Was the roster good enough to win the Super Bowl This Year?

[Clove]

I think we've had a championship caliber team since 2014. When all things are considered equal, coaching and QB play turns the tide either way. So right now, Qb wise, we weren't good enough in 2014-2016, and coach wise, we are at the bottom of the stack in the playoffs.

 

[KJJ]

Yes. We just didn't start the most important player on the roster. You know of whom I speak...

The player you're referring to has never gotten the team past the divisional round of the playoffs. Our QB situation had absolutely nothing to do with us getting knocked off in the playoffs.

 

[percyhoward]

You don't go 13-3 and capture the #1 seed with a roster that ISN'T good enough to win the SB.

Depends on who you played in the regular season, and who you have to play in the postseason. There weren't any stretches in the regular season when we had to put up 30+ points in three straight games, for example.

Very few offenses have been capable of that in the playoffs, by the way. No offense has scored 30+ three times in the postseason since the 49ers in 1994.

 

[tyke1doe]

No.
Tom Brady would have picked us apart. And we would have tried to match him throw for throw instead of relying on the running game.

 

[jobberone]

I don't know why people are still stuck on a game plan of running the ball to win the game. Seldom are you going to do that. Defend the pass better than your opponent and throw the ball better and you'll win most of the time. I believe in the running game because it forces the defense to play fairly and that helps the passing offense a great deal. Having a great running game opens up the playbook and forces the defense to play the run as well as the pass.

You have to have a pass defense to win a championship and that requires a pass rush. It is essential. They are hand in hand and hopefully I'm preaching to the choir. You need a rush defense to stop that part of the offense which effectively improves your pass defense.

We lost the game with GB because we couldn't defend the pass and primarily that was a dysfunction of a poor pass rush. Plus, AR was on his game and in a zone I'm very envious of as well as disgusted with 'why us'.

 

[StarBoyz83]

No.
Tom Brady would have picked us apart. And we would have tried to match him throw for throw instead of relying on the running game.

Would've lost to the falcons 1st.

 

[big dog cowboy]

It seems unlikely. The Cowboys coaching was good this season considering the talent issues on defense.
Carr - Limited range. If they had a true #1 CB, then they could give him help, but Carr was the #1 most of the season.
Claiborne - Rusty and/or physically limited after long layoff due to injury.
Scandrick - Limited this season due to coming back from severe injury.
Brown - Rookie. Normally would get a lot of help, but the FS was also trying to help cover up for limitations at the other CB position, SS and MLB.
Church - Very limited range. FS can't cover up for everybody.
Hitchens - Good against the run but limited in coverage.
Durant - Player near the end with limitations.
Jones - First year as full time FS but also moved around to cover TEs. Tried to cover for other players but there were just too many and he couldn't cover up for all of them.

DL
Mayowa - OK as backup, but was the staring RDE.
DLaw - Injured and played RDE, but his best position is LDE.
T.Crawford - Probably better at DT but played LDE.
Irving - Good, but not able to focus on just one position.
Collins - Good but just a rookie.
T.McClain- Good but faded after minor injuries late in the season.
Thornton - Good as a backup.
J.Crawford - Try hard guy without much talent.

They had a lot of talent deficiencies. You can cover up for a back 7 player with limited range, but you can't cover up for 3 or 4 of them, especially when you're trying to use young players to do the covering up. You definitely can't do it when you don't have a quality pass rush. On DL they had players that were not in their ideal positions. The defensive coaches has a lot of limitations to scheme around. The good news is that just by adding a couple of better players, the surround players will get better. Carr would be OK if they had a SS with range and a better coverage LB next to Lee. All the DEs would be better if they had a true starting caliber RDE because it would allow the others to play their ideal positions..

Normally, an offense with at rookie QB and rookie RB would only win 13 games if they entire offense was covered up by a great defense. Instead, the Cowboys offense carried the load. It's surprising that a rookie QB had so much success considering that the receivers have limitations. Witten now has very limited speed. Beasley is good but scheme limited due to size. TWill is a good route runner but average at best hands. Dez is very limited as a route runner and still appears to have a very limited knowledge of the scheme. That's a lot of limitations when all added together.

Great post.

 

[Bullflop]

The Cowboys were at a distinct disadvantage against those like Green Bay and the like in the playoffs with outstanding quarterbacking. The Dallas defense is too vulnerable in terms of their short and mid-range passing defense. Attempting to control the likes of those like Rodgers, Brady and Matt Ryan is anything but a reasonably controllable endeavor for our highly limited pass rush and secondary. In that sense, at least, we were highly unlikely candidates to even reach the Super Bowl, much less win it. Simple common sense says so.

 

[Silver N Blue]

Yes---this team won in Pittsburgh and won in GB dominating both games with the ground game. How many times has this happened as a boys fan? Last time I checked both these teams bring elite level QBs and coaches to the table. This team dominated all year with the run game, this team had the coach of the year, RB of the year, OL of the year, Rookie QB of the year, and a defense on par and better than the Falcons...statistically speaking....yeah they should have been there and beat the patriots with the freaking RUN game they used to dominate teams in the regular season. What did MJ just tell the warriors owner about the 73 win season.....don't mean sh...with no title....I've wrote this many times since the loss...there is an atmosphere of losing this organization needs to break and until they learn how to win again when it matters the regular season accolades may be the norm. It's pathetic and down right embarrassing this great team and organization is 22 years deep now winning games when it counts the most.

 

[percyhoward]

I don't know why people are still stuck on a game plan of running the ball to win the game.

I think a lot of it is the fact that they wanted to "get back" to 2014, and they thought we had done that when we drafted Elliott.

How right they were about having a repeat of 2014.

 

[MRV52]

No way. Defense has to be fixed for us to go to the next level.

 

[Stash]

I don't know why people are still stuck on a game plan of running the ball to win the game. Seldom are you going to do that. Defend the pass better than your opponent and throw the ball better and you'll win most of the time. I believe in the running game because it forces the defense to play fairly and that helps the passing offense a great deal. Having a great running game opens up the playbook and forces the defense to play the run as well as the pass.

Because it worked. Because that was this team's modus operandi for the entire season - and it resulted in 13 wins, including one in Green Bay against the very same quarterback and team.

You have to have a pass defense to win a championship and that requires a pass rush. It is essential. They are hand in hand and hopefully I'm preaching to the choir. You need a rush defense to stop that part of the offense which effectively improves your pass defense.

Nobody is claiming that they don't need to improve in that area.

We lost the game with GB because we couldn't defend the pass and primarily that was a dysfunction of a poor pass rush. Plus, AR was on his game and in a zone I'm very envious of as well as disgusted with 'why us'.

And the offense shot themselves in the foot with penalties, poor playcalling, and getting away from what they do best. To simply try to pin things on the defense is oversimplifying, dismissive, and inaccurate.

 

[GhostOfPelluer]

Because it worked. Because that was this team's modus operandi for the entire season - and it resulted in 13 wins, including one in Green Bay against the very same quarterback and team.



Nobody is claiming that they don't need to improve in that area.



And the offense shot themselves in the foot with penalties, poor playcalling, and getting away from what they do best. To simply try to pin things on the defense is oversimplifying, dismissive, and inaccurate.

Even though we often disagree on certain things (Crawford, for example) you are right on with this take.

 

[John813]

The Colts won a Superbowl one year with a porous defense. However, they got hot at the right time.
The offense was good enough to pull out wins versus the Packers/Atl. The defense needed more splash plays though. Could of happened if there was no holding call on Heaths' 2nd INT.

 

[sweetness0986]

Tough to say. Depends on which defense shows up. I think we are a few playmakers away defensively to have a championship team (primarily on the DLine). I don't think we would have beaten the Pats. ATL sacked Brady 5 times and hit him several more and I don't think our defense would have been able to do that. Would have been tough to get past Atlanta too.

 

[tyke1doe]

Would've lost to the falcons 1st.

Oh, I agree.

 

[Venger]

The player you're referring to has never gotten the team past the divisional round of the playoffs. Our QB situation had absolutely nothing to do with us getting knocked off in the playoffs.

You might have still lost the game, but to pretend that for three quarters it didn't look like we had a rookie QB is to beggar reason... but the hive main protects the hive, and the new Queen must be protected. So assuage yourself that the rookie was blameless in the loss...

 

[Wolfpack]

Coaching isn't up to the task.

 

[the_h0wey]

Was the roster good enough this year to win the Super Bowl? I think the answer to that is YES. We should have beat Green Bay. Part of the loss was poor coaching. Part of the loss was a slow start. Part of the loss was a fluke play by Green Bay. Part of the loss was ****ty officiating. Part of it was random luck.

We were not good enough to win the Super Bowl in spite of all those things. If this season were played a hundred times, I'll bet the Cowboys end up in the Super Bowl about 40 percent of the time and win it a quarter of the time. It just didn't work out that way this year. If they ride Zeke like they should have these numbers probably go up slightly.

Yes it was. The coaching and play calling was not