Frisco, Texas – Well, the Cowboys could do it again.
Yes, they are once again allowing one game to define their entire season. No matter what they do in those 18 weeks of the season, no matter their record or wins or winning two NFC East titles in three years and finishing second in other years, none of that matters.
It's all bad. All of it. The quarterback leads the NFL with 36 touchdown passes, but he's not the answer right now. Wide receivers are hitting unprecedented franchise numbers, but wide receivers need more help right now. A cornerback set an NFL record for touchdown returns, but who remembers that? The pass rusher had a career-high 14 sacks and has had three consecutive seasons with at least 13 sacks, but now he's a problem.
The team has battled through major injuries, losing Trevon Diggs, Leighton Vander Esch and others, trying to play at times with injuries to Tyron Smith and then Stephon Gilmore, and having to play without Jordan Lewis early in the season. But they lost their third pick, rookie linebacker Demarvion Overshawn – and they had big plans for the round pick. As mentioned, he has 10 Pro Bowlers and four first-team All-Pros.
But now, with a home pass to the NFC Championship Game and a heartbreaking 48-32 loss to the Packers in the first round of the playoffs, frustration has boiled over.
No one ever mentions that the Cowboys, who won 12 games in three straight seasons, have a culture problem, but “culture” is now the buzzword. The second time the Cowboys took the Eagles to the Woods and beat the Birds 33-13, no one mentioned culture at all.
It was the same thing last year, when they forced Tom Brady into retirement with a 31-14 blowout win over Tampa Bay in the first round of the playoffs, and then perhaps did the unthinkable by losing on the road in a short 19-12 game to San Francisco. unknown. The best team in the NFC would have had at least one backup quarterback to make it to the conference title game, and the team that put together a seven-game winning streak should have been thrown out with the water.
And in 2021 too. Unfortunately, losing 23-17 to San Francisco in a home playoff game adds up to a 28-year history that is not the fault of this current team. And especially now that there aren't any games to talk about. There are still two weeks until free agency begins. There are about two months left until the NFL Draft.
These are times when warts seem to have swelled to the headlines.
Now, with the NFL Combine game against the Cowboys starting this week, Stephen and Jerry Jones will have to answer questions not about actual football, but about culture, and on Friday, Jerry Jones rhetorically said, What is that?'' I had to ask. ?What is your definition of culture?”
And Jerry goes far from the abstract and gets to the heart of why the Cowboys struggled against higher-level competition in the 2023 season.
“For our team, we need to stop the run better, we need to run the ball better,” Jerry said while guarding the court in Indianapolis for nearly an hour. “If that’s the culture, then we have a problem.”
And that brings me to one of the real football issues the Cowboys will have to address this offseason. Ability to run the football consistently. Effectively. I just didn't do it. In four of their five regular season losses, the Cowboys failed to run for 97 yards or more. In the playoff loss to Green Bay, Dak had to run 45 yards to surpass 100 yards.
There is another thing that shocked me. Tony Pollard was the team's leading rusher with 1,005 yards, but that required 252 carries, averaging just 4.0 yards per carry. This is the 14th time in the Cowboys' 64-season history that the top rusher averaged less than 4.0 yards per carry, once in his freshman season in 1960 (3.5 yards) and once in 1989. He had a 1-15 season (4.0 yards) in 2018. ), Troy Hambrick was the lead back in 2003 (3.5), and the last time was Marion Barber in 2008 (3.7).
Smoke this with a pipe too. The Cowboys average just 4.1 yards per carry, and needed Dak Prescott's 242 yards rushing and Kavonte Turpin's 110 on 66 carries (5.3) to reach a modest team total of 4.1 yards per carry. needed to be achieved.
Additionally, the Cowboys' leading rusher hasn't scored more than Pollard's six rushing touchdowns this year since Darren McFadden had just three rushing touchdowns in a season in which Tony Romo started. Dating back to 2015, when he led in rushing yards (1,089 yards). Only 4 games. We have to run the ball better.
But here comes the offseason problem again. The Cowboys' top two running backs in 2023, Pollard and Rico Doodle (361 yards/4.1/2 TDs), are unrestricted free agents. Who knows if they can or want to re-sign both.
When asked about Pollard, Jerry said, “I think Pollard played well,'' but added, “Looking back, he played well in games where we didn't play well.'' , who I think would have had a bigger impact on us.”
“But that running game is a product of the complete offense, not just the blocking.”
So while there's a lot of attention on Dak's contract, run-stopping, cornerbacks, linebackers and the need for bigger defensive tackles, be sure to circle the run game. Far from what is needed.
And that's not the culture, friends.
