Tully Tuesday's Volume 31. I just can't with the Cowboys

This is personal therapy exercise. Fair warning, this is the most depressing article I’ve written and my dog died 2 weeks ago.

I’ve watched the Cowboys game from Sunday three times now. I’ve watched a carbon copy of that game maybe a dozen times in the last handful of years from the Cowboys. I can’t change anything about the Cowboys and I can’t make any decisions that will effect anything in the workings of my favorite sports team.

I want to start by acknowledging how done I am with the Jerry Jones situation. The Cowboys have been more than fine with drafting their players and developing them into players that can compete for an NFL roster. They have hit well in the 1st round, CeeDee Lamb, Micah Parsons, Tyler Smith, Zach Martin, with the rare pick of a Michigan Player, Taco Charlton, Mazi Smith, their 1st round picks are probably as good as any team in the NFL and that’s impressive considering they have only drafted in the Top 15 3 times in that span. Those drafts netted them Zeke Elliott, Zach Martin, and Micah Parsons. At their peaks, 3 All Pro elite football players than any team would want on their roster.

The Cowboys as they are constructed, are exactly the same team they were last year. They did not have any key departures of consequence outside of Tony Pollard, and they did not add a blue-chip player of significance in the offseason.

Jerry likes to say the Cowboys are “hanging around the rim” in terms of competing in the NFL. The only hanging around the rim the Cowboys have done in my entire lifetime is having your hand in the face of LeBron James dunking you into submission, over and over again.

The Cowboys do have star players, Dak Prescott, is a top NFL Quarterback. I believe that. I think he’s better than Tony Romo was and I think he’s a great leader of men. Micah Parsons is an elite talent and gives full effort every time he’s on the field.

They are extremely top heavy talentwise, and without exceptional schematic advantage, that is a serious problem. Teams like the Rams, 49ers, Eagles, Chiefs, and Ravens have similar makeups, and yet they continue to be comically better than the Cowboys year over year. With the exception of the Eagles, those teams have forward thinking coaching staffs who excel at bringing the best out of the rest for their teams, and outside of the Eagles, the Cowboys have been consistently torpedoed by the top teams in the NFL.

The Cowboys don’t have that. On offense, because of the Jones family decisions to not add a skill player of consequence are forced to choose between a double teamed CeeDee Lamb, and a one legged Jake Ferguson to catch passes. Due to the decision to not draft or acquire a running back, teams are rushing Prescott with no concern for the run game, because even if Dowdle or Elliott get by the entire defense, they are unable to outrun the players trying to tackle them. The Cowboys have a speed deficit only explained by the weight of the stars on their helmets. The fastest player on the Cowboys is shorter and weight 20 pounds less than me writing this blog.

Yesterday I watched a game I knew the result to before it started. I gave out the pick for Derrick Henry’s rushing yards over because that’s the closest I can get to betting against my own team. As soon as the Cowboys punted on their first drive, followed by the easiest 5 play touchdown drive you’ve ever seen, the game was over, and likely the rest of the games against above average competition were over as well.

I wasn’t a good football player. I was tough, smart, and slow as shit. I’m not coming from this as an expert or anything other than a tormented soul of 28 years of absolutely nothing from my favorite team. I will say, when the other team so obviously cannot do one of the 4 important factors in scrimmage football, they very rarely win. The Cowboys cannot run, and they cannot stop the run. They have had the latter of the issues for about a decade now and have not addressed it with one significant addition at linebacker or Defensive line.

The Cowboys are the epitome of the born on 3rd base thinking they hit a triple franchise in my lifetime. Yes, quarterbacks and pass rushers run the league, but if you don’t do the simple things, it is impossible for your quarterbacks and pass rushers to do their jobs.

And maybe I’m a fool but I don’t place a lot of the blame on the Cowboys players. They are playing hard, and outside of CeeDee Lamb, their best players are playing pretty well. This all comes back to the man in charge of the Cowboys, who filmed a Netflix series on himself, who continues to put the bottom line value of the team in front of actually winning games. In 28 years you should almost accidentally luck into success. Every team in the NFC except Dallas and Washington has been to the Championship game since 1996. Every team. What do Dallas and Washington have in common? A fish rots from the head down.