This is a team with obvious holes, which I wrote about before the season began: holes including the question marks about the running back position and depth, the rookies on the offensive line, the lack of any offensive playmaker outside of CeeDee Lamb, the lack of a real presence in the middle of the defense, the concerns at the cornerback position. They've all been wildly apparent the entire season.
Now, we’ll continue to find out the answer to perhaps the biggest question we had before the season began: what happens if the Cowboys suffer any type of significant injury?
The hamstring injury to quarterback Dak Prescott is a catastrophic blow, no doubt, but the team has already been playing while missing major players, including DaRon Bland, Sam Williams, Micah Parsons and DeMarcus Lawrence. Solid backup candidates for all of these missing defensive positions were holes in the Cowboys roster that should’ve been addressed in the offseason but were not.
The general manager of this franchise, who is also the owner, Jerry Jones, decided that he was more than comfortable going into the season without real answers to any of those questions. The result? A 3–5 record halfway through a season that is teetering on the brink of disaster, with last week's injury to Prescott adding to the woes. And you could see it coming!!
Imagine any other franchise with the lack of playoff success this franchise has had continuing to operate year after year, in exactly the same way. It never changes here, and it is quite maddening.
Jerry Jones deserves the blame, since he’s the GM, for the absolute whiffs in the draft over the last two years that have decimated the depth of this team. The last two first-round picks, Tyler Guyton and Mazi Smith — remember them? It seems obvious at this point that Smith is a bust. Guyton at least deserves more time to develop, but when you decide to let your franchise left tackle and a future Hall of Famer in Tyron Smith leave via free agency and replace him with a rookie who played right, not left, tackle in college, well, that’s on your GM.
The last two second-round picks? Luke Schoonmaker and Marshawn Kneeland haven’t fared much better, if at all. Schoonmaker is a bust. He played a whopping one offensive snap last week against Atlanta. Kneeland is injured (that may not be his fault) but his unavailability doesn’t help build the case for his being anything more than a non-factor.
This is a team that claims to have a draft-and-develop philosophy. It’s on the GM to draft players and the owner to have a coaching staff in place to develop them. The GM is not drafting well, and the coaching staff the owner has hired is not developing what is being drafted.
The 2023 draft is a colossal failure. Dallas had eight picks that year. Three of the top four picks from that draft are total busts; DeMarvion Overshown from the third round is becoming a very solid defensive piece, but Viliami Fehoko from the fourth round isn’t even in the league this year.
Also from that horrendous draft, Asim Richards is a backup piece who has played a measly 62 snaps so far in his career. Eric Scott Jr. is on the Kansas City Chiefs practice squad, and running back Deuce Vaughn is still with Dallas but can’t get onto the field. Wide receiver Jalen Brooks at least plays, even if you might forget he’s on the team.
There will be no consequence for this, of course, because Jones apparently knows better than the rest of us, and Jerry the owner isn’t going to fire Jerry the GM. That is never going to change and is the reality we live in whether you like it or not. Simple logic states that general managers for other teams work their hardest to make the right decisions and hold themselves and their staff accountable, in theory, because they want to succeed in order to keep their jobs. Such a fate isn’t of concern here.
You’d think a coach would have the ability to cut a player who has a habit of tardiness to team meetings or misses three completely. Yet, Zeke Elliott, who by all reports missed the Atlanta game for those exact reasons, was praised by the general manager. A player who is averaging seven attempts a game for 21 yards received praise from the person in charge of constructing the roster.
Jerry on Zeke…
— Pat Doney (@PatDoneyNBC5) November 3, 2024
Jerry Jones spoke about Ezekiel Elliott being inactive today (on the #dallascowboys pregame radio show):
“Zeke couldn’t make the trip. He was being punished… I know Zeke is the first to recognize the discipline involved in meetings… Zeke is the antithesis of… pic.twitter.com/uZq0OWO1PQ
Here’s what Jerry Jones said: “I can’t emphasize enough what an exemplary teammate Zeke is, and I want to be real clear about that. In my mind, he’s what a football player is all about. But this was a discipline thing.”
What?! An exemplary teammate has a HABIT of being late to meetings? What example is that? Do whatever you want because the owner loves you and is also the GM and won’t let the coach do anything about it?
What a damn joke.
In January, it will have been 29 years since the Cowboys accomplished anything significant in the postseason. Not even an NFC Title Game appearance. Most of the current roster wasn’t even alive the last time the Cowboys had real success, and those who were alive are in their mid-30’s and likely too young to remember. But they walk past five Lombardi trophies every day at The Star.
The Cowboys have won 36 playoff games in franchise history. Thirty-one of them came before 1996.
It’s all rotten. It’s broken. I am becoming more and more convinced that we, as Cowboys fans, will continue to love a franchise that is completely inept and will never win again. We are the Cleveland Browns. We are the Miami Dolphins. We are the Las Vegas Raiders.
But, I will continue to watch each week because that’s what I’ve done my whole life. This addictive habit is probably as bad for me as smoking would be but I can’t quit it. I will continue to look for glimmers of hope because, apparently, I am criminally insane. But if you are screaming at me ‘but this team sucks!’ you’re right. If you tell me that you’re out and you can’t do it anymore, I believe you. If you’re one of those many under 35-year-olds, like my youngest brother, who call into my radio show or messages me on social media telling me they don’t understand why the Cowboys are supposed to be some great franchise because they’ve never seen them do anything in their lifetime, I completely understand.
The reality is the current season feels worse than it has in a long time for this franchise. The shiny part of the fool’s gold we’ve bought into for so long has finally faded, and we can all see it for what it is. It’s extremely unpleasant. It’s a franchise of very poor quality. It is, quite simply, rotten.
