3 offseason mistakes that reared their head in Cowboys’ Week 1 loss
1. Doing nothing to help the offensive line
The Cowboys’ offensive line was in trouble at the end of 2021. So instead of getting a bunch of new players in to help Zack Martin and often-injured Tyron Smith, the Joneses just let it be. They let Connor Williams go to Miami. Even though he was a penalty machine, he was still a veteran body who did the job. Then, they let La’el Collins go as a post-June 1 cut.
Their only response to this was to sign rookie Tyler Smith out of Tulsa. They added zero veteran talent during the offseason. Even if Smith were to thrive, which they didn’t know, he couldn’t take the place of Williams and Collins. Plus, not having a backup plan for Tyron Smith even though he hasn’t played a full season in five years was irresponsible.
The veteran got hurt earlier than expected, and once again, Jones’s brilliant plan was to let other people step up. This doesn’t even take into account the fact that the swing tackle options in Josh Ball and Matt Waletzko both proved to struggle mightily in the preseason. It wasn’t until the 11th hour that the Cowboys reached out to 40-year-old veteran Jason Peters who hadn’t even worked out in months.
A weak offensive line and lack of viable receiving options were completely predictable problems for the Dallas Cowboys and have been for months.
— RJ Ochoa (@rjochoa) September 12, 2022
The team CHOSE to do this. They set themselves and their players up for this.
It was so dumb.
The Joneses saw a problem and they let it sit. They were too prideful to admit there was a problem and just hoped pieces would somehow fall together. We saw exactly how that ended.
Now, the offensive line is even more depleted after the McGovern injury and their right tackle Terence Steele literally got booed by the crowd for having so many penalties.
The offense is in disarray, and while the blame can’t all be on the Joneses, they certainly could’ve done more. Other teams, like the Eagles, saw issues on the rosters and spent the entire offseason fixing those problems. The Cowboys shopped in the bargain bin and came up with nothing. The 2022 roster is now paying for it.
This game was hard to watch and with several injuries during the contest, it’s genuinely hard to know where the Cowboys will go from here, and there are still 16 weeks to go.
