Tanking has been quite the subject as of late.
Suddenly, the Cowboys find themselves on a win streak. They beat two divisional foes in the Commanders and Giants and had a mini bye before taking on the 4-8 Bengals. With the 3-9 Panthers on the schedule after that, suddenly there is talk about the Cowboys making a run.
It’s even prompted Jerry Jones to publicly float the idea of giving Mike McCarthy an extension, and Dak Prescott spoke publicly for the first time since his season-ending injury to vouch for his head coach.
The idea of a magical playoff run still seems more fantasy than reality, though. Currently, Dallas has just a 4% chance to reach the postseason, though those odds jump up to 9% with a win over the Bengals. That’s still not much, which prompts the question of whether or not the positives outweigh the negatives of this team running the table. Our own Tom Ryle and David Howman have some ideas about this.
Tom: I think there are two big negatives, one more obvious than the other. I’ll start with the one a lot of other people have been talking about, the impact on the team’s draft position. I don’t know whether the team is looking at something of a rebuild or just trying to build on what they have, but in either case, they need all the draft capital they can get. And they have already traded away their fourth-rounder, to the Panthers.
Every win is going to move them a little further down the order. I know that the team is not going to actually tank – no team really does, although some clearly give up late in the season. But they are not looking at excellence this year, just mediocrity at best – and it really might be helpful to be a bit less successful in these last few games if you are willing to step back and look at the next season or two.
And they (read the Jones family) really need to be looking at the big challenges facing them starting this offseason.
David: I have to disagree here. I have no delusions of grandeur that this team will make a run and reach the playoffs, but I also don’t think the high draft pick is that important. This year especially, as it’s one of the more polarizing draft classes in recent years, with few surefire top prospects outside of Travis Hunter. And even then, you’re hard pressed to find anyone who agrees on what position(s) Hunter will play at the next level.
More than that, though, this is about the future of the organization. Dak Prescott already hinted at the notion that McCarthy deserves a fair shot, which we all know he didn’t get this past offseason. In a world where McCarthy does come back, you want to see the players continue to play hard for him. That’s what they’ve done the last two games, and continuing that trend would be a good thing to carry over into next year when McCarthy gets his quarterback back.
Tom: That’s a nice way to get to my next point. I agree McCarthy got a raw deal, but I don’t expect him to be back barring a miraculous end to this season. That’s because someone has to take the blame for everything, and it isn’t going to be the owner.
Jerry Jones is to me the biggest concern if this team should win most of the remaining games, because it won’t take much at all for him to convince himself that they were soooo close, if only the injuries hadn’t piled up and yadda yadda. He will think they just need some tweaks around the edges, combined with a shiny new (or perhaps old) head coach to replace McCarthy, and the Cowboys will be right back in the mix.
Of course, even if the team should crater badly the rest of the way, Jerry probably won’t make any changes at all to his way of doing things. He and son Stephen remain convinced they are the smartest guys in the room. So in a sense, it is sort of immaterial how things play out in the remaining games.
So what good comes from winning? Well, I can think of one thing. There are a lot of young players the team has had to put out there that can grow and develop. That is something the team is going to need. Dallas had pretty good talent among the starters, but they had a serious lack of depth that became evident. Now the players forced into bigger roles are growing into them. They can become a stronger core for the roster next year, and that may allow the draft picks to be more useful. (We all know that free agency is not going to bring any help.) If winning is a result of on field development, then it may be worth sliding back in the draft order. The Jones problem, frankly, is insoluble.
David: You took the words right out of my mouth. I’m starting to come around on the idea that McCarthy does, indeed, stick around after this year, even if it’s more about the Belichick’s and Ben Johnson’s of the world being more enamored with other openings.
That said, if the Cowboys do bring in another head coach, they’re going to have their work cut out for them. When McCarthy first got to Dallas, it was on the heels of a disappointing 8-8 season where the team realized it had fewer answers than initially believed. The Dak Prescott injury accelerated things, but McCarthy spent most of that 2020 season trying to figure out which players had the grit and toughness to fit into his new regime.
With the Cowboys now asking so many players to step up into new roles, that offers a way to answer those questions for the next head coach before he even gets here. We’re starting to learn a lot about Brock Hoffman, Asim Richards, Mazi Smith, and Luke Schoonmaker. Josh Butler was looking like he had a future in Dallas before his unfortunate injury. Other veterans, like Terence Steele and Donovan Wilson, have made it clear they can’t be relied upon anymore.
That’s where the value comes from, to me. We know this team isn’t going to actually tank, but if they can string some more wins together it will tell us a lot about the resolve of this team and test the depth. Those are important things to find out for whoever is stalking the sidelines next year.
Tom: I’ll admit, bringing McCarthy back would be kinda fun just for the fireworks in the fan base. Frankly, I don’t know what the best course is – in other words, I’m just another outsider trying to figure out what goes on with this team. What the team needs is someone who is good at molding and developing players. They are not going to get any help in free agency. They do need to have the decision on who to cut and who to start. Even that may be difficult with the Jones family in the building, but whoever is the head coach next year must insist on more control there.
And there needs to be a long, hard talk about just how much the team can depend on Dak Prescott, who has definitely lost some mobility and gets injured far too frequently. That’s one reason a coaching change may be needed, although I don’t know if the owner will go after someone who will stand up to him and demand the power to control his roster.
Maybe the best thing that could happen would be to win most if not all of the remaining games to build some confidence in the players that will return, but not make the playoffs so the ownership can start on the difficult decisions to make and not wait around until the coaching market is already picked over.
Then make a really good decision on the head coach. Sadly, that is my biggest concern. But the players deserve all the success on the field they can earn.
