Dallas Cowboys: Is the sky really falling? Grounds for optimism

Mitigating factors or excuses?  You decide

• First and foremost, the Cowboys have faced three playoff-caliber teams in the last three weeks. It’s probably their toughest three-game stretch of the season.

• This is coming off a perfect storm of an offseason. A new head coach (Mike McCarthy) was hired. Most assistant coaches are new hires too. The defensive scheme is very different. The team really needed a normal training camp and preseason.

But because of COVID-19, there were no minicamps, no rookie minicamps, a vastly shortened training camp, and no preseason games. In addition, much of the training camp that did occur was devoted to Coronavirus protocols.

• Dallas is dealing with the worst injuries it has experienced in years:

– Both starting offensive tackles (both considered top 10 in the league) are out injured. La’el Collins has been out all three games and Tyron Smith out two.

– Two of the three starting cornerbacks are out: Chidobe Awuzie and Anthony Brown. Both are on injured reserve, so out for a few more weeks at least.

– The player considered their top free-agent acquisition of the offseason, Pro Bowl defensive tackle Gerald McCoy is out for the season with a ruptured right quad tendon.

• Pro Bowl linebacker Leighton Vander Esch is out for at least 10 games with a broken collar bone.

• Starting tight end Blake Jarwin is out for the season with a torn ACL.

Given the Super Bowl hype in the offseason, I think a certain amount of disappointment is natural. But I always thought that Super Bowl talk was overblown. It wasn’t just because Dallas had recently hired a new head coach.

It wasn’t merely that he was installing a new defense with new assistant coaches. It wasn’t only the loss of key players and the installation of new teammates at a number of key positions. It was all of those things.

But the main thing is this: We’re just three games into the season! Three! All this moaning, Henny-Penny stuff makes it sound like Dallas is ten games into the season with a record of 3-7. They’re not. They’re three games in, and only one game below .500, having played a very tough three-game stretch.

And even with all that, and all of the mistakes, they’re still tied for the lead of the NFC East. (Granted, the NFC East is the worst division in the NFL) The point is that there’s an awful lot of football left. 81.25% of the season, to be exact.

That’s an awful lot of time for good things to happen. I think the biggest concern has to be holding down the fort until some of these injured players in the secondary and the offensive line get back.

I think if America’s Team can get to midseason with a record of 4-4 with their cornerbacks and tackles back, not only would it be a major accomplishment, but it could set them up for bigger things towards the end of the season. I also think this is very possible.