The Dallas Cowboys Best Free Agent
I saw the Cowboys sign Alfred Morris and kicked a nearby baby off a bridge because that seemed like a really smart move by Dallas. Morris was sort of abandoned in Washington for whatever reason (I never bothered to look into why, maybe the Rookie they had last year impressed) and now he’ll share a tandem backfield with McFadden behind a great O-line and…ugh screw the Cowboys. I don’t know if Morris is actually really good or if his one impressive rookie year had to do with playing in Shanahan’s notoriously RB friendly system. It seemed like he was good but not great.
I was going to make a comic about that move but the only thing I could think about was how fast the Cowboys crumbled last year without two players. It was almost frightening how much they tanked without Romo and Dez. They entered the season in the driver’s seat for the NFC East and ended up dead in the trunk. The car itself would eventually hit a tree, explode, and everyone would die horribly. We liked that. So I kind of laughed about the Morris signing, because it takes even more pressure off of Romo. They gotta keep that man intact. Dez is less important. He’s still vital to the team but the team can win without Dez. They can’t win without Romo. It’s still funny to me that so much was made of the Dallas O-line and Romo died from injury behind that “brick wall” in game 2. Then died again late season. Part of me wonders if Romo would be literally dead if he had to play behind some actually shit lines like Miami or San Diego. Romo is a tough dude, but the way he plays football opens him to more injury than the way Rivers or Eli play. So many talking heads and fans like to talk about certain players being more injury prone, namely “running QBs” and point to folks like Vick or RG3 but the fact that they scramble isn’t really the problem. It’s the reckless abandon for their bodies. Wilson doesn’t get blasted when he runs, because he’s smart about conserving himself. Kaepernick really never got blasted either. Rodgers is sort of in-between. He’s reckless but he’s so smart that it doesn’t hurt him as much. Romo is very reckless. So much of his game is improv.
Dallas is easily the favorite to win the division this season again (Or at least they should be) but at this point their entire season seems to rest on how badly Romo gets hurt. Because he’s going to get hurt. They can weather a game or 3, but more than that, they could be toast.
Unrelated, I wonder how much bubble wrap would actually help if it was on the uniform in certain locations.
The Cowboys backfield is going to be scary. McFadden finally stayed healthy a whole season, and combining that with the Cowboys offensive line, he turned in a bizarrely quiet top-five RB season in spite of being the spot back for six games. A healthy McFadden is a very rare sight, but now you have Morris, who’s just as capable a back as McFadden. Instead of giving McFadden a massive, bone-breaking load that’ll land him back home on IR, they can split the carries between two backs, keeping both healthy and keeping both fresh.
Dallas could rebound and win the NFC East as long as Tony and Dez stay healthy. Their defense, while its secondary sucked and they couldn’t generate turnovers to save their lives, wasn’t actually too bad for the most part(10th against the rush, 16th overall in yards, 16th in scoring, 14th in 3rd down defense, 17th best DVOA). It wasn’t a good unit, but it was average, and if your offense can be as dominant as a healthy Dallas offense, average can cut it, especially if they add a Jalen Ramsey or a Myles Jack or someone like that with the 4th pick.
Somewhere between Michelin and Stay-Puft, I’d say. Although it’d be fun to see the lines effectively encased in Zorbs.
Romo is such an interesting beast, picked up as an undrafted free agent, sits behind Vinnie Testiverde and Drew Bledseau for 3 1/2 years and has started since. He has bore the nearly full brunt of the blame for any and all failure on the team despite having some of the best passing statistics of any QB ever, witch kind of makes him an extreme bargain at QB. Name one other undrafted free agent QB in the top 10 of career passer rating all time? top 25? top 100? you probably can’t huh? Well Romo is 4th all time, ahead of Payton, Brady, Montana, Marino, Elway and many other greats. For all the blame he has gotten Romo is a very good if a bit injury prone QB that has played for a terrible franchise that could never get it’s shit together…
Whoops he’s actually 3rd all time… 😉
Not much of an expert on the history of undrafted QBs, but I feel like Kurt Warner might top that list.
Not to take anything away from Romo but Kurt Warner and Warren Moon are both Undrafted QBs that are better. Maybe not in passer rating but in virtually every other category especially wins and playoff wins.
That bubblewrap would keep Romo from getting hurt
You’re more optimistic about the Cowboys than I am. They couldn’t weather even a game without him last year. Please, Romo, go through with the adamantium bones procedure!
You know there is an issue when MCFADDEN is the healthiest part of the offense.
With that said, the cowboys are pretty much the wild card of the NFC. If the defense was a little better, it could contend for #1 in the conference. But, Romo is getting older. Antonio has 5 years AT BEST left in him, I think that as long as he thinks he can get a ring, he will keep going. I think the Cowboys need to address a QB sooner than later, because, what if Romo goes down in the middle of the season, and calls it quits because his body just can’t take it anymore? The cowboys will roll over and die, and the carcass will get picked apart in the offseason. Dallas is a huge gamble. They can go from 2nd seed to nowhere near contention. And everything rides on just how much Romo can take, and how much they change the offense to protect him.
Matt Ryan and Joe Flacco are really good at preserving their weight. They probably get messages together and shit. I guess Joe Flacco was just a tad bit reckless this past year, but ACL injuries are always serious.
Redskins abandoned Morris this season because he wasn’t doing well under Jay Gruden, and Matt Jones, Chris Thompson, etc, ate up most of the carries. He’ll do well under a zone-blocking scheme.
I wouldn’t worry about Morris too much. Even in his best year(s) he was never a Giant-killer in the way Westbrook, McCoy, and others have been. It’s those speedy/shifty guys that have given them fits in recent years.
For all our defensive woes, we’ve generally been pretty decent against power backs. Even AP never put up a crazy game on the Giants.
(Of course, an offense with Romo/Dez/that-oLine is way better than anything else Morris has played with before, so it is possible he’ll go SUPERSONIC and start crushing. But personally I just don’t see it happening)
In other news, Bobby G Tres signed with the Browns.
Meanwhile in the giants facility Tom Coughlin is setting up traps to keep them on their toes.
As a long time Cowboys fan that has watched every single Cowboys game for years and years I will tell you that I think you are seriously overestimating next year’s Cowboys as long as Garrett is head coach. The most important move in the NFC East went so under the radar that almost no one talks about it. The Redskins poached Bill Callahan. The one year Dallas had Callahan calling the plays they won the division and Romo had a career year. Jerry Jones lets the Redskins outbid him for Callahan and the Redskins win the division with Kirk Cousins having a career year.
It’s no coincidence, Jason Garrett is one of the worst play callers I have ever seen and that’s the main reason why Wade Phillips still isn’t head coach of the Cowboys. The year the Cowboys went 12-4 the play calling was the best I had seen since the Bill Parcells era, that was the year Callahan called the plays and I noticed the difference. They replaced Callahan with Scott Linehan, and although they claim that Linehan was calling the plays I recognized Garrett’s extremely predictable handiwork early in the season. It also contributed to getting Romo hurt, the Eagles knew what plays we were calling because we were being very predictable. They actually mixed things up once they put Matt Cassel in which made me think they actually let Linehan call some plays out of desperation, but Matt Cassel sucks so hard he makes Brandon Weeden look like Aaron Rodgers in comparison. Jason Garrett is now the longest tenured Cowboys coach since Tom Landry, that fact makes me wonder what kind of pictures he has of Jerry Jones. The defense will have a hard time replacing Greg Hardy too, he really did make an impact on that end that was wasted by playing Matt Cassel at QB.
I hope you’re right about Morris, he never particularly impressed me when we played the Redskins. I see another disappointing year for the Cowboys upcoming.