Dallas Cowboys find themselves in familiar territory heading into offseason

The Dallas Cowboys had a disappointing season that highlighted their deficiencies. An area of focus for the offseason should be defensive playmakers.

The Dallas Cowboys are done for 2019. Their season ended unceremoniously at the end of Week 17, as the New York Giants failed to provide the necessary help that the Cowboys needed to get them in the playoffs. This came in the form of losing to the now playoff-bound Philadelphia Eagles.

While there are a few ways to look at it, such as it simply being the nature of the game, the any given Sunday theory, or other ways to make sense of it all, the Dallas Cowboys were not worthy of a playoff spot.

While some aspects of the team were much better than others, they were not good enough in all areas to get the job done. One of those areas where they weren’t so good in at all though was their lack of ability to take the ball away or turn opposing teams over.

When you take a look at that particular stat for the 2019 Dallas Cowboys, the forced turnovers, they tied to rank dead last in the league at seven. To put it into complete perspective, they were tied with a team that played quarterback roulette all season in Detroit (thus meaning their defense was probably on the field a ton) and a completely rebuilding team in the Arizona Cardinals (although Chandler Jones was an absolute stud).

While the compositions of the teams themselves don’t say a ton about their abilities to force turnovers, teams that want to call themselves contenders shouldn’t ever find themselves grouped together in any meaningful statistical category with those teams that are the leagues bottom feeders in a particular year.

To further give clarity and perspective, the league leader in forced turnovers were the New England Patriots who forced 25 takeaways. And although they can be seen as an anomaly, the second-placed Pittsburgh Steelers forced 20 turnovers.

Going into the last offseason, the Dallas Cowboys were focused on the defensive backfield, although more in the vein of safety help more than anything. This season however, they need to go back into the process with the same mentality.

While they should look for secondary help at any and all positions back there, they should also key on guys who have shown to be playmakers, ballhawks, and/or turnover guys. As a matter of fact and while the rest of the team is pretty stocked as far as the projected and initial starters go in almost every position, the Cowboys should key on any defensive player that has a knack for making turnovers happen.

The Cowboys could have been and will need to be a lot better in multiple areas moving forward if they ever hope to win the big one again. Coaching, consistency on all units (offense, defense, special teams), trusting players to make plays, and a ton of other stuff we could name here, but they must look to address the forced turnovers issue or lack thereof.

We have a ton of in-house situations to focus on as well, but they are just that, already in the building. When looking to bring new defenders into the fold though, the Cowboys must focus on some of those that can help them make big plays on defense.