Tag: 2020 prediction

Cowboys News: Looking ahead to free agency 2021, predictions for 2020

Also in the news, Adrian Peterson complains about RB pay, Dez Bryant reacts to Cam Newton’s signing, and forecasting the Cowboys’ WR4.

It’s just weeks before the start of training camp, and there are so many questions the Dallas Cowboys and the NFL as a whole are facing. Some believe the season will take place, but a modified version- fewer games, no preseason, or some other change- seems increasingly likely.

If the coaching staff turnover is factored in, the Cowboys’ roster has certainly changed more this offseason than in recent years. The lack of in-person offseason programs doesn’t do them any favors, but all teams are having to adjust. Jourdan Lewis has a chance to break out, and a breakout may lead him to an expensive extension a year from now. HaHa Clinton-Dix could be a potential upgrade in the defensive backfield, and there’s a massive opportunity for the yet-to-be-named fourth wide receiver on the roster. All that and more; here are the news and notes for June 28, 2020.

After the big three, which wide receivers should make the Cowboys roster? :: Blogging The Boys

The Cowboys’ fourth receiver spot is one of the biggest roster question marks heading into training camp in Dallas. Dan Rogers from Blogging the Boys dives into all the potential candidates for the final wideout slot.

7 NFL players who should look forward to free agency in 2021 :: Bleacher Report

With the departure of Byron Jones, Jourdan Lewis has a great chance for a breakout year. If Lewis does step up this season, he could have his sights set on a big payday.

How NFL teams are managing the transition for this year’s rookie class :: Sports Illustrated

Sports Illustrated‘s Albert Breer talks with a Los Angeles Rams coach on the differences and challenges this unique virtual offseason has created.

What will HaHa Clinton-Dix bring to the Cowboys defense? :: Inside The Star

HaHa Clinton-Dix signed a one-year deal in the offseason with the Cowboys. The former first-round talent out of Alabama hasn’t necessarily lived up to his potential, but his consistent production and ability to play both safety positions should prove valuable for the Dallas defense.

Most likely to least likely: Running through 10 Dallas Cowboys-related scenarios :: The Athletic

With the continuing pandemic, no one knows just how the NFL season schedule will unfold. The Athletic’s Jon Machota does his best to rank the most likely events that can happen for the Cowboys this season.

Six NFL pre-training camp predictions: Colin Kaepernick stays unsigned, preseason reduced or scrapped, more :: CBS Sports

Dak Prescott signed his franchise tag, though many believe that will be temporary while he and the Cowboys work out a long term deal. Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports predicts that long-term extension won’t happen this season.

Adrian Peterson calls NFL’s RB pay ‘disrespectful;’ ‘we are valuable’ :: TMZ Sports

Cowboys star Ezekiel Elliott had to hold out of training camp to land his megacontract; now the Vikings’ Dalvin Cook is threatening to do the same. The 35-year-old Peterson, in the final year of his current deal in Washington, says he’s fed up with NFL owners trying to short-change their backfield workhorses.

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Cowboys News: Zeke’s COVID fallout, Lamb and Cooper run routes, Larry Allen made guys sit out

Also in Cowboys news, a surprising game-by-game prediction for 2020, hypothetical trade targets, and a look at second-chance players.

Slow news day? Never in Cowboys Nation. The revelation of Ezekiel Elliott’s COVID-19 diagnosis is still front and center, possibly casting the league’s best-laid plans for a full 2020 season in jeopardy.

Elsewhere, more buzz from this week’s naming of the “all-decade team,” more eager anticipation of CeeDee Lamb’s Dallas debut, and more trade talk (albeit purely hypothetical) regarding Jamal Adams. Plus, we’re looking at the regular season schedule game-by-game, the Cowboys roster in terms of positional battles, and how Amari Cooper does what he does… with breakdown from the birthday boy himself. All that and more- including a history lesson about a forgotten football pioneer, and a story about how one Cowboys Hall of Famer caused a rash of phantom illnesses for his opponents- make up the Wednesday edition of News and Notes.

Cowboys news: Ezekiel Elliott’s diagnosis re-focuses the issues for the 2020 season :: Blogging the Boys

With Cowboys star running back Ezekiel Elliott testing positive for COVID-19, the NFL is being forced to reevaluate all plans heading into 2020.

NFL all-decade: Best player on each NFC East team, every position :: ESPN

While several Cowboys were named to The WorldWide Leader’s “all-decade” squad, only one can earn the title of Best Cowboys Player of 2010-2019. Tyron Smith helped Dallas “change their draft thought process with his success,” and “an argument can be made that he is on his way” to a bronze bust in Canton.

Cowboys WR CeeDee Lamb will lead opponents to slaughter :: Cowboys Wire

Our player profiles continue with an in-depth look at the team’s first-round draft pick, the explosive wideout who will almost certainly “be the foundation of the Cowboys offense in a short period of time.”

Dallas Cowboys: 6 matchups to look forward to in 2020 :: The Landry Hat

The Cowboys will have plenty of interesting one-on-one battles on their roster this season. Lucas Mascherin of The Landry Hat breaks down six of the best.

Film room: Exploring 3 ‘fantasy’ player-for-player trades for the Cowboys, including a deal involving Jamal Adams :: Dallas Morning News

John Owning gets hypothetical (with help from the Twitterverse) and looks at a trio of possible one-for-one swaps. How would you feel about Trysten Hill for Raiders tight end Foster Moreau? Jourdan Lewis for Bengals defensive end Carl Lawson? How about La’el Collins for Jets safety Jamal Adams? Owning would bite on just two of them…

Mailbag: Are people forgetting about Zuerlein? :: The Mothership

Don’t be shocked if the veteran kicker (who’s reuniting with his longtime special teams coordinator) ends being the top free-agency upgrade of 2020. “Zuerlein’s numbers dipped last year,” notes staff writer David Helman, “but he was ridiculously reliable for seven years before that. And he was playing through injuries for most of 2019 – a fact of which I’m sure John Fassel is very aware.”

105.3 Fan ‘Nosebleed Seats’ show: Jerry’s silence, Crayton pulling up :: Cowboys Wire

Our own K.D. Drummond covers all the bases in this radio chat, ranging from the recent Romo-versus-Eli debate to COVID-19 and how it may (or may not) have reset expectations for Mike McCarthy’s first year on the Dallas sidelines.

Cowboys Assistant George Edwards To Participate in NFL Coaching Summit :: Inside The Star

Senior defensive assistant coach George Edwards will participate in a virtual quarterback coaching summit hosted by the NFL and the Black College Football Hall of Fame.

Glazer’s NFL offseason mailbag: Will Josh Allen lead the Bills to the playoffs? :: The Athletic

Scroll past the Buffalo forecast, and there are three Cowboys items of interest from the NFL insider. One, Glazer says the Dallas front office will “absolutely not” let things with quarterback Dak Prescott reach the holdout stage. Two, he thinks the Cowboys will be “a strong contender” this year. And three, he shares a few cool stories about Larry Allen, including how opposing defensive tackles routinely came down with a mysterious illness the very week they were set to square off against the massive Cowboys guard.

Adam Rank’s 2020 record prediction for Cowboys :: NFL.com

Going one game at a time, the network writer sees Dallas starting slow at 1-2, but finishing very strong (including a late-December shocker) to wrap up the NFC East title and claim the conference’s No. 2 postseason seed with a 12-4 record.

Has giving out so many second chances been worth it for the Dallas Cowboys? :: The Athletic

Jon Machota looks at Jerry Jones’s proclivity for taking on risky reclamation projects, from Alonzo Spellman and Adam “Pacman” Jones to Terrell Owens and Charles Haley. Some have worked out; others have not. It remains to be seen which category Aldon Smith will fall into.

How to run the perfect routes with Cowboys WR Amari Cooper :: Touchdown Wire

In an NFL Game Pass Film Session, Kurt Warner and Brian Baldinger sit down with the four-time Pro Bowler for a clinical breakdown of how the wideout technician handles his business- both physically and mentally- on gameday.

NFL pioneer Fritz Pollard’s life story more relevant than ever :: NFL.com

There’s no direct Cowboys connection per se, but the story of one of the NFL’s first Black players- and its first Black coach- is a fascinating and important chapter that fans of every team should know about. Check out this preview of the NFL:360 deep-dive into the groundbreaking life and career of Fritz Pollard.

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ESPN’s Mike Clay predicts No. 3 seed for Cowboys following 2020 draft

How good are the Cowboys? How difficult is their schedule? An ESPN analyst went about a post-draft handicapping the league, position by position and determined the Cowboys should emerge victorious in the NFC East. Here’s the pseudo-science behind it.

The Dallas Cowboys have been widely heralded as having a great 2020 draft. They augmented a strength with their first pick, getting a third No. 1 receiver type in Oklahoma’s CeeDee Lamb. They attempted to replace the departed Byron Jones with a press-man corner who they saw as a first-round talent in Trevon Diggs. Other picks addressed several other needs with what is considered talent worth selections higher than where they were eventually plucked.

Following the draft, Dallas went out and got another starting corner in Daryl Worley and a starting-caliber backup QB in Andy Dalton. Combined with a strengthening on their defensive interior with the additions of Gerald McCoy and Dontari Poe, the club has done well to answer the majority of their question marks. It’s difficult to fill all holes for a club that was just .500 a year ago, but Dallas seems to have solidified the more important areas of their team. So much so that they have been predicted by ESPN’s Mike Clay to now win the NFC East.

Clay uses his formula, scoring the club position by position and placing those rankings against their schedule to predict points for and points against, and uses that to predict number of wins on the season. Dallas comes in with 10.1 wins, third-best in the NFC behind New Orleans (11.2) and defending-NFC champion San Francisco (10.4).

It gives them more than a one-game margin over 2019 NFC East champion Philadelphia.

ESPN’s Mike Clay 2020 post-draft projections.

Clay actually looks at Dallas as the whole being lesser than the sum of their parts.

When scoring the offense and defense, the Cowboys actually come in as the second-best team overall, with a 2.9 score out of a perfect 4.0. Only the Saints are better at 3.3; but other factors have them finishing with just the league’s sixth-best win total.

Breaking down Clay’s positional rankings adds to the impression of how solid Dallas’ overall roster should be in 2020.

Offense

Their best unit is the wideouts, which scored a 3.9 out of 4.0. The trio of Amari Cooper, Michael Gallup and Lamb rank only behind the Buccaneers triple-threat of Mike Evans, Chris Godwin and rookie Tyler Johnson (Minnesota).

The Cowboys QB tandem of Dak Prescott and Andy Dalton ranks seventh (3.4), the running back duo of Ezekiel Elliott and Tony Pollard comes in fourth (3.6) and the offensive line ranks fourth in the league as well (3.6).

The tight end position weighs Dallas down the most, coming in with the fourth-worst grade in the league at 0.5.

Their overall offensive score of 1.8 (out of 2.0) is third in the league behind New Orleans (2.0) and Kansas City (1.9).

Defense

Dallas’ defense was an issue last season, but it appears they’ve put together a group that has one special group with the others all ranking middle tier. That level of consistency is apparently hard to find across the league. In the day and age where offense is king, the Cowboys strategy of having expensive talent on that side of the ball appears set to pay off.

Linebacker is the standout group for Dallas, with Jaylon Smith, Sean Lee, Joe Thomas and most importantly an expected-to-be-healthy Leighton Vander Esch scoring a 3.9, second only to Seattle’s unit.

The defensive interior (2.1), safety (2.3) and corner (2.1) are all middle of the road. The weakest link on defense is the edge position, where there isn’t any confidence at all beyond DeMarcus Lawrence.

The group scored a 1.9, good for just 18th in the league. Fans are still hopeful the team will look to ink a player such as Everson Griffen to augment their reinstatement hopefuls of Randy Gregory and Aldon Smith.

Overall, Dallas’ defense graded out as a 1.1 (again out of 2.0), just outside of the top 10 at No. 11. Again, this shows that while several other teams have strong units that outpace the Cowboys, few teams are able to trot out a defense without any major deficiencies, which Dallas can.

Strength of Schedule

Finally Clay takes these rankings and applies them to each team’s schedule. Based on these grades, Dallas has the 13th-most difficult schedule overall.

The Cowboys face the NFC West, where all four teams are predicted to have at least a .500 record and the AFC North where three teams are projected to be above the even line. Atlanta and Minnesota are the other non-division clubs on their schedule and the Falcons have a 7.4 win projection.

The Vikings are seen as NFC North champs, but winners of a weak division with just an 8.8 win projection.

The other NFC East teams are predicted to finish in the order of Philadelphia (8.9 win projection), New York (6.4) and Washington (4.1).

Both the Redskins and Giants are predicted to be in the top-10 of the 2021 draft, with Washington having the best shot at the No. 1 overall selection; which will be up for sale if Dwayne Haskins emerges in 2020, or will go to a QB pick if he doesn’t.

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