Honestly, I feel that Dak needs a REAL QB coach to help him refine his skill set. Romo had David Lee in year one as a starter who was revered as a QB coach, and he still is. They worked on several aspects of his game but early on the focused on the basics, MECHANICS and pocket awareness.
Romo talked about tightening his mechanics almost every year but especially during his ascension to good QB. People like to romanticize Romo’s career and choose to remember him at his best but he had his share of struggles. He really struggled with decision making for a long time, like the entire first half of his playing years. Near retirement he really started to get it and it was wonderful to watch but we all had to live through his growing pains.
Make no mistake, Dak is playing poorly right now. He is almost completely in the tank. His hot start is a ways in the rear view right now and he is on the verge of losing all the goodwill he built in 2016. He MUST improve.
Good news on Dak is that by almost all accounts he is a very hard worker and football is important to him. He came into early 2017 looking like a full fledged NFL QB and we could see his improvements from the prior year. The Cowboys looked like HIS team and he made some slight strides from his incredible rookie year. The hopes some of us still have for him as a franchise QB shouldn’t be gone quite yet. It’s all still right in front of him and his opportunity hasn’t been squandered.
As opposed to Romo, Dak came into the league very risk averse. He doesn’t make the boneheaded (yeah, that word was used a LOT to describe younger Romo) mistakes passing the ball. His mistakes come from not analyzing what the defense is doing pre-snap and then not taking enough chances when he isn’t so sure of what they’re doing. The other thing he needs help with is setting his feet quickly when he does see the proper throw to make it more accurate. In this offense, missed throws are magnified because he only gets like 20 opportunities a game. Minus the screens and gadget stuff, it’s more like 15 real opportunities to make NFL caliber throws. He can’t waste them making jump passes and weird throws off the back foot.
A lot of the people *****ing and moaning about the passes on the interceptions and nitpicking the “accuracy” of those particular passes don’t watch enough other teams play. NFL QBs miss throws all the time and their receivers often bail them out but you don’t hear about it and they don’t make the ESPN highlight packages. Could those passes have been a few inches lower (in the case of Austin) or to the left (in Thompson’s case)? Sure. But receivers are supposed to make those catches. Had they done it, no one would have said they were incredible, highlight reel catches, either. They would have been routine. Our receivers need to make those routine plays.
I say all that to say, Dak has proven to be a good QB. He can play in this league. We’ve all seen it. His growth is being stunted right now and he could use some help with play calling. But overall, I think he really needs a David Lee.
