Dallas Cowboys Staff Picks: The Most Disappointing Player of 2020

Sport DFW writers discuss their picks for who the most disappointing Dallas Cowboys player was

There were no shortage of disappointments on this Dallas Cowboys 2020 roster. The team that was predicted by many to challenge for a Super Bowl inexplicably finished with a losing record. It was essentially disappointment after disappointment all season long.

But who was the biggest disappointment of the 2020 season? We posed that question (and more) to a couple of our Sport DFW writers this weekend and their answers were compelling. Interestingly enough, all three of us had different answers…

Ben Davila, Sport DFW contributor

The award for Most Disappointing Player by far is Ezekiel Elliott. This guy is coming off a crippling contract extension and didn’t do much of anything to carry his team in the absence of his franchise quarterback.

In fact, his understudy, Tony Pollard, proved to be the Surprise Performer of the campaign. Pollard simply has the burst to be at least Zeke’s complementary counterpunch, if not the outright starter.

Dink Kearney, Sport DFW contributor

The most disappointing player of 2020 for the Dallas Cowboys is linebacker Jaylon Smith. Yes, Smith may led the team in tackles but his decline and inconsistency started last year, and this year his play has been down right ugly.

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Playing with no discipline, not able to cover, and celebrating after giving up several yardage to opposing players is nonsense. The Jaylon Smith we saw in 2018 is nowhere to be found. There’s still hope that he can regain that fire, but until then, Smith is clearly deserves “The Most disappointing player award of 2020”

Reid Hanson, Sport DFW

I love the cases made for Jaylon and Zeke and I agree wholeheartedly both players underperformed immensely in 2020. But the reason neither of them are my pick for this is because of my expectations entering the season.

Ezekiel Elliott has been on the decline for a couple seasons and I didn’t have all that high of expectations for him this year. Jaylon Smith is someone I wanted to be excited about but entered the season cautiously optimistic in order to avoid a second season of disappointment.

The player I was most let down by this season was Leighton Vander Esch.

I had fairly high expectations for the third year linebacker in 2020. After seeing injuries basically steal away his 2019 season, I was hoping to see him regain that dominance he showed as a rookie.

Instead, we got more injuries, more poor play, and more disappointment.

For as bad as Jaylon played this season, Vander Esch was worse. He missed more tackles, missed more assignments, and made more mistakes than Jaylon. Pro Football Focus agrees and grades him as the 62nd rated LB in the NFL this season (out of 89). Worse yet – he missed more games. LVE only played 44% of the Dallas Cowboys defensive snaps this season. The second time in his three-year career he played less than half the snaps.

Based on my expectations entering the 2020 season, LVE get’s my vote for the most disappointing.

What say you? was someone more disappointing to you? Let us know in the comments.

• Published on 01/04/2021 at 13:01 PM
• Last updated at 01/06/2021 at 13:47 PM