Nobody expected much out of the Dallas Cowboys in 2014. Mind you, that's not a set up for paragraph upon paragraph of I-told-you-sos; my prediction for Dallas coming into the year, as seasoned listeners of Third and Long may recall, was a less-than-rosy six wins. Rather, it's an indication of the way hindsight can color a narrative. With low expectations, Dallas had little to lose, but exploded to a 12-4 record and shattered perceptions in the process. Now, we look back upon what transpired over those 19 weeks, focusing on every detail under a microscope, trying to answer the eternal question: how? How did this happen, what should we look for in the future, and is Jerry Jones merely a vessel sloshing with formaldehyde and moonshine? As a blubbering, degenerate fan, I took on the task of answering these questions. Let's step right into the muck, shall we?
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| Tyron Smith: comedian |
Dallas' offense ranked third overall on numberFire's
Net Expected Points metric, with a total expected score of 182 by the end of the season. Almost everything was going right for the team that had hit so many speed bumps in the past. Tony Romo, a major question mark coming off back surgery, threw 34 touchdowns to only nine interceptions, and a career high 69.9 completion percentage. To put his season in perspective, league MVP Aaron Rodgers trailed Romo in passer rating and completion percentage. Romo also led the league with five game-winning drives according to Pro Football Reference, a massive feather in the cap of a quarterback unfairly derided as a choker his entire career (for more on that topic, I advise reading numberFire contributor J.J. Zachariason's thorough investigation into
why that narrative flops like a dying pike.) DeMarco Murray carried similar doubts entering his final rookie-deal season, after losing game time to injury every year since he enrolled in Oklahoma. To wit, his career-first full season was also a career-best: 2,261 total yards, thirteen touchdowns, and a near-consensus Offensive Player of the Year victory. Nobody dared to malign new coordinator Scott Linehan's crew; the praise heaped upon the dominant offensive line and league-leading rushing attack couldn't be dodged by anything less than a total media blackout. Along with grown-up cyborg Dez Bryant and rising players elsewhere on the offense (Cole Beasley and the aforementioned offensive linemen especially), the Cowboys struck fear into the hearts of defensive game-planners, and by the end had found their way back to a winning record. Staff consistency and a gradual improvement in personnel scouting (particular credit to Will McClay) over the past couple of years played a not-unimportant part in building the offense into the beast we saw every Sunday. While Jason Garrett serves as a glorified figurehead for the team, his consistent leadership has been pointed out as essential to the team remaining focused. Even unsung decision-makers and teachers like linebackers coach Matt Eberflus and Jerry Jones' son Stephen deserve credit, having fostered an environment dedicated to quality and unity.
For every bright day, there must be an equally grim twilight, and the Dallas defense fit the part disappointingly well. As the season crept closer, every talking head deigned to qualify the defensive squad as anything above "the worst in history," and with good reason. The Cowboys had just released future Hall of Fame defensive end and possible Santa Claus doppelganger DeMarcus Ware due to their money troubles; outside of the always-hurt Sean Lee and inconsistent Orlando Scandrick, he was their only positive presence on defense in 2013. To patch the ship, Dallas signed a few one-year-deal free agents (Henry Melton, Jeremy Mincey, Terrell McClain) and brought in defensive-line guru Rod Marinelli to glop the amorphous mess into something coherent. Dusk turned to full-blown nighttime when Sean Lee tore his ACL in training camp, sidelining him for the entire year. Dallas was forced to take a wild shot on infamous draft bust Rolando McClain to try and fill this new, monstrous hole. In hindsight, everyone agrees this defense should have lived up to expectations as the worst in history, but a few strokes of luck hit the team. Melton and Mincey performed well above their pay grades in rotational roles. Rolando turned into a force at middle linebacker, fortifying the leaky run defense and eventually leading the defensive locker room. Young tackle Tyrone Crawford took a big step forward in his development and now looks like a potential long-term starter at three-technique. And behind the scenes, Marinelli schemed some creative and highly-efficient plans. Where did all of this overachievement lead the D in Big D? A bottom-ten finish with 84 net expected points against. A historically-sharp offense and some miraculous personnel turns only lifted the defense enough to barely tread water. The secondary play, not counting solid play from Scandrick, was a special kind of terrible. Without a starting-caliber free safety, the team was trotting out J.J. Wilcox at center field,
which ended in spectacular failure. Barry Church, one of the nominally-best tacklers on the team, had weekly bouts of forgetting to wrap up on plays. Brandon Carr waited until week 15 to start justifying his exorbitant contract, and even then never rose above "mediocre." In an instance brimming with irony, Morris Claiborne was threatened by journeyman Sterling Moore for perimeter and nickel corner duty, but lost his season to injury in week five before he got a chance to re-cement the job. While I ascribe to the adage that a good defense is built front-to-back, not even the Fearsome Foursome can mitigate an invisible secondary.
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| D. Lawrence and D. Harris |
Looking forward, I feel a sense of cautious optimism for this team. Undoubtedly, the offense will regress towards the mean after an all-around bombastic season. Murray is especially at-risk of tanking if he remains in Dallas, after weathering the strain his massive workload caused. Contract negotiations with skill players always risk turning ugly, and while Dez has grown into a mature leader for the team, the situation could go sour if he isn't paid handsomely. On the other hand, the defense should experience a similar regression, this time positively. Many of the defense's positive contributors, like Mincey, Selvie, and Melton, may not return (the team already declined Melton's option, sending him off to the free agent pool). However, young players like Demarcus Lawrence, Anthony Hitchens, Ken Bishop, and Crawford soften the blow and offer a bit of hope for the future. Lee will ideally recovery from his injury, and with Rolando, can turn the linebacking corps into a strength. The coming draft has been referred to as "the year of the pass rush," ripe with gifted defenders that can add to the current youth core; expect Marinelli to get plenty of new toys after the offseason closes. Financially, the team has finally escaped salary cap paralysis. Pending an expected pay cut from Carr, who currently siphons over 12 million dollars from the team's salary, enough room should exist to allow the team to swing a couple of deals (Rahim Moore, if affordable, is my pipe dream FA signing). In a more macrouniversal sense, the competition within the NFC East promises to be much fiercer than last year, as New York and Philadelphia get further settled in their new schemes and personnel. Expecting to trounce the rest of the division is foolish.
In sum, 2014 in Dallas was a year rife with success, luck, and diligence. Many opportune swings of fate took place that helped the Cowboys' rise through the ranks. Week four in Seattle often represents the galvanizing moment, where the team had turned a corner; the defense often swarmed Russel Wilson and forced him into mistakes, while Murray trampled the Seahawks' mythical run-stuffers. I often posit the reality of their win hinging partly on Seattle's absurd refusal to run the ball in the second half of the game after the defense was gashed by it earlier; one can only chalk this up to blind luck. However, after years of seeing bad luck haunt the team between horrid last-minute decisions and mind-boggling plays, it was nice to feel like they had briefly escaped being one of the football gods' playthings. Here's to the offseason, and to looking towards the future.
Oh, and the answer to the third question: science cannot confirm or deny whether Jerry has a working ventricular system. Take that as you will.
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| Now git me my lassoin' rope, I'm a-huntin' yuppies today |
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Lucio Leone
