2025 Random Cowboys Stuff Thread

boozeman

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Let me guess?

Not worried?

I am not. He is an accessory.

Great if it works.

I hope we did not design more for him in the general offense and yeah great, we might need a kick returner for a quarter of the season.
 

Genghis Khan

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I think the ranking is probably a bit generous. I'm not at all sold on our run defense.


 

Simpleton

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I think the ranking is probably a bit generous. I'm not at all sold on our run defense.


I think our pass rush will be top 3-5 in the league, our run defense will probably be anywhere from about 12ish to 25ish. If they can get anywhere near the top end of that range with the run defense I think we'll have a top 5ish DL (and defense) in the league.
 

Genghis Khan

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I think our pass rush will be top 3-5 in the league, our run defense will probably be anywhere from about 12ish to 25ish. If they can get anywhere near the top end of that range with the run defense I think we'll have a top 5ish DL (and defense) in the league.

I hope you're right but you're more optimistic than I am.
 

Simpleton

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I hope you're right but you're more optimistic than I am.
I don't think it's overly optimistic.

It's pretty much fact that we have one of the best pass rushes in the league, we finished 3rd in the league in sacks last year despite Parsons missing like 5 games, having numerous other injuries at DE, and generally spending most games either trailing or very close in score (i.e. not ideal pass-rushing scenarios).

I said the run defense could basically be anywhere from above average to one of the worst in the league, which I think tracks, and if they can manage to be average to above average we'll have a pretty elite defense.
 

Simpleton

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Run D might start off well, but will fade as season progresses unless some of the bigs at DT step up.
Either that or the offense will have to be good enough to protect the run defense, either by jumping out to leads or having a really good running game.
 

Cowboysrock55

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I hope you're right but you're more optimistic than I am.
I mean if they are near the top in pass rush and near the bottom in run defense 12 doesn't seem crazy. But I am hopeful we can at least be 15-20 ish in run defense. Just be middle to lower middle of the pack. I think we all look to NT as the reason our run defense will suck. But run defense is about a whole lot more than that. Of course when you have undersized 3 tech, undersized RE, and undersized LE. You sort of need your 1 tech to be a badass to pick up the slack. And unfortunately if Mazi is just average against the run its not good enough.
 

Simpleton

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I mean if they are near the top in pass rush and near the bottom in run defense 12 doesn't seem crazy. But I am hopeful we can at least be 15-20 ish in run defense. Just be middle to lower middle of the pack. I think we all look to NT as the reason our run defense will suck. But run defense is about a whole lot more than that. Of course when you have undersized 3 tech, undersized RE, and undersized LE. You sort of need your 1 tech to be a badass to pick up the slack. And unfortunately if Mazi is just average against the run its not good enough.
I'm hoping that we see more of guys like Kneeland and Solomon Thomas on the edge on neutral downs (1st and 10, 2nd and 5, etc.), maybe even 3-man line looks where you have some combination of Mazi/Osa/Thomas/Toia/Kneeland with their hands down with guys like Parsons/Fowler/Eze standing up.
 

ravidubey

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Rankings don’t mean a whole lot.

There should be a “rating vs balanced offenses”.

We can’t stop them, run or pass because we’ve weakened our run defense to favor our pass defense to such a degree that teams can reliably punch us in the mouth running the ball so much we go from attacking to guessing.
 

Simpleton

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If you are judging a team's offseason based on what they do with Rico fucking Dowdle, you're kind of retarded.
Yea I'm also fairly certain that we're going to get similar production out of our RB's that we got out of Dowdle.

The only issue last year is that we tried to start a guy for two months who should've been out of the league, so of course Dowdle looked awesome when he came in.

I would've tried to re-sign Dowdle but not for what he got, I'm sure Williams and/or Sanders combined with Blue or whoever will give us comparable production.
 

boozeman

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If you are judging a team's offseason based on what they do with Rico fucking Dowdle, you're kind of retarded.
It goes to show me he never watched the games and only saw the uptick in productivity that anybody would have enjoyed in a similar situation. Do I think it is somewhat of a wash and wish we did better? Sure. But if that is the one black mark on the offseason that downgrades it to average, we did okay.

Or the guy is just retarded.
 

Simpleton

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It goes to show me he never watched the games and only saw the uptick in productivity that anybody would have enjoyed in a similar situation. Do I think it is somewhat of a wash and wish we did better? Sure. But if that is the one black mark on the offseason that downgrades it to average, we did okay.

Or the guy is just retarded.
The offseason was pretty good, not amazing since they're still cheap jackasses, but it was similar to what they did leading up to 2023 when they added a few respectable vets to paper over holes (Cooks/Gilmore in 2023, Pickens/Fowler/Murray this year).

This draft will end up being better than 2023 as well.

Like anything these days the Cowboys are either horribly underrated or horribly overrated. We aren't going to win the Super Bowl without some extreme luck, but we aren't going 5-12 either unless there are a million injuries.

Although we had a million injuries last year and still won 7 games so hey.
 

Chocolate Lab

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I'm actually kind of hopeful on Murray. I never expect a coaching or scenary change to make a huge difference, and I doubt it does now either. But he was slow to develop at OU -- I remember Switzer and others raving about his physical talent even as a freshman, but not until his last year was he very good -- so maybe that plus LB being Eberflus' specialty equals something good.
 

Simpleton

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I'm actually kind of hopeful on Murray. I never expect a coaching or scenary change to make a huge difference, and I doubt it does now either. But he was slow to develop at OU -- I remember Switzer and others raving about his physical talent even as a freshman, but not until his last year was he very good -- so maybe that plus LB being Eberflus' specialty equals something good.
I'm not worried about our LB's at all, primarily because Eberflus and Borgonzi are generally excellent when it comes to identifying LB's who fit their scheme. We're also very deep there if/when Overshown returns between Murray, Liufau, Sanborn, Overshown, and now James. You might even be able to throw Damone Clark in there too.

In Murray's case in particular I think there's huge potential. He's an elite run/hit athlete but his main issue has always been reading/diagnosing, in a relatively simple scheme and with specific attention coming from Eberflus and Borgonzi I think he could be really good.
 
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