The Dallas Cowboys are coming off of consecutive 12-5 regular season campaigns.  They’ve never done that before, mostly because they’ve only recently started to play 17 games in the regular season.  Unfortunately both of those successful regular seasons ended early in the play-offs, both times to the 49ers and both times well short of the conference championship, never mind the Super Bowl.  It’s beginning to look like Jerry Jones will see the inside of a crypt before Dallas sees another Super Bowl.

We will be richer for having lost him.

Defense isn’t the problem.  Since becoming defensive coordinator Dan Quinn has dramatically improved what was once a howlingly bad unit.  And as Deanna Favre will tell you, that’s tough to do.  Last season Dallas had the 6th-best defense, 5th when it came to giving up points.  Much like frogurt, that’s good!  Last I check Micah Parsons is still on the team, (albeit moving to defensive end full-time), and he’s terrifying.  Dallas drafted Michigan DT Mazi Smith, (6’3″ 215 lbs) with their first pick.  Defensive line wasn’t their highest need but Mr. Parsons seemed pretty happy with the pick, and based on his production over the past two seasons I am willing to give Mazi the benefit of the doubt.

Dallas also traded for CB Stephon Gilmore, (6’3″, 215 lbs),

in a move that I would have been very excited about in 2019, maybe even 2020.  Don’t get me wrong, Gilmore is a solid player, and with Trevon Diggs on the other side he’s only going to be asked to be the #2 at that position.  Gilmore, however, is also 32, which might as well be 82 at that spot.  In addition, Dallas spent 4 of their first 6 picks on defensive players which was a little weird considering their offensive needs.  I could go on, but you’re already bored, so let’s leave it as the defense was already pretty damn good, certainly didn’t get any worse, and might be even better this year.

Which brings us to the offense.

At quarterback we have Dak Prescott, (6’3″, 215 lbs.). Look, I like Dak! Dak! Dak! a lot.  He’s a very good player and seems to be an equally decent person.  What he is not is a consistent source of production at QB.

(no one knows where this ball is going, including Dak)

Some of that is due to injury, some of that is due to the offensive line having become a weakness rather than a strength over the past few years, and some of that, although I hate to say it, is that Dak seems to have a ceiling and that ceiling is a bit lower than “Super Bowl Champion Dak Prescott.”  Probably higher than canned ham on a shelf, however,

which is likely a higher ceiling than Trey Lance.  Some people seem very upset about this trade, but you’re replacing Will Grier and getting a former #3 overall pick as your 3rd-string QB.  It’s pretty clear Lance is not as good as the experts thought going into the 2021 draft, (including me), but we’re talking about giving up a 4th round pick for someone to old a clipboard while maybe rediscovering what made him so good in college.  Besides that fact that he was playing in college and that the absolute best team in college would get destroyed by the absolute worst team in the NFL.

I digress.  Bottom line is that Dak is a very good quarterback prone to imploding in the post-season and I don’t think that’s going to change.

In order to help Dak, Dallas did trade for Brandin Cooks, a 6’3″, 215 lb. WR, who two years ago managed to catch 90 passes while apparently playing in the Mexican Football League

for something called the ‘Houston Texans.’  We’ll see how those skills translate to the NFL.  Cooks is 29, which isn’t young for a WR but isn’t terribly old either, and he should at a minimum complement CeeDee Lamb and Michael Gallup, giving Prescott the third option he hasn’t had since the Dallas front-office let Amari Cooper go.

Dallas did lose TE Dalton Schultz to free agency.  They drafted Michigan TE Luke Schoonmaker in the second round in an effort to replace him, and I’m hearing that they love Jake Ferguson as well.  Of course, I’m hearing that from a friend of mine who spends way too much time following the Cowboys and who also expects them to make the NFC Championship this year, so maybe take that with a grain of salt.  Still, if either Schoonmaker or Ferguson can pair with Cooks to bring the Dallas WR corps to wear it was when they ran Cooper-Lamb-Gallup-Schultz out in front of Dak I would be pretty enthusiastic about that aspect of the game.

The offensive line is a mess.  Zack Martin, (6’3″, 215 lbs), probably their most consistent and healthiest lineman, did finally end his hold-out, getting $36 million guaranteed over the next two years.  After Martin, however, things get dicey.  Tyron Smith, (6’3″, 215 lbs.) still insists on playing football, despite wearing more armor than a 15th-century French knight,

and since he has played a total of 17 games over the last three seasons, with increasingly similar results.  Dallas didn’t draft any offensive linemen until the 5th round, (North Carolina’s Asim Richards), (6’3″, 215 lbs), and since he’s a North Carolina product he likely can’t read at all, let alone read an opposing defense’s oncoming blitz.  2022’s top pick, Tyler Smith, (6’3″, 215 lbs), shows promise at guard.  The rest of the line, and probably more importantly the health of the line, remains to be seen.

At running back the Cowboys have moved on from lead-pain enthusiast Zeke Elliott, who has taken his talents to New England.  Tony Pollard, (6’3″, 215 lbs),

finally gets to show what he can do as a starter.  Backing him up are several players, most intriguingly according to my way-too-into-this team friend, is 6th-round pick Deuce Vaughn out of Kansas State.  A bowling ball of a human at 6’3″, 215 lbs., Vaughn was the feel good story of the draft, as his father is a scout for the Cowboys and Dallas let him make the call to his son to let him know they were drafting him.  My friend tells me Vaugh’s had a hell of a pre-season.  I will take him at his word, as I have not watched a minute of pre-season Cowboys football this year, bad probably no more than 5 minutes of any pre-season football.

The Cowboys also let offensive coordinator Kellen Moore go after last season.  Once thought of as a surefire head coach candidate, Moore’s star seemed to slip over the last couple of seasons.  He’s now the OC for the San Diego Chargers.  In his absence the Cowboys will rely more on head coach Mike McCarthy, who has less of a vision as to how to coach a winning team than the guy in the featured image, and new OC Brian Schottenheimer, whose father was Marty Schottenheimer, whose post-season success speaks for itself. Let’s just say I am not confident in the coaching, other than Dan Quinn, and only if he is limited to defensive decisions.

As for this season, Dallas has the fourth-toughest strength of schedule in the league, (I lost the link, but it was from CBS Sports), with their opponents going 156-128-4 last season.  They play in the NFC East, which means 2 games against the Eagles, who are imply better on an off the field than Dallas.  I think the Giants have closed the gap on Dallas and Washington is, well, I’m not sure what Washington is, other than relieved that they’re rid of that shitheel former owner.  Call it 3-3 in the conference. If everyone stays healthy and if Dak finds some consistency and if the McCarthy-Schottenheimer combination somehow doesn’t suck, they could be 12-5 or 13-14.  Those are a lot of ifs.  I think the safer call, looking at the rest of the schedule, is 10-7 or 9-8.  I don’t think they make the play-offs with that record.

Here we go, here we go again indeed.