Cowboys can win NFC East with Dalton
Ten years ago this week, Andy Dalton celebrated a win over BYU as TCU remained No. 4 nationally.
Ten years since TCU’s program-defining Rose Bowl season, while nearly all of his college teammates, and opponents, have been done with football for years,
Dalton prepares to start for the Dallas Cowboys against the Arizona Cardinals.
Whatever you think of Andy Dalton, put some respect on it. He’s earned it. He ain’t Tom Brady, and you don’t last for 10 years in the NFL as a quarterback because you stink.
He doesn’t need to do it, but Andy Dalton is still trying to prove he belongs. He has 11 games left to prove he’s a starting NFL quarterback.
“That’s part of it,” Dalton said Friday. “I’ve had some really good years, and been on some really good teams and had some success in this league. My goal is to keep proving that.”
The following is more of an indictment on the continued state of the NFC East, but Andy Dalton can get these Dallas Cowboys into the playoffs.
The state of the Cowboys roster is such that envisioning any postseason success requires recreational pharmaceuticals, but getting to the playoffs is plausible. If the 2020 Dallas Cowboys reach the playoffs this season is a success.
The Cowboys’ offense should not have to cut out pages of its playbook now that starting quarterback Dak Prescott is out of the rest of the season recovering from a fractured ankle.
Dalton does not present the same opportunities to run the ball the way Dak does, but he is a professional quarterback who knows how to spread the ball around.
Dalton may not have won a playoff game in his nine seasons with the Bengals, but that he reached the postseason five consecutive seasons with the Cincinnati Bengals is one of the more underappreciated achievements in the NFL in the last 30 years.
Between 1989 and 2010, the Bengals made the playoffs three times, and became synonymous with ownership indifference.
The problems that Dalton and the Cowboys will face are essentially the same they had when Dak was starting; the defense gives up too many points, the offensive line is a patchwork quilt of replacement of too many pieces who should not be starting.
If the Cowboys continue to turn the ball over, and insist on not taking it away, nothing will change.
If the Cowboys defense is no better than it has been thus far, no quarterback from Peyton Manning to Johnny Unitas to Troy Aikman could get this team to the playoffs. The Cowboys give up an NFLworst 36 points per game.
“It’s something that needs to change. We are giving up too many points,” Cowboys linebacker Jaylon Smith said. “Our focus is on that.”
Lower that figure to 25, and the Cowboys with Andy Dalton as their starting quarterback have a chance.
Asking the Cowboys offense, even with Dak Prescott starting, to average 37 points per game to win is a wonderful formula for losing.
At this point, just reaching the postseason should be the goal for the Cowboys.
Their roster has been so crushed by season-ending injuries that nothing more than that is plausible. Teams that lose their starting tackles, center, quarterback, tight end and defensive tackle to the injured reserve don’t do much in the playoffs, if they even make it.
If the Cowboys somehow reach the playoffs, which will be done only by winning the NFC East, Dalton will have done his job and in the process demonstrated to the rest of the league he can play.
“For me I have to run this offense how it’s supposed to be run. I’ve got to be me and let my play speak for itself,” he said. “Just be me throughout the whole process. I still think I have a lot of good football left and I’m anxious to show that the rest of the season.”
At 32, with 10 years of NFL experience and more money than he can count, Andy Dalton doesn’t need to prove anything to anybody.
But since he wants to, he has 11 games remaining to prove he’s an NFL starting quarterback.
If somehow he leads the Cowboys to the playoffs, he will have done that, and an otherwise discarded season is a success.