Die-hard Cowboys fans usually see the team as being just a few missing pieces, a key injury, or maybe a couple of close games away from bringing home some hardware. But the fact is, Dallas is one of just three NFC teams who has not appeared in the conference championship game in this century.
The other two? Detroit and Washington. While that is certainly not the kind of company the Cowboys consider themselves to be in, one former player says that Dallas should get used to watching other clubs scrap for the George Halas Trophy, at least in the foreseeable future.
Speaking on ESPN’s Get Up! this week, Marcus Spears predicted that the Cowboys won’t make the NFC title contest for at least the next three years. Specifically, he cites the defense’s poor track record against the best quarterbacks as the main stumbling block.
“Defensively, this team is ranked 11th, 6th, and 13th,” the former Cowboys defensive end said. “And you would look at that and conventionally say, ‘Man, that’s not bad.’ But if you look at them against top-tier quarterbacks, they’ve struggled. Mightily. And that is my issue.”
It wasn’t made clear what rankings Spears was referring to. A quick check of 2019’s stats show Dallas did indeed finish the season 11th in both points allowed and rushing yards allowed. They also placed 10th in passing yards allowed and 9th in total yards allowed.
Just as Spears says, that’s not bad.
But then he goes on to list the elite-level passers currently in the conference, the kind he believes routinely cause problems for the Cowboys. He calls out Aaron Rodgers, Russell Wilson, Tom Brady, Drew Brees, and Matt Ryan by name.
“It’s not necessarily that the Cowboys aren’t good enough,” Spears noted. “They just haven’t proven that they can win those type of games to get to the NFC Championship.”
Dallas is slated to face two of those quarterbacks- Ryan and Wilson- in the 2020 regular season. They’ll also square off against Lamar Jackson, last year’s leader in total QBR.
But was the issue last season that the Cowboys defense under Rod Marinelli and Kris Richard really kept running into some sort of A-list-quarterback buzzsaw?
In the team’s first loss of 2019, suffered in Week 4 at the hands of the Saints, the Dallas defense didn’t allow a touchdown. Brees didn’t play. New Orleans backup Teddy Bridgewater threw for just 193 yards. Hard to pin that loss on the pass defense.
Week 5 saw the Cowboys lose to Green Bay. Rodgers accounted for 238 yards in the air and zero touchdowns. Is that struggling mightily against a future Hall of Famer? It was actually running back Aaron Jones who did the damage, with four rushing scores on 107 yards.
The following Sunday, Dallas turned in an embarrassing Week 6 performance against the New York Jets. The Cowboys secondary watched Sam Darnold, fresh off a bout with mononucleosis, torch them for 338 air yards and two touchdowns.
In Week 10, the Cowboys allowed Kirk Cousins 220 passing yards and a pair of scores in a two-point loss to Minnesota.
Tom Brady was unable to crack 200 yards in a rainy Week 11 game and threw just one touchdown. The defense played well enough to beat the Patriots, but the offense couldn’t hold up their end of the bargain, managing just three field goals.
Thanksgiving Day and Week 12 brought another stinker from the Cowboys. They allowed Bills quarterback Josh Allen to throw for 231 yards and a score. They gave up a 28-yard trick-play scoring pass from receiver John Brown as well. Allen also ran for a touchdown.
Chicago’s Mitchell Trubisky hurled three touchdowns and tallied 244 yards against Dallas in Week 14. He rushed for another score in the Bears win.
In Week 16, the Eagles’ Carson Wentz put up 319 yards and threw a touchdown in the eighth loss of the Cowboys’ season.
A .500 record isn’t good enough for a team with the talent Dallas had in 2019. It’s why the majority of the coaching staff was dismissed.
Is the Cowboys secondary a weak spot? Yes, and it has been for a while. Does it need an upgrade? To be sure. It’s been easy to pick on the defensive backs and the lack of interceptions as problematic.
The perceived team philosophy around pass coverage doesn’t help. When the team has a public courting with an Earl Thomas or Jamal Adams and then doesn’t land either, everyone chastises the Dallas front office for apparently being so willing to stand pat with a merely average secondary.
All justified criticism.
But can you look back at those losses from last season and truly pin any of them on some mysterious systemic failure of the Cowboys defense every time they face a top-tier quarterback?
Dallas didn’t have a pattern of “struggling mightily” against all the best quarterbacks. They went out and lost close games over and over: occasionally to good teams, but often to bad teams they should have- and could have just as easily- beaten.
The worst outings of 2019 came against Darnold, Wentz, Trubisky, and Allen. Not a one of them is in the murderer’s row rattled off by Spears. Or even in the same category.
Last season’s defense was a liability in Dallas. No one questions that. An infusion of new blood on both the roster and the coaching staff will be welcome. But to go on national TV and claim that the Cowboys have some habitual quaking-in-their-boots deficiency against the game’s top-rated passers, and to then suggest that’s why they will obviously continue their longstanding NFC title game drought just feels misguided.
“I gotta give my ‘Boys some tough love,” Spears said.
They deserve it, Marcus. They do. But aim that tough love where it belongs.
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