Dallas City News

The front office of the Dallas Cowboys has been under fire since the beginning of the new season as we watched a team that fell flat in the divisional round of playoffs proceed to get worse. Players left in free agency and very little was done to replace them. Now, to be fair, we’ve seen this before and despite the criticisms in March, those same complaints tend to fade when the season rolls around because the team turns out to be pretty good.

But not this year.

The Cowboys find themselves in a precarious situation with no real solution coming down the pike. The team is not playing well and there are a multitude of reasons why. Defensively, the answer is pretty simple. They have a new defensive coordinator implementing new things. A learning curve is expected. On top of that, their defense is severely banged up. Three of their four top defensive players have missed extensive time and several key reserves are also out of action due to injury. What we are seeing on defense isn’t too hard to understand.

Offensively, it’s a much different story.

The play-calling is not up to snuff, the players aren’t performing as they have done in the past, and it just feels like they don’t have enough talent to play good football. While all three aspects are issues, most of the criticism falls on the front office, specifically Jerry Jones.

They think any RB will do

After back-to-back seasons of losing Ezekiel Elliott and then Tony Pollard, the Cowboys are taking the cheap approach at the running back position this season. Elliott was brought back on a one-year $3 million deal in March. They signed Royce Freeman in April on a one-year, $1.2 million deal, but he was released in August. Finally, they signed Dalvin Cook to a one-year deal in August. We are seven weeks into the season and none of these veteran backs offer the team a threat of a rushing attack. Rico Dowdle remains the team’s top back when he’s not battling the flu.

When the team franchise-tagged Pollard a year ago, it bought them a little time to find a new running back. They had two drafts (2023 and 2024) to find a replacement but never felt a sense of urgency to address the position. And every free agent dart they throw at the position hasn’t stuck.

They thought their young WRs were better than they are

The front office is really good at locating great wide receivers. They traded down to get Dez Bryant in 2010, they traded a first-round pick to get Amari Cooper in 2018, and they wisely selected CeeDee Lamb when he fell in the 2020 NFL Draft. They love those guys so much that they often believe they don’t need that much help around them.

Including this season, the Cowboys have misjudged their WR talent three times over the last seven years, including twice in the last three seasons. They messed up transitioning away from Bryant in 2018 when a roster full of nobodies triggered the Cooper trade. Then when they moved on from Cooper in 2022, the offense struggled again as the only help Lamb had was Noah Brown and an injured Michael Gallup. This season, the team has been without Brandin Cooks since the last week of September and guys like Jalen Tolbert, KaVontae Turpin, and Jalen Brooks aren’t cutting it. These days, it’s CeeDee vs. the world.

The Cowboys could’ve looked around in free agency and found another relatively low-cost option to add to the offense, but their unwavering faith in their young guys made them think better of it. Sadly, it hasn’t worked out for them.

The offensive line is just okay

The front office’s biggest gamble this offseason was letting two Pro Bowl starting offensive linemen leave in free agency and replace them with rookies. Tyler Gutyon took over for Tyron Smith at left tackle while Cooper Beebe took over for Tyler Biadasz at center. The team has done this type of stuff before and has gotten lucky many times. Even questionable picks such as Tyler Smith a couple of years ago turned out to be great decisions.

This year, they bit off a little more than they could chew as two starting rookies are hard to mask. Both Guyton and Beebe have played fine. There are some snaps where they get beat like a rookie, but many others where they hold firm. These rookies look like good investments, but they haven’t hit the ground running like some OL draft picks before them. They have the typical growing pains one might expect from a rookie lineman.

And when you add that to a line that features a declining Zack Martin and Terence Steele who has faced the last three Defensive Players of the Year so far this season, it’s understandable that it could be a rough go for the offensive line.

The front office didn’t necessarily do anything wrong here with their OL plan, but the fact that there are kinks to work out combined with everything else going on with the offense doesn’t make for a good situation.