The Ugly Truth for the Dallas Cowboys – “You are what you are”
In time of despair, why not look to one of the most brutally honest coaches to ever roam the halls of Valley Ranch? “You are what you are,” in the great words of Bill Parcells. And right now, the Dallas Cowboys are ending the season 8-8. Mediocre, average; bad enough to have a top 15 draft pick. And that 8-8 team accomplished that mediocre feat with a extremely soft schedule. ‘The Tuna’ had it down right.
He also said, “You’re never as good as you think you are, and you’re never as bad as you think you are”. Right now, it seems like these Cowboys are pretty bad considering the weak 8-8 record. Only 1 of those wins was against a team that finished with a winning record (San Fransisco).
Success in the NFL is determined by Championships. The Vince Lombardi trophy and a ring on your finger. Anything else is unacceptable, and losing to the Giants on Sunday night might have been the best thing for this Cowboys team. These Cowboys wouldn’t have been able to keep up with the likes of the Saints or Packers, not with this secondary. And the 14th pick in the draft is high enough to get an elite level player in 2 positions that need to be shored up on this team: safety and offensive guard. This season was not a success by measurable standards, but I bet you Jason Garrett is excited about the progress he has seen, especially with his young players.
Tyron Smith should be in the Pro Bowl; that is my unbiased opinion. Yes, he has given up a few sacks, but that’s it. A few. I believe that Smith is the best lineman of the group, and is going to have free trips to Hawaii quite often. His opposite, Doug Free, had a horrible year, but was his 2010 year just an exception and not the norm?
Parcells had another saying, and I’ll leave him be after this, but he once told the media, “All the backs in history of the game are the same when there isn’t a hole to run through”.
These words are the most significant going towards to off-season because they are brutally honest. With a great offensive line, it doesn’t matter what tail-back you have; there will be holes to run through.
The problem this year wasn’t the defense, necessarily. The problem was with our 4-minute offense and our inability to close out games. In previous years, we would feed the ball the Marion Barber once the lead was gained and the clock would run out. This year, we had multiple leads that we could not close out because our running game was not proficient enough. This left our defense with too many opportunities for failure.
With the 14th pick, this team is poised just about right to pickup an elite guard or center. DeCastro, out of Stanford, is my favorite at this spot because of his size and tenacity. The “draft guru’s” have him graded in mid-1st round pick; that works fine with me. Kosier is getting old, both Nagy and Arkin are just a tad too small. Yes, Kosier is a QB of the offensive line, but some of the younger kids need to step up. This offensive line is what it is; incomplete and unable to get hardly any push; we need maulers. Although it was better than it was two years ago, there is still lots of room for improvement. Without serious improvement of the interior mass, this team will continue to be exactly what it is.
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