When we last left America’s Team, they were coming up short on one of the most absurd play calls ever, Dan Prescott galloping unmolested up the middle of the field on 2nd and 1, putting the Cowboys into FG range if only that play hadn’t used up all the available time and also, oh yeah, they were down by 6 at that point.

It was the end of a solid season, as Dallas won the NFC East, (pretty low bar), finished 12-5, and seemed to reestablish their defense as something that opponents had to be concerned with rather than dismissive of. And then they lost in the first round of the play-offs. Again.

Needing to make moves in the off-season, the Cowboys promptly got rooked by Denver and lost a reborn Randy Gregory to the Broncos. Weed is legal in Colorado. Just pointing that out for no reason at all. They released starting O-lineman La’el Collins and traded Amari Cooper to the Browns for a 5th round pick and a switch of 6th rounders.

Those are moves, I guess. The Gregory loss hurts, and if its true that the Cowboys lost out because they tried to tinker with contract language after a deal was in place then it’s frankly just one more reason to believe that Dallas will never win anything with Jerry Jones in charge. Collins is, to me, something of a non-issue, because the offensive line just wasn’t that good last year. He was, however, a veteran presence and I don’t think anyone is excited about seeing more of Terrence Steele, his ostensible replacement. I should also note that the Cowboys lost Connor Williams, another starting O-lineman, but since Williams can’t seem to grasp anything other than defensive lineman I don’t really care. Good luck, you handsy piece of crap.

Amari Cooper is more of a mystery. Allegedly the Cowboys weren’t happy with his effort in the final game of the season, or his overall availability, (just flat wrong, which the article covers), but this smacks of trying to cover-up a badly mismanaged salary cap situation than something real. Whatever Cooper did or didn’t do with regard to blocking in that game he’s a 28-year-old 4-time Pro Bowler who the Cowboys did not replace, and he’s not the moron who called a run up the middle with 14 seconds left in a 6-point game.

Long story short, the Cowboys lost some key pieces in the off-season, and they lost them because their front office was acting in bad faith, lying, or both. Not a great start.

The Cowboys draft got some lukewarm reviews. Just trust my memory on this; I’m too lazy to look it up and this is already running long. I liked Tyler Smith, their first pick, and a friend of mine who spends way too much time and attention on these things say that 3rd round pick Jalen Tolbert is looking like the real deal at WR and could make everyone forget about all the skullduggery with Cooper. The Cowboys didn’t have a guy like Lamb fall into their laps this year, and they weren’t in position to get a stud like Micah Parsons, so I think this year’s draft was fine for what it was and we’ll see how everyone comes along. At a minimum the Cowboys managed to not draft anyone they eventually had to cut after their alleged involvement in the gang rape of a drunken minor came to light, so there’s that.

In free agency the Cowboys resigned Michael Gallup, a valuable deep threat WR who’s going to miss the first few games with a knee (torn ACL) owie. They resigned Demarcus Lawrence, which is huge. They signed Dante Fowler, Jr. in an effort to fix the Gregory fiasco, which would have been a huge deal in 2019. Otherwise they seem to have resigned a bunch of their own players to relatively low-risk deals. Nothing to get excited about. If Gallup, Lawrence, and maybe Van Der Esch and Malik Hooker stay healthy and produce it’ll have been fine and (relatively) cheap. If not the GM will have some questions to answer, but since he owns the team and has the self-awareness of a guppy he never will.

What does this mean for 2022?

Dak Prescott started the last season looking like the MVP, then injured his calf against New England and was never the same after that. I like Dak a lot, and not just in an Italian hoagie, but I am beginning to fear we’ve seen his ceiling, and that his ceiling is an above-average QB with occasional but unsustained flashes of brilliance.

The offensive line is in flux, wasn’t all that good last year, and now Tyron Smith has torn his hamstring off the bone and is probably out until December. Safe to say that the offensive line is a work in progress, which is never a good thing.

Zeke Elliott barely broke 1,000 yards last season, but did vulture his way to 10 TDs. Tony Pollard may have been the more effective back, but Smith’s contract keeps him around and I suspect Ol’ Double J will want to see Elliott get as many TDs as possible so that Jones can justify that contract. YEEEEEE-HAWWWWW I AM A WILDLY INEFFECTIVE GENERAL MANAGER!!!!

The receiving corps has gone from Lamb, Cooper, Gallup, and TE Dalton Schultz to Lamb, Schultz, a gimpy Gallup and who knows what. I see a big step back unless my obsessed friend is right and the Cowboys caught lightning in a bottle with Tolbert.

Dan Quinn absolutely revamped the Dallas defense last year. They bailed the Cowboys out time and again; in the end offensive ineptitude killed the season. The defense, minus Gregory, returns largely intact. Lawrence, Parsons, (Parsons is just an absolute monster. If he can stay healthy the sky’s the limit for him), and Trevon Diggs had solid years, (Lawrence after coming back from injury), and if they can duplicate that this year the D will be fine. I am a little concerned that Diggs, for all his INTs, is a little to concerned with ballhawking and a little less concerned with coverage, because he gets burned a lot. Hopefully he can tone that down a bit this season.

I still don’t care about kickers.

Mike McCarthy is still the head coach. I mean, what’s left to be said about McCarthy? He’s really not that good, he’s not going to get any better, and as long as he’s in charge there’s ceiling on his teams, and that ceiling is probably not the Super Bowl. Kellen Moore got a lot of fanfare last year, then saw that fade along with Dak’s production. I like Moore, I need to see more. Dan Quinn is a great defensive coordinator. I would never, never, never, (28-3), ever hire him as a head coach.

The NFC East is still pretty weak. The Giants are rebuilding, Washington is a literal cesspool in their stadium and a metaphorical one outside of it. Philadelphia had, I think, a better off-season than Dallas and I can see them taking the division given the issues I suspect Dallas will have offensively.

Taking a quick look at the schedule I have the Cowboys going 9-8, 4-2 in the division, (sweeping the Giants and Washington, losing both to Philly), which I’m going to guess puts them in second place in the division and probably out of the play-offs.