“This is a time to sharpen your pencil.”
Cowboys owner Jerry Jones spoke to 105.3 The Fan on Friday about using the team’s Week 10 bye as an opportunity for the organization to do some self-examination, some hardcore evaluation. Of everything.
Just past the halfway mark in what has become a train wreck of a season, though, it’s the other end of that pencil that’s been getting a heavy-duty workout.
While Dallas is still mathematically alive for a postseason berth, cold hard reality says it’s time to erase those playoff dreams and start scribbling out a plan for how to keep the high draft pick the team is currently in line for… and what to do with it come April.
Cowboys Wire has broached the topic of backdoor tanking. They’re not trying to lose games, per se. But, as managing editor K.D. Drummond put it in this week’s podcast, “Maybe the Cowboys aren’t doing everything that they can in order to win these games out there.”
For the back half of the season, that could mean increased playing time for lesser-known commodities up and down the Dallas roster. In addition to protecting the team’s bona fide superstars from needless injury when the season’s fate is more or less sealed, it gives the younger players valuable in-game experience.
Jones confirmed that this has already been happening out of sheer necessity throughout the first nine games of 2020. And it’s a good thing.
“What you’re seeing is real, legitimate, positive confidence and enthusiasm. It happens with young players. And you’re seeing that,” Jones said on-air. “These young offensive linemen, those reps… I just can’t tell you how precious and how important they are for our future. And these reps that players like [Terence] Steele are getting or [Tyler] Biadasz… these guys, especially in these fronts, are getting reps that will pay off for us next time we go to the field.”
Jones isn’t ready to go too crazy and shelve key players outright. For example, he stressed that he doesn’t believe Ezekiel Elliott’s sizable (and expensive) workload should be diminished simply as a way to give more touches to backup Tony Pollard.
But the bye does provide a natural break during which the coaching staff may look at other players who could benefit from being pressed into service. In our look at at ten changes the Cowboys should make during the off week, Cowboys Wire spotlights guys like defensive end Bradlee Anae, linebacker Francis Bernard, newly-reacquired defensive end Ron’Dell Carter, linebacker Luke Gifford, and rookie cornerback Reggie Robinson.
Robinson’s name came up during Jones’s radio interview, as the sudden loss of Trevon Diggs would sure seem to provide an obvious chance to get the highly-touted Robinson his first NFL action… and give the coaches a chance to see exactly what they have in the fourth-round pick.
“Sure, that’s what the loss of Diggs- the spot, the number coming available- that’s what it does to you. And you play those guys, and those guys all of a sudden are just better for having played the game,” Jones explained.
Jones intimated that coaches are often- rightfully- so locked in on winning the game in front of them that younger players can be overlooked. But from his vantage point in a season that’s ultimately going nowhere, the savvy businessman seems open to using the remaining games on the schedule as live-fire tests for a few of his other lower-dollar investments.
“Why it doesn’t happen is because usually you think that a situation is just not worthy of the mistakes that a young guy makes. So you go to the experience side. It’s overall in the best interest of the team to play the inexperience, overall. But you want the inexperience to not screw it up.”
Upping the playing time for the inexperienced members of the Cowboys roster is, at this point, a win-win scenario… even though it means the team and its fans will likely be staring down the barrel of additional losses. The sad truth is, they probably are anyway, no matter what.
Maybe it’s the bye week and the short break it provides from the neverending win-right-now grind of the season. Maybe the pause has allowed Jones and the front office to step back and see the 2020 campaign for the lost cause it has become. Whatever the impetus, there may suddenly be an underground youth movement afoot in Dallas. And the 78-year-old team owner may be the one leading the charge.
“We’re really being encouraged how many of these younger players- let’s say players that weren’t necessarily getting the reps early for whatever reason; injury or just where they were in the pecking order- they’re getting more play time. And it’s all over our roster, whether it be the offensive or defensive line, secondary, all over,” Jones said. “This time does call for us to really emphasize our direction, our attention, our focus on getting those guys on the field and getting them prepared. Our coaches will take this time to get that done.”
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