Cowboys chief operating officer Stephen Jones spoke to the media on Tuesday during the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis, and the revaluing door was said once again.
He talked about nearly everything, from who they might use the franchise tag on to the coaching staff. At times he gave us some decent updates on certain things, while other times, I wished I was there to ask him some follow-up questions he wouldn’t like.
As a 26-year-old, I have witnessed four playoff victories, two from Tony Romo and two from Dak Prescott. Yet, an answer was given that we hear every single year. “We’re not satisfied,” Jones said about how the 2022 season ended.
“We’ve got to take the next step. Since ’95 we haven’t been to a championship. We weren’t good enough this year and we have to accept that,” Jones added.
How often do we have to hear this until he and his dad do something to at least try and give them a shot at winning a title? Even his star wide receiver CeeDee Lamb made it clear that if this team wants to win, they need to load up. The window is closing!
During an interview back in February on The Jim Rome Show, Lamb made that crystal clear.
“Add more weapons,” Lamb said. “I feel like in that situation you can always be better, you know, it’s never enough, you can never run out of ammo. And we just got to finish.”
Stephen Jones said he thinks the Cowboys have a “solid group” at wide receiver.
“Can we look at maybe improving it? Absolutely. … I think it’s fair to say we’re looking hard at it in terms of what we ultimately want the room to look like.”
— Jon Machota (@jonmachota) February 28, 2023
The Cowboys had back-to-back 12-win seasons, but both ended at the hands of the San Francisco 49ers. Yes, they won their first road playoff game in 30 years, but it is not enough!
Before blaming everyone under the sun, this team hasn’t won anything in 25 years. I felt the last two seasons did indeed feel different, and I thought the Cowboys would at least make the NFC title game, but they didn’t!
The Eagles made a splash on draft night last year by getting A.J. Brown, and the following season they were in the Super Bowl. The Cowboys needed a true No. 2 guy this year behind Lamb all season, and yes, they signed T.Y Hilton, but did anyone think that would be enough?
Kellen Moore did many good things but put this team in awful spots time and time again. He is gone, and Mike McCarthy has complete control over this team. Jones said McCarthy initiated the conversation. “In his mind, we can be better. Not that Kellen didn’t (get the job done). But we have to take the next step.”
This might be the final chance this roster has to get it done. Bring Tony Pollard back and let him play on the tag. Make Ezekiel Elliott take a pay cut, extend Dak Prescott to lower the cap hit, and sign or trade for someone to help this team win the big one.
Stephen Jones on the franchise tag/Tony Pollard: “More than likely we’ll use our tag,” he said. “Not necessarily on Tony but we’ll use our tag.” If they tag Dalton Schultz again, it's $13 million. If they tag Donovan Wilson that is $14.5 million. Tagging Pollard is $10.1 million.
— Todd Archer (@toddarcher) February 28, 2023
So here we are again, an off-season wondering what the Cowboys are going to do to try and get better. Jerry has already said he likes to think long-term via the draft. Well, though they have had great players, they haven’t won anything relying on it.
All I ask for once, is make an effort. You both are successful business men. If you want to clear the space to trade for someone like Jaylen Ramsey, you could. If you wanted to make the space to sign a guy like OBJ or Jessie Bates, you could.
I am so tired of the talk, year after year. Just give me a reason to think you all are trying to win a title, this team has the right pieces, they are just one player away.
This title gave me a stroke
Drock –
That was on me sir. It has been changed and updated. Lol
Being a 26 year old you seem to be typically impatient. As a 52 year old I have been with this team through much worse (one win season, BTW right before 2 SB wins in a row) and much better. In the modern NFL it takes time and is even harder to build a winning team with the players placing more emphasis on personal goals and money and less on staying with a team and building a championship roster that can win together. Two 12-5 seasons in a row after the many years of Garret is doing fairly well I would say for this team right now. Many teams would love to have their team be 12-5 two years in a row.
If second place were the goal, back-to-back 12-5 seasons would be great. We’ve become the Bills; always so close, yet so far. At least the Bills made it to the big game when they got close.
Therein lies the fatal flaw of this argument: you present the Bills as so close “and yet so far”, which is simply not true. The Bills were as close as one could reasonably get, but weren’t alone in that, and someone had to get knocked off. You want to pretend that they lost those SBs because of some predictable/projectable/fundamental flaw, something within their anticipatory control, and not only is that not the case but it is so not the case that they were a missed makeable FG away from this all being moot.
One lesson all good decision makers know well is that it is a mistake to pursue that which is too far out of one’s control. The first thing they must do is learn to sift out the controllable from the not.
Nobody is saying to be happy with 12 wins; clearly, the idea some have is that 12 wins indicates more than sufficient roster building success to harp on the roster process as something that clearly falls short. Since there is no literally perfect effort that promises a championship, teams can only strive for better – but the things people say the Cowboys “must” do don’t actually promise better. Maybe they would help, maybe not.
John,
I haven’t even seen this team play in a conference title game in my life. I would like to say 20 plus years of waiting should been enough to at least see that once, no?
This team has seen the two recent NFC winners load up and make a run at it. The Rams adding OBJ, and Philly trading for A.J Brown. Follow the leader and make it happen.
If the Cowboys had been doing things the same way over those entire 20+ years of falling short, your point would make sense. But they’ve made numerous changes over that time frame; 20 years ago is as irrelevant as 30 years ago, and even 10 years ago is fading in relevance to the present way of doing things.
Correlation does not prove causation; just because the last two NFC Champions pushed more for one year doesn’t mean that is ultimately what made them get over the top. Maybe it would have happened anyways, for example. And anyways, neither move you cite really offers anything for the Cowboys – the OBJ move was a replacement for someone lost to injury (and most teams would have been happy to have OBJ choose them…they didn’t choose him, so that opportunity is rare and not in team control), and the AJ Brown trade represents a 1:1 equivalent of the Amari Cooper trade (to Dallas) and thus doesn’t even represent any adjustment in approach.
Pushing harder for next year might feel good on paper, in the off-season, but in the likely (75% chance in even the absolute best case) event of falling short of a championship then that makes the mountain taller for next year. People used to love making fun of the Cowboys for “winning the off-season”, which is funny given that the team now gets mocked for not seeking to do that very thing anymore. Fact is, the team will get criticized no matter how it tries to do things until it breaks through, and because there is no cosmic guidebook offering absolute assurances of “this way is worse, this way is better” it’s spinning wheels to argue against any given approach just on principle.
I suggest on focusing on talking about which moves you think the Cowboys should (and perhaps should not) make, rather than to try to argue a process judgement that can never be remotely proved.
The problem with this mindset is that it is fueled by entitlement and narrow-mindedness. It doesn’t represent rational thinking, and irrational (read: emotional) teambuilding is an easy way to collapse a roster.
Rational reality: I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but in a typical NFL season there are more championship-worthy teams than champions. Or Super Bowl participants. And, most years, there aren’t even enough slots in the conference finals. Most years, there is at least one divisional round game involving two championship-worthy teams – stinks for whichever one is the loser, and one *must* lose, no matter how deserving.
Does that mean the Cowboys are excused for failing to get over the divisional round hump? No. They could do better, so they must try to – as surely they will. But it also means that failing to get over the hump is no automatic indictment, unless one wishes to be shallow (and thus likely to make bad decisions).
The Cowboys went far too long without consecutive playoff appearances. One has to make the playoffs to have even a sliver of chance of a championship, and the franchise wasn’t punching enough tickets. Not only did the Cowboys finally break through that ceiling, but also both seasons were very legit, not even just 12 win teams but also worthy ones (i.e. no 2022 Vikings). Whether you’ll admit it or not, that’s something – that’s close.
It would be foolish to argue for a major change in approach at this juncture. And aggressively borrowing from the future to push hard into 2023 would fall into that. We have to accept the following: there comes a point that one more addition ceases to be enough of a boost to “this year” to be worth the cost to next year. That’s a fact; the trouble is that it’s never known where that line falls. So, teams have to try to strike that balance as best they can. Even the Rams didn’t use up every future draft pick and restructure every available bit of base salary for their big 2021 push.
The Cowboys are close enough that maybe just doing the same thing again would punch another ticket and cash out. So, adjust approach with caution – still consider all options, but not nearly as aggressively as this article promotes.