Dallas Cowboys: April Fools or Springtime Savvy?

Dallas Cowboys: April Fools

This is a pretty easy case to build considering all they’ve lost. For starters, it’s hard to find a competitive football team that doesn’t have a a legit CB1. And the ones that didn’t have one, all got in on the bidding for Byron last month. Yet, the Dallas Cowboys decided to let their shutdown CB1 walk in free agency, creating a giant hole in the roster and moving themselves that much further from contention.

About the only way a team can survive the loss of their lone elite CB is by building a dominant pass-rush (and even that strategy is pretty questionable). But the Dallas Cowboys may have taken a step back here as well, when Robert Quinn, their leading sacker in 2019, left in free agency. While it was probably wise letting him go, given how much money he was demanding, the loss is fairly significant.

In fairness, Dallas made some fairly decent moves on the defensive line by adding Gerald McCoy and Dontari Poe. But both players are considered well past their primes and any upgrade they may provide inside will probably be short-lived.  The edge is in scary situation with Quinn gone –  Dallas appears to be putting faith in the ability of Tyrone Crawford and Randy Gregory to make it back and hold down the fort like they did in 2018 when they tag-teamed the RDE spot together.

The Dallas Cowboys also added a safety in Ha Ha Clinton-Dix, but those who’ve watched Ha Ha play, know he’s not an ideal starter and better served playing as third safety (not unlike the man he replaced, Jeff Heath). He just has different strengths and different weakness than the man he’s replacing. He’s not markedly better.

All of this and we haven’t even mentioned the step back the offense has made. Starting slot receiver Randall Cobb left to Houston and All-Pro center Travis Frederick has retired. Two other significant holes that have yet to be filled.