Flaws that doomed Cowboys in ’20
Entering the 2020 NFL season, Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones believed his roster boasted the most talent of any in the 31 years since he bought the team.
Mike Mccarthy, joining Dallas after coaching 13 seasons in Green Bay, similarly felt this roster was “arguably” among the best he’d had.
Fast-forward to January, and the Cowboys’ 6-10 season concludes without a postseason berth even from the wretched NFC East.
“We fell far short of what I thought our team would accomplish,” Jones said Tuesday morning on Dallas radio station 105.3 The Fan. “The fact that we’re not getting it done, the fact that we aren’t in the playoffs right now, the fact that we don’t have a chance to get in that Super Bowl, all of that just makes me sick because this is the heyday of our game. This is the heyday of the NFL. It makes me sick.”
Injuries, miscalculations in scheme philosophy, game-management gaffes and a historically bad defense contributed to Mccarthy’s underwhelming Cowboys debut. Here are five key issues that unraveled Dallas’ season and what the team must do to reverse course in 2021:
Quarterback stability: The window is open. The Cowboys and Dak Prescott’s moratorium on negotiating a longterm contract while Prescott played out his $31.4 million franchise tag has expired. Prescott is expected to recover from his Week 5 ankle fracture and dislocation by spring. A second franchise tag would cost the Cowboys $37.7 million against a dipping 2021 salary cap. Perhaps this confluence explains Stephen and Jerry Jones’ intensified public support this week for Prescott.
“This is Dak’s football team,” Stephen Jones, the chief operating officer, executive vice president and director of player personnel, told 105.3 The Fan on Monday.
“I don’t know how you could have any more leverage,” Jerry Jones said Tuesday. “(Prescott) evolving into an NFL quarterback has been nothing short of a perfect picture.”
In the 41⁄ games Prescott did play this season, he completed 68% of his passes, averaged 371.2 passing yards per game and accounted for 13 total touchdowns.
Still, two offseasons of failed negotiations are ominous. The Cowboys previously sought a five-year-plus deal, while Prescott and agent Todd France were amenable to a deal no longer than four seasons. France will point to the Cowboys’ woes in Prescott’s absence as highlighting his client’s value.
Historically bad defense: How bad was this defense? The 473 points and 57 touchdowns the Cowboys allowed are each the most since the franchise was established in 1960. The Cowboys narrowly missed their claim to the league’s worst run defense, but they won’t hang their hats on the 158.8 yards per game they allowed, second worst in the NFL this season and second worst in franchise history. Opponents averaged 4.98 yards per carry against Dallas. The defense allowed a play of at least 20 yards 69 times. Opponents scored touchdowns on 20 of those.
Players and coaches each shoulder blame. Jerry Jones blames himself, too, for signing off on coordinator Mike Nolan’s scheme shift during a COVID-19 hampered offseason.
Turnover ratio: Poor ball security on offense wrecked games even before Prescott’s injury. An unexpected takeaway stretch in December helped shift the tide, albeit against losing teams starting Brandon Allen, Nick Mullens and Jalen Hurts at quarterback. Nonetheless, consider this: In the Cowboys’ first seven games of the season, they lost 16 turnovers while forcing three. They were outscored 243-176 in those contests. In the final four weeks, the defense collected 12 takeaways and the offense lost just two balls. Dallas averaged 11.75 more points per game than opponents.
“My No. 1 priority, and it’s always been that way as a football team, is to win the turnover differential,” Mccarthy said. “The history speaks for itself. Our last four weeks, especially, we’ve done a tremendous job of taking the ball away. So we have the first part in order and with that we took a huge step defensively.”
Game management: When the Cowboys let Jason Garrett’s contract expire a year ago, their concern wasn’t with his preparation Monday through Saturday. Garrett’s teams practiced hard; he ran a smooth operation; and he generally was competitive in the NFC East. But on game days, the Cowboys often didn’t front a coaching advantage. They hoped Mccarthy, with a Super Bowl and four NFC championship game appearances in Green Bay, could fix that. Instead, McCarthy’s decision-making came under fire from the 20-17 loss to the Rams in Week 1 through the 23-19 season-ending loss to the Giants.
In Week 1, trailing by three with 11:46 to play, Mccarthy opted to go on 4thand-3 from the Rams’ 11-yard line. Rookie receiver Ceedee Lamb was a yard short on his crossing route. The Cowboys, after eschewing the field goal, lost by three. In Week 17, Mccarthy opted not to go for two after his team’s lone touchdown, trailing by four in the third quarter rather than potentially three. He opted not to use one of three remaining timeouts to challenge a questionable catch in the fourth quarter that immediately preceded a 50-yard Giants field goal.
Offensive line: The Cowboys have invested heavily in their offensive line the last decade.
When Mccarthy arrived in Dallas, he expected to start homegrown, firstround selections in left tackle Tyron Smith, right guard Zack Martin and center Travis Frederick, as well as a secondround selection in left guard Connor Williams. Right tackle La’el Collins, whose stock had fallen due to off-field issues, had started at least 15 games in each of the last three seasons.
Frederick, a five-time Pro Bowler, retired in March. Smith and Martin missed 14 and six games due to injury. Collins had hip surgery that eliminated his entire season. In total, eight offensive linemen spent time on injured reserve as the team cycled through more than a dozen lineup combinations.
“We’ve always known that if we came up and lost several key players in the offensive line we were going to be challenged,” Jones said.