We need to stop overrating the offensive talent here

[Bobhaze]

When a couple of dudes put themselves in charge of players and coaches, and love their own choices, you don't get objective assessments of those choices.

"We like our guys". Of course you, because you chose them. Which makes you the last people who should be deciding which players to invest in long term.

Truly shocking that this organizational model has produced minimal success in a quarter century.

More evidence that this front office over-values its own players. The last 53 man roster of the 2021 season contained 30 players that had been drafted by the Cowboys. The NFL average retention of their own drafted players is 23.

That means that the avg NFL team does not retain as many of its drafted players as the Cowboys do. The Cowboys sign more of their drafted players to second contracts than almost all other NFL teams. “We like our guys” is the absolute truth. The roster churn in Dallas is very slow.

 

[CTcowboy203]

Ok I can understand that. But what has having Cooper on this roster translated to at $20 million a year? We didn’t even win a playoff game.

it’s the going rate for elite wr’s. Not to mention I don’t think cooper is really the problem. The problem is how he’s used, the role that have him in and this “everybody eats offense”. You need to get playmakers the ball. Force feed them. Whatever it takes. Now coop has to be better also but he’s still damn good.

 

[kskboys]

Ok I can understand that. But what has having Cooper on this roster translated to at $20 million a year? We didn’t even win a playoff game.

Kneejerk trade that didn't make us appreciably better. A WR was not the missing link.

 

[Bobhaze]

Kneejerk trade that didn't make us appreciably better. A WR was not the missing link.

It almost never is.

 

[Risen Star]

The Cooper trade didn't make them better? I think people don't remember how bad the offense was before the trade.

It didn't make them a serious playoff contender but it made them better.

 

[Cboyfan4ever]

BH, I agreed with everything you said, except for Dak. I keep hearing so many say that Dak does not have the potential to carry this team. Well, what do you call a QB who has passed for the most 400+ yard games (9) since 2016 throughout the whole NFL?

https://www.statmuse.com/nfl/ask/most-games-of-400-yards-passing-by-a-qb-since-2016

A lot of those yards are garbage time yards when we were down big against soft prevent type defense.

 

[ICP]

How about overrating the talent period.

 

[charron]

You also have to look beyond stays when evaluating players. Cooper can't throw himself the ball. There's so much more to it and Dak isn't like most QB's. He will completely ignore cooper and deeper routes when he feels rushed even if coop gets open.

 

[America's Cowboy]

You also have to look beyond stays when evaluating players. Cooper can't throw himself the ball. There's so much more to it and Dak isn't like most QB's. He will completely ignore cooper and deeper routes when he feels rushed even if coop gets open.

Show tape where Cooper was open in deeper routes but Dak refused to throw him the ball.

 

[Zekeats]

You would rather have a flunkie who can't pass for 400+ games?

I'd rather have a 40 million dollar QB who could win a playoff game.

 

[CowboyoWales]

It has been said for far too long that the Cowboys have one of the most talented rosters in the NFL. It’s especially been said by Jerry and Stephen. I’m not here to say that this team is not talented. We certainly have some talent.

But I’m of the opinion that talent should be measured by what it accomplishes for your team. Whatever level of talent we have had the last 5 years has translated into 1 wild card playoff win under two different coaching staffs. TALENT SHOULD BE MEASURED BY THE RESULTS IT GIVES. If all we get is an occasional divisional “title” is that great?

We fans love our team and our players. But sometimes we have to take off the fan glasses and see things as they really are.

To avoid having a super long post, here are just some examples on offense of overrated talent here:

• WR’S and TE’s one of the best groups in the NFL? Let’s tap the brakes.
  • Amari Cooper- he’s certainly a talented receiver. And he’s paid like it. But the last 9 games of the season he avg about 45 yds per game. Why do we think paying Cooper all that money “is worth it”? What did it translate to? He’s good but he’s not consistent to pay him top dollar IMO.
  • Cedee Lamb had a statistically good year last year, but his drops are nearly league leading. He gets lazy at times and had several lapses in focus in the playoff game against the niners that cost us dearly. He needs to improve a lot to be called “great”.
  • Michael Gallup missed most of the season with an injury and was re-injured at the end of the season. I love Gallup, but he wasn’t there for most of the season. Probably gone anyway.
  • Dalton Schultz- a good but not great TE who will probably command more in FA than we can pay. Blake Jarwin? Unless we’re playing the giants, he’s a spare.
• OL- too many TV people and PFF people act like this is a top 5 OL. It isn’t.
  • Tyron Smith- the once greatest player on this team has turned into a constant injury waiting to happen. He’s missed a whopping 32 games the last 5 seasons, and hasn’t played a full season since 2015. We need to stop pretending this is working.
  • Tyler Biadz- gets manhandled on a regular basis. Thankfully, Connor “Holding” Williams will be gone next year. But Biadz either needs more help if he’s going stay at C.
  • La’El Collins- like Smith has missed a ton of games- some to injury some to his own stupidity. But he’s not been that great at RT. Maybe he could play LG again as he did back in 2016. But he either needs to get better or we say adios.
  • Zack Martin is still great. But he alone doesn’t make this a great OL.
• RB and QB-
  • Zeke Elliott- the highest paid RB in the league is killing the cap, barely producing any kind of reliable yardage and just looks old and slow. Tony Pollard should have had more snaps last year but the Jones family sees him as a family member not a football player on their team. He needs to be released.
    
  • Dak- I’m not a Dak “hater”. I still think he’s capable of leading this team to a SB. Lots of QBs with less talent have already done it. But he’s never going to be a “carry the team on his back” kind of QB.

Bottom line Cowboys fans: This offense’s talent is seriously overrated. We need to seriously upgrade the OL, shave some cap space off the WR and RB positions and draft some guys that can help immediately. Dak’s contract will be restructured.

This is down to a combination of CAP issues (having to restructure already poor contracts) and Jerry's focus on the short term (which is supplemented by the mirage that we can hope for success as the East is so poor and getting to the play-offs isnt really a problem.

I'm glad you've evened up the thread about the Defense being the unit of concern.

 

[Blackrain]

It has been said for far too long that the Cowboys have one of the most talented rosters in the NFL. It’s especially been said by Jerry and Stephen. I’m not here to say that this team is not talented. We certainly have some talent.

But I’m of the opinion that talent should be measured by what it accomplishes for your team. Whatever level of talent we have had the last 5 years has translated into 1 wild card playoff win under two different coaching staffs. TALENT SHOULD BE MEASURED BY THE RESULTS IT GIVES. If all we get is an occasional divisional “title” is that great?

We fans love our team and our players. But sometimes we have to take off the fan glasses and see things as they really are.

To avoid having a super long post, here are just some examples on offense of overrated talent here:

• WR’S and TE’s one of the best groups in the NFL? Let’s tap the brakes.
  • Amari Cooper- he’s certainly a talented receiver. And he’s paid like it. But the last 9 games of the season he avg about 45 yds per game. Why do we think paying Cooper all that money “is worth it”? What did it translate to? He’s good but he’s not consistent to pay him top dollar IMO.
  • Cedee Lamb had a statistically good year last year, but his drops are nearly league leading. He gets lazy at times and had several lapses in focus in the playoff game against the niners that cost us dearly. He needs to improve a lot to be called “great”.
  • Michael Gallup missed most of the season with an injury and was re-injured at the end of the season. I love Gallup, but he wasn’t there for most of the season. Probably gone anyway.
  • Dalton Schultz- a good but not great TE who will probably command more in FA than we can pay. Blake Jarwin? Unless we’re playing the giants, he’s a spare.
• OL- too many TV people and PFF people act like this is a top 5 OL. It isn’t.
  • Tyron Smith- the once greatest player on this team has turned into a constant injury waiting to happen. He’s missed a whopping 32 games the last 5 seasons, and hasn’t played a full season since 2015. We need to stop pretending this is working.
  • Tyler Biadz- gets manhandled on a regular basis. Thankfully, Connor “Holding” Williams will be gone next year. But Biadz either needs more help if he’s going stay at C.
  • La’El Collins- like Smith has missed a ton of games- some to injury some to his own stupidity. But he’s not been that great at RT. Maybe he could play LG again as he did back in 2016. But he either needs to get better or we say adios.
  • Zack Martin is still great. But he alone doesn’t make this a great OL.
• RB and QB-
  • Zeke Elliott- the highest paid RB in the league is killing the cap, barely producing any kind of reliable yardage and just looks old and slow. Tony Pollard should have had more snaps last year but the Jones family sees him as a family member not a football player on their team. He needs to be released.
    
  • Dak- I’m not a Dak “hater”. I still think he’s capable of leading this team to a SB. Lots of QBs with less talent have already done it. But he’s never going to be a “carry the team on his back” kind of QB.

Bottom line Cowboys fans: This offense’s talent is seriously overrated. We need to seriously upgrade the OL, shave some cap space off the WR and RB positions and draft some guys that can help immediately. Dak’s contract will be restructured.

Great post bullet have to agree this offense is many times overvalued.
I also believe that in these unprecedented times certain games within our division against weakened teams made our offense look much better than it really was and gave the illusion that we were more talented than we really are.

That said it's tough to judge how talented we are because we are coached and managed so poorly.

I think Dak appeared less talented at times this year because his offensive line is a shadow of its former self committing penalties that made it difficult for him to overcome. Zeke's injury and lack of production along with managements failure to use Pollard created poor down and distance situations for Dak to try and overcome.

IMO. All this led to a lack of confidence and a tentative attitude that made him hold the ball too long and fail to run when he had open ground in front of him.

I am hopeful that a good off-season working on his craft rather than rehabbing an injury will give him his eye of the tiger back.

I feel we have enough talent at wide receiver we could use somebody that could block at tight end.
I think we have enough talent at running back if it's used properly.

The fly and the ointment is the offensive line no offense is going to operate properly having to overcome all those penalties and having your center thrown into your quarterback's lap continually in short we need to fix the o line big time.

All that said winning one playoff game is about all we can expect from any team being run by Jerry Jones That is the ceiling

That is because we will always have a coach that's more interested in Jerry's comfort then getting the most out of the talent we have

 

[CowboyoWales]

Show tape where Cooper was open in deeper routes but Dak refused to throw him the ball.

Romo seems to point out the 'open' receivers, and Dez appearing to claim a historical element.

It appears that Dak just isnt confident enough in his ability and accuracy to hit the half-open receiver....then again for us to find a 'deeper' receiver it would be helped by a QB that can maneuver out of the pocket and an O-Line that's able to extend plays.

.......oh and we also need a OC that devises plays that suit his roster's abilities, rather than the occasional innovative trick play.

 

[Xeven]

Bingo. The Bucs were 7-9 the year before Brady despite Winston having 30+ turnovers. That they won 7 games speaks to the rest of the talent.

Put Brady in Detroit the last 2 years and the myth that a QB "carries" a team would've been put to rest. Of course, he was too smart to go there.

Stanford is proof coaching, GM’s and owners can ruin careers aka Garret.

 

[CowboyoWales]

Stanford is proof coaching, GM’s and owners can ruin careers aka Garret.

....and he's proof of paying a QB being paid less to be able to put players around him....though I do take the point that part of the issue is that the coaching needs to realistic about Dak and devise a game plan that suits his talents.

I'm getting the impression that certain elements (fans, coaching, owners) we're/are looking at Dak and thinking that as he's paid like a one man game changer like Mahomes and Allen he need's to play a similar game....nope we've (overpaid) him to be Dak, keep it simple.

 

[Ranched]

Ah, my favorite poster Bobby has a Slam Dunk of a Thread. Personally, those fan glasses came off some years back. When? Around the the same time many (not all) NFL players started signing mind boggling contracts only to disappoint afterwards.

There's a good handful of players on Dallas's current squad that I just shake my head at. I'll leave it at that.

 

[Hadenough]

Schultz is a nice player with good value where he was drafted, but I still think he's just an average TE.

Good hands, awful blocker, and he just doesn't stretch the field. He's not going to threaten a defense with route running and yards after the catch the way that Kelce or Andrews does. He's the perfect player to pick up 8 yards.

And I think La'el's biggest issue is between his ears. He was our best run blocker all season and it isn't even close.

Schultz is only going to go as far as the QB can take him. I think Schultz is a tier 2 TE just below the best TEs. He has exceptional reliable hands and seems to get open all the time and doesn't get hurt unless Dak leads him into trouble. As far as blocking goes he is just like everyone else on this team. He needs to pay more attention to the fine details. Schultz is a keeper and they should let Jarwin go.

 

[Brooksey]

It has been said for far too long that the Cowboys have one of the most talented rosters in the NFL. It’s especially been said by Jerry and Stephen. I’m not here to say that this team is not talented. We certainly have some talent.

But I’m of the opinion that talent should be measured by what it accomplishes for your team. Whatever level of talent we have had the last 5 years has translated into 1 wild card playoff win under two different coaching staffs. TALENT SHOULD BE MEASURED BY THE RESULTS IT GIVES. If all we get is an occasional divisional “title” is that great?

We fans love our team and our players. But sometimes we have to take off the fan glasses and see things as they really are.

To avoid having a super long post, here are just some examples on offense of overrated talent here:

• WR’S and TE’s one of the best groups in the NFL? Let’s tap the brakes.
  • Amari Cooper- he’s certainly a talented receiver. And he’s paid like it. But the last 9 games of the season he avg about 45 yds per game. Why do we think paying Cooper all that money “is worth it”? What did it translate to? He’s good but he’s not consistent to pay him top dollar IMO.
  • Cedee Lamb had a statistically good year last year, but his drops are nearly league leading. He gets lazy at times and had several lapses in focus in the playoff game against the niners that cost us dearly. He needs to improve a lot to be called “great”.
  • Michael Gallup missed most of the season with an injury and was re-injured at the end of the season. I love Gallup, but he wasn’t there for most of the season. Probably gone anyway.
  • Dalton Schultz- a good but not great TE who will probably command more in FA than we can pay. Blake Jarwin? Unless we’re playing the giants, he’s a spare.
• OL- too many TV people and PFF people act like this is a top 5 OL. It isn’t.
  • Tyron Smith- the once greatest player on this team has turned into a constant injury waiting to happen. He’s missed a whopping 32 games the last 5 seasons, and hasn’t played a full season since 2015. We need to stop pretending this is working.
  • Tyler Biadz- gets manhandled on a regular basis. Thankfully, Connor “Holding” Williams will be gone next year. But Biadz either needs more help if he’s going stay at C.
  • La’El Collins- like Smith has missed a ton of games- some to injury some to his own stupidity. But he’s not been that great at RT. Maybe he could play LG again as he did back in 2016. But he either needs to get better or we say adios.
  • Zack Martin is still great. But he alone doesn’t make this a great OL.
• RB and QB-
  • Zeke Elliott- the highest paid RB in the league is killing the cap, barely producing any kind of reliable yardage and just looks old and slow. Tony Pollard should have had more snaps last year but the Jones family sees him as a family member not a football player on their team. He needs to be released.
    
  • Dak- I’m not a Dak “hater”. I still think he’s capable of leading this team to a SB. Lots of QBs with less talent have already done it. But he’s never going to be a “carry the team on his back” kind of QB.

Bottom line Cowboys fans: This offense’s talent is seriously overrated. We need to seriously upgrade the OL, shave some cap space off the WR and RB positions and draft some guys that can help immediately. Dak’s contract will be restructured.

I disagree with the offensive line and the WR part.

Look at the SB teams and the Championship teams....Look at LA Rams, Cin Bengals, SF 49ers.
They spend money at LT and then have patched up free agents all over the rest of the O-line.
Nobody has the pedigree three 1st round picks, 2nd round pick and a 4th on the line, nobody has that investment, three all-pros up front. NOBODY.

Emmitt made the great wall in the 90's, Zeke makes the current wall look likes it's falling down

Our O-line has some challenges but Zeke's lack of explosion, Dak holding the ball and our coaching is the real problem.

 

[ESisback]

It has been said for far too long that the Cowboys have one of the most talented rosters in the NFL. It’s especially been said by Jerry and Stephen. I’m not here to say that this team is not talented. We certainly have some talent.

But I’m of the opinion that talent should be measured by what it accomplishes for your team. Whatever level of talent we have had the last 5 years has translated into 1 wild card playoff win under two different coaching staffs. TALENT SHOULD BE MEASURED BY THE RESULTS IT GIVES. If all we get is an occasional divisional “title” is that great?

We fans love our team and our players. But sometimes we have to take off the fan glasses and see things as they really are.

To avoid having a super long post, here are just some examples on offense of overrated talent here:

• WR’S and TE’s one of the best groups in the NFL? Let’s tap the brakes.
  • Amari Cooper- he’s certainly a talented receiver. And he’s paid like it. But the last 9 games of the season he avg about 45 yds per game. Why do we think paying Cooper all that money “is worth it”? What did it translate to? He’s good but he’s not consistent to pay him top dollar IMO.
  • Cedee Lamb had a statistically good year last year, but his drops are nearly league leading. He gets lazy at times and had several lapses in focus in the playoff game against the niners that cost us dearly. He needs to improve a lot to be called “great”.
  • Michael Gallup missed most of the season with an injury and was re-injured at the end of the season. I love Gallup, but he wasn’t there for most of the season. Probably gone anyway.
  • Dalton Schultz- a good but not great TE who will probably command more in FA than we can pay. Blake Jarwin? Unless we’re playing the giants, he’s a spare.
• OL- too many TV people and PFF people act like this is a top 5 OL. It isn’t.
  • Tyron Smith- the once greatest player on this team has turned into a constant injury waiting to happen. He’s missed a whopping 32 games the last 5 seasons, and hasn’t played a full season since 2015. We need to stop pretending this is working.
  • Tyler Biadz- gets manhandled on a regular basis. Thankfully, Connor “Holding” Williams will be gone next year. But Biadz either needs more help if he’s going stay at C.
  • La’El Collins- like Smith has missed a ton of games- some to injury some to his own stupidity. But he’s not been that great at RT. Maybe he could play LG again as he did back in 2016. But he either needs to get better or we say adios.
  • Zack Martin is still great. But he alone doesn’t make this a great OL.
• RB and QB-
  • Zeke Elliott- the highest paid RB in the league is killing the cap, barely producing any kind of reliable yardage and just looks old and slow. Tony Pollard should have had more snaps last year but the Jones family sees him as a family member not a football player on their team. He needs to be released.
    
  • Dak- I’m not a Dak “hater”. I still think he’s capable of leading this team to a SB. Lots of QBs with less talent have already done it. But he’s never going to be a “carry the team on his back” kind of QB.

Bottom line Cowboys fans: This offense’s talent is seriously overrated. We need to seriously upgrade the OL, shave some cap space off the WR and RB positions and draft some guys that can help immediately. Dak’s contract will be restructured.

My pet peeve is announcers constantly fawning over Zeke’s strength and power. “Zeke lays the wood”, and “NO ONE wants to tackle Ezekiel Elliott!” Meanwhile, I watch the “see-it-coming-for-miles” delayed handoff for the standard ‘+2 to -2’ yards.

Three parts…
1)The OL is faulty
2)The playcalling is predictable
3)Zeke is in decline

so fix the line, replace zeke, and tweak the playbook!

 

[Cboyfan4ever]

Show tape where Cooper was open in deeper routes but Dak refused to throw him the ball.

Wish I was more technically savvy because I would post a lot of clips of NFL live where they show this exact thing.It’s not always Dak’s fault when he’s under pressure, but a lot of times it is, where he doesn’t see Amari open or he’s just afraid to let it rip.