Morning After Wk 3: More Of The Same
When the Cowboys Needed a Response, There Was None To Be Found Again.
We spend about eight months between seasons every year wondering about moves that are made and moves that are not. We speculate, ponder, and attempt to project what it really means on the field. We study and formulate what they must be thinking, and then we conclude and surmise before they tape the ankles and get back to work.
You know, they tell us, seasons are not won in the offseason. They are won on the field, and we like our team very much, they would say.
Yet, the Cowboys are stuck right now in a rut that they apparently cannot get out of. Their best players all look like they are definitely not enjoying their current situations as they continue to be at the heart of what is going wrong. Instead of lifting the Cowboys out of the muck, many of their very best players — especially yesterday, as the Baltimore Ravens crushed them with very little effort — appear to be underperforming, perhaps because the internal pressure to fix things is more than they can handle.
When you look at the game yesterday – particularly the one that was effectively over after Derrick Henry bounded in from 26 yards out for yet another touchdown to make it 28-6 very early in the 3rd quarter – you are struck at how many of the best and highly compensated players are all looking like they are in a prolonged slump. They have proven over large samples that they are top players, yet, right now, when the team needs them most, they cannot lift their squad out of the mire. They have taken a collective downturn all at a time when they were being used as the cornerstones of the entire build.
Surely, it cannot last. Surely, after the Saints debacle, those men would draw a line in the sand and say it is too far from what they will accept and allow.
Instead, what we saw yesterday was that your best players were some of your worst. And I am sorry, but that is not how this league is set up to work. If we are going to hand the money to these guys — either already have or soon will — we need to demand their very best when the team needs them the most.
Of course, that might be how we got to these 10,000 days in the wilderness to begin with, by not building a roster that can support those we demand so much of as the Tony Romo era reminds us, but allow me to digress. For better or for worse, these are the men who the hopes are pinned to. Either, this thing performs on the backs of your Prescotts, Lambs, Parsons, Diggs, and Smiths or the ship sinks to the bottom of the ocean.
And right now, it is sinking. In fact, we wonder if it is already sunk.