The Dallas Cowboys resume practice after their bye week today and have nine games to prove to the NFL and to Cowboys Nation that they are a playoff team. As they get ready to face the Tennessee Titans on Monday Night Football, they'll be preparing with new faces roaming the sidelines as well as one — hopefully — penetrating the end zone.
The team made big moves in the last week and a half to try to jump-start their offense by making an addition to the wide receiver group and making a change with the offensive line coach.
First, in a somewhat surprising move, the Dallas Cowboys sent their 2019 first round draft pick to the Oakland Raiders for Wide Receiver Amari Cooper. Then on Monday of this week, when all the talk was surrounding Jason Garrett's attendance of the World Series, they fired Offensive Line Coach Paul Alexander. Stepping in to replace Alexander is former Cowboys Offensive Lineman Marc Colombo who spent seven years playing right tackle for the Dallas Cowboys and helped break Tyron Smith in during his rookie season.
The moves were surprising in that it's not often you see a talent the caliber of Cooper available during the season, but Jon Gruden does not cast off talent lightly. He heaves it away with great force. Cooper's ability to create separation is a much-needed asset in the passing game and now gives Quarterback Dak Prescott another target who can get open with the same efficiency as Cole Beasley. Cooper has speed and route running to be the big play threat on the outside that the Dallas Cowboys have been lacking — aside from a game or two here and there from Dez Bryant — since prime Dez Bryant.
How much the offensive line improves under Marc Colombo will remain to be seen. Sounds like they'll be getting back to the basics of what made them such a good unit from 2014-2017. They aren't about to put all the blame on Paul Alexander as he heads out the door either. It's a group, that aside from Zack Martin and Joe Looney has under-performed relative to expectations. La'el Collins and Connor Williams have to be better than they were in the first half of the season, especially in pass protection.
The changes were necessary, yet there's no way to know if it will equate to more wins in the final nine games of the season. The Cowboys have an uphill battle ahead of them. Sitting at 3-4 with nine games left means they'll have to go 7-2 the rest of the way to have a realistic shot at making the playoffs. The Dallas Cowboys have gone 8-8 over their last 16 games, so it's difficult for me to see them making a legitimate push for the playoffs. As in all things when critiquing the Dallas Cowboys, I hope I'm wrong about this. I hope that the team shows a new sense of explosiveness and swagger on offense when they take the field Monday night. More importantly, I hope we begin to see that offensive explosiveness, like we saw in the Jacksonville game, become a regular occurrence on the road as well as at home.
Their new additions will help the offense moving forward. The question is how many wins Amari Cooper and Marc Colombo are worth moving forward. They've made some bold moves to attempt to get their offense on track with nine games to go, and while it's certainly possible they are able to get hot and make a push for the playoffs, the moves might have been made too late to salvage the 2018 season.
Monday Night Football will give us our first glimpse at the reshuffled and re-imagined Dallas Cowboys offense. Let's hope that the product on the field matches the hype coming from The Star.
