Are Dak Prescott’s problems pushing Cowboys toward a rebuild?
Jones looks at that reality and just wants to keep rowing, like he’s in a canoe with some leaks and not a colander with oars.
But there’s a reason why Jones is urging calm and patience. The Cowboys have essentially no options to meaningfully change anything on the depth chart or in the coaching staff for the next four months. This team is what it is. Either it finds a way to improve with the existing talent and play-callers, or it will have to consider opening the door to another 90-degree turn in a decades-long cycle of re-tooling.
That’s what Cowboys fans should seriously consider here. They might love certain parts of the roster and see youthful pieces in place and say “We just need a new staff” while failing to consider that a new group won’t be sold on some of those same pieces – or the schemes that make the young pieces a proper fit.
Significant coaching staff changes invite chaos. And that leads to rebuilds. It’s one of the most fundamental truths of the NFL’s Super Bowl era. New coaching staffs want their own guys and their own schemes. Nobody wants to be told they’re winning with someone else’s pieces or coaching games by following someone else’s well-laid blueprints
and defense (edge rusher
Khalil Mack), a seasoned head coach (Jack Del Rio) who led the franchise to the postseason, and a supposed swath of supporting veterans and budding young talent.
One poor season later, the franchise deep-sixed the entire coaching staff and completely recalculated its trajectory. Largely because the new head coach has an entirely different design and belief in the talent base – and also doesn’t appear to be on the same page with the front office that carried over from the previous regime.
Cowboys fans should take note and scream about coaching changes with significant caution. And they should also consider that the gutting of the Raiders serves as an example to Jones about why coaching staff changes need to be handled very carefully. Not to mention Jones’ own history, which has featured multiple regime changes that always altered key parts of the roster while also attempting to reshape the culture in the building.
That’s what is at stake here in the next four months. A shakeup that could result in a serious rebuild of this Dallas roster. It shouldn’t be surprising to fans or Jones or anyone else who understands how the NFL works.
Does that sound like a finished product? Does that sound “close” to a finished product?
If you said yes, you’re kidding yourself. In reality, that’s a collection of positives and negatives that leaves Dallas in middling territory. The kind of situation that – at best – typically results in 7-9 or 8-8 or 9-7. These aren’t the results that Jones or fans will be satisfied with.
All of which brings us back to this critical four-month stretch and why it’s the difference between getting this all on the rails or potentially throwing it into a Raiders-like situation where a tear-down could happen sooner than anyone thinks.
For Garrett and this coaching staff to survive, Prescott has to be turned back into the player the team was so overjoyed with developing back in 2016. And for Prescott to be that player again, the offensive line has to get itself in order. Maybe not to the point of playing as well as 2016, but at least a reasonable facsimile. Start there. If they can’t resolve all their problems at once, start in the place that at least allows a succession of possible remedies.
Some Cowboys fans won’t like the sound of that. Some will want to get rid of Garrett and his staff and maybe Prescott, too. They’ll say there is enough existing talent in place to hire a new staff and find a new quarterback and get this all up and running next season. But they’ll be discounting what Jerry Jones isn’t: the fact that new coaches bring new ideas and new evaluations … and new ideas and evaluations bring new players and schemes. That can mean wholesale changes, including the quarterback.
There’s a word for that: Rebuilding. And make no mistake, this Cowboys team is going to spend the next four months flirting with it.