowboy]

I'm down on Nietzsche in most ways, but credit for referencing a smart guy and doing so in perfect context.

Nietzsche - wasn't he a LB for the Packers back in the day?....



Oh my bad that was Ray Nitschke.

 

[Pass2Run]

Lookie here. TR-O telling us all what it takes to make a Super Bowl as he sits on his couch "analyzing data."

By the way, does anyone want to hire him?

 

[CCBoy]

By the way it doesn't matter what our rankings were overall as a team during the regular season the problem here is you have to start looking at situational football and the fact is we've been limping into the playoffs with some of the most important parts of these ingredients.


I mean you could have the best restaurant in town and you could be serving the best food but on that one day that the critic shows up you have an off day your chef was sick say your sous chef had to be the main guy or whatever it was down the line your best server Hostess was out sick and you didn't put up your best food and the critic gave you a bad review and it hurt your business.

think about this the Cowboys in the middle of the season let's just use last year was playing out of their mind one of the best defensive special teams the offense was rolling we're putting up points for winning games but here's the issue steele goes down Ezekiel Elliott gets hurt, the offensive line starts getting banged up, did we forget to Biadisz , Mcgovern, and other started going in and out of the line up?

We also have to remember how many injuries it seemed like Micah Parsons was fighting and then we lost brown then we lost Louis and we started shuffling the back end of our defense and the middle of our defense started paying for it and we're giving up yards and points So what happened now going into the playoffs we did not have that same team that may or may not have been ranked 7th overall on defense offense whatever you're trying to prove with the ingredients.

This playoffs and Super Bowl game ie the dinner that needs the ingredients is on a whole other level if you can't bring that same team with the same effort of play and the same chef et cetera etcetera.
you're going to lose a game against the better team that has more of its components or ingredients, whatever you're wanting to call it let's stay on your storyline.

You watched us have to play the 49ers almost at full strength on A roll and we struggled because we did not have the same offensive line, run game, or skill players that we had in the middle of the season that got our rankings.

that was just on offense

I mean Tony Pollard gets hurt in that game but he had also got hurt right before the end of the season and he was not playing well the last five games of the season. So if offense is what lost us the game there are many reasons why the rankings can't hold up because you have to give us the rankings in the playoffs.

I know they separate the regular season and the playoffs, so how are our teams in the playoffs who was missing, who was injured but playing ,who wasn't on their game, who might have been sick who didn't have the best game plan, you know like who didn't choose the best recipe who went off track and tried something they shouldn't have, that they've never created that dish before, IE Kellen Moore.

So let's remember this is not about the regular season rankings the overall rankings, we have to remember circumstances, context ,and situations when we got to play that team who was on equal or the better team on the field that you literally almost needed to play a perfect game to win and you did not have all those ingredients at that time and they did case in point the Philadelphia Eagles got lucky because they got to see a banged up and might I say a little worn out and not on their game because they played us the week before?? I mean when they get to play a a third or fourth string quarterback when we had to play the quarterback that got them into the second round. hmm rankings are thrown out over circumstances.

This goes all the way back to all those other ones we literally had the referees make bad calls, we had some strange things going on, so these rankings to me are pretty hollow,

I mean it's interesting, I'm not saying you shouldn't post this because it's better than a lot of things that are posted on here...

however if you just separate the regular season and then look at what we had going into that game without our best staff or ingredients to play our best game that day. I mean I can't can't say it enough there's a big difference between the playoffs and the regular season because it's a long season especially now at 17 games and even before when our old Super Bowl teams only had to play 14 games that that it's it's about attrition it's about how the team at that moment in the playoffs is assembled and are they full of the ingredients that got them there and got that ranking and I gotta tell you last year we did not...

it sounds like an excuse but it's an actual reason we didn't have Terrence steele and we had a offensive line that was very banged up we were rotating left guard and RT a lot, we only had CD lamb who was producing anything as a threat on offense, Tony Pollard goes down, you only call 16 run plays,

I mean they basically try to cook a meal missing the key ingredients.

Now that is discussing...

 

[CCBoy]

Lookie here. TR-O telling us all what it takes to make a Super Bowl as he sits on his couch "analyzing data."

By the way, does anyone want to hire him?

Sometimes, where one has experienced a football experience that includes...aw, just put him in a cast after the season is over and four weeks until the regular season is to end, while at the Academy. Not all views also, are the same...

 

[rambo2]

Hes not a championship caliber coach. That is ridiculous. He needs to be a FAIL, not a PASS on the list.

Dez caught it.

 

[KJJ]

Given the fact that Dallas' defense has been top 8 over the past 2 years, that Dan Quinn returns with the same system and that his troops are, if anything, only improved...Dallas looks poised to feature a top 8 defense again.

If not top five.

The team has an abundance of pass rushers, a complete secondary and adequate linebackers.

The Cowboys were ranked 12th in total defense last season and 19th in 2021. The defense still has to get better, especially the run defense.