3 offseason mistakes that reared their head in Cowboys’ Week 1 loss

Well. The Dallas Cowboys’ Week 1 contest against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers went from bad to worse to an all-out nightmare. Besides some excellent plays from Micah Parsons and Trevon Diggs and a surprisingly long field goal made by Brett Maher, there wasn’t much that went right.

From beginning to end, it was a struggle. Connor McGovern, the left guard for an already depleted offensive line, got hurt on the first drive of the game. Dak Prescott tried to stay upright and complete passes to a drop-prone CeeDee Lamb and other inexperienced wide receivers. Terence Steele had four penalties in one night, tying his season total for 2020. Jayron Kearse left the game limping. And, of course, Prescott ended up exiting the game with minutes left due to an injury that will require surgery. The team leader will be out for multiple weeks.

It was a brutal night, and the reality is that some of these issues could have been avoided if Jerry and Stephen Jones did what they needed to do this offseason. The Cowboys’ front office made minimal external moves and instead opted to wait around and hope the current roster was good enough so they could save salary cap space.

Those mistakes were crystal clear in the 19-3 loss. Let’s take a look at some of the ways the front office could’ve helped this roster be better prepared in 2022.

3 offseason mistakes that reared their head in the Cowboys’ Week 1 loss

3. Getting Rid of Amari Cooper

Yes. We know. The front office saved a lot of money by getting rid of Amari Cooper. That’s great. However, if they wanted to get rid of him and save the cap space, they needed to use that money saved to find a worthwhile replacement — AKA not James Washington.

Cooper may not have had an excellent 2021, but you could seriously tell that Prescott was missing his WR1 against Tampa Bay.

If Jerry and Stephen really wanted Cooper gone, they needed to have a plan to replace him. They couldn’t have accounted for Washington getting hurt, but even if he was healthy, comparing Washignton to the level of Cooper’s talent is unrealistic. Plus, the only other receiver they added was Jalen Tolbert, who ended up being a healthy scratch because the coaching staff clearly didn’t feel he was ready enough for the NFL.

Then, there’s the ever-present argument that the front office got chump change in exchange for Cooper. Given the booming wide receiver market, the money saved in cap space and (basically) a fifth-round pick was not enough to get for a top receiver in the league. Had the Joneses argued for more for the trade, maybe they could’ve gotten more to help their roster.

The loss of Cooper was certainly felt against the Bucs.

2. Refusing to get veteran WR help after James Washington’s injury

The Cowboys opted to pick up Washington in hopes of getting a veteran receiver for a cheap price. It was a good thought. The issue is that when Washington went down with an ankle injury during training camp, the Joneses refused to go out and secure a veteran free agent to replace him. The Cowboys GM told reporters he had faith in his young guys and had no intentions of adding a veteran receiver.

While Dennis Houston, Noah Brown, and Simi Fehoko had exciting moments in camp and preseason, it was irresponsible to assume that these three players could be starting wide receivers in Week 1.

Maybe Dallas should’ve taken a page out of their enemy’s book. Despite already having like Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, and Russell Gage, the Bucs went out and signed veteran WR Julio Jones who had some big moments in their Week 1 victory.

On the other hand, Brown, Houston, and Fehoko struggled to do much of anything in this matchup. The best receiver on the Dallas roster last night wasn’t a receiver. It was tight end Dalton Schultz.

Prescott was left with Lamb as the only true veteran presence for the WR corps, and even that duo struggled to connect. Jones’s brilliant idea to “trust the young guys” was clearly a mistake and ended up leaving Dak throwing to guys who couldn’t bring in easy passes.

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.

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.

Eagles are further ahead of Cowboys than fans want to admit

As painful as it. is to say, the Eagles are ahead of the Cowboys in terms of roster. Howie Roseman did so much more than Jerry Jones this offseason.