Cowboys good news/bad news: Why kicker and WR may not be problems at all
By Reid Hanson
It’s no mystery the kicker position is a suboptimal situation for the Dallas Cowboys right now. It’s also clear that since the Cowboys are set to start the 2022 campaign without three of their top-four receivers from last year, the WR position is facing a significant challenge of its own.
But none of that may matter. At all.
In today’s good news/bad news exercise, we explain why kicker and receiver may not matter for the Cowboys in 2022.
Before we get to why it might not matter, let’s first recap the previously mentioned positions.
Cowboys Kicker situation
After two years of Greg Zuerlein, the Dallas Cowboys were ready to move on. Greg missed far too many extra points and his kicks over 49 yards weren’t making up for it (although he was pretty darn good on field goals under 49 yards).
Dallas invested in the exciting rookie Jonathan Garibay and rolled into camp feeling good about themselves. Turns out, Garibay was about as confident as a garden slug and quickly washed out. Now the Cowboys head into the season with Brett Maher at kicker and have to deal with the consequences.
Cowboys WR situation
Receiver hasn’t been so painful. Michael Gallup is still out for Week 1 but plenty of regular guys have stepped up in his absence. Noah Brown has been shockingly good and Simi Fehoko has progressed wonderfully. The rookie Jalen Tolbert has flashed a bit and electric return man KeVontae Turpin looks like he’s a situational star. Even an UDFA like Dennis Houston contributed in camp. Things could have been terrible, but you know what? They turned out ok, all things considered.
Can any of these other guys consistently beat first team coverage? That’s going to be the key here. Teams are going to focus on CeeDee Lamb. If they can’t exploit the situation, this offense could bog down quite easily.
But none it could matter!
That’s the good news. The bad news is, none of it may matter because the offensive line makes it all moot.
Cowboys O-line situation
The Dallas Cowboys offensive line is what should be keeping everyone up at night. It was worrisome before Tyron Smith went down and it’s exponentially more worrisome today with him expected to be out until at least December.
The Cowboys O-line struggled mightily in 2021, but that could be a cakewalk compared to this year. Connor McGovern couldn’t even unseat Connor Williams last season. Now McGovern is the starting LG.
Terence Steele struggled against power rushers last season to a disturbing degree. Training camp showed that’s still a major issue. Tyler Biadasz looks a little better but that just puts him in average territory (at best).
And the rookie Tyler Smith is making a last minute shift back to LT to take over for Tyron. He came to Dallas extremely raw and technically sloppy. A 14 day crash course on the blindside ain’t going to fix it.
If there’s no time to pass the ball, then there’s no time to get open. That simplifies things for the receivers, right? If the Cowboys can’t move the ball then kicker is no big deal either. Good news?
The point is – when we talk about our concerns at WR and kicker, we’re burying the lead. After all, why worry about the deck chairs when the ship is sinking?
Related Story. The concerns with Terence Steele. light
Could the offensive line work out and be serviceable? Sure. But we need to give respect to the situation and acknowledge everything they have to overcome – because it’s a lot.