Point/Counterpoint: Will the Cowboys win 11 games this season?

Point: Dallas Cowboys Will Win 11 Games This Season

Posted 1 hour ago

Bryan Broaddus
Football Analyst/Scout

IRVING, Texas – For the last two seasons under Jason Garrett, the Dallas Cowboys have had a chance to win the NFC East title only to fall short in games against the Giants and Redskins.

My expectations for the club were not particularly high going into either season, but I have a much different thought going into this campaign. I have learned over my years in this league not to look so much as who you play but who currently plays for you. If you would have asked me before last season who I thought was the most talented team in the East was, I would have said the Eagles but as the season played out and their record ended up 4-12, I wasn’t even close.

This is not an excuse but for the Cowboys to win eight games last season with the injuries that this team suffered on both sides of the ball, it was numbing, and with a chance to win the division, it was honestly a miracle.

Can this team win 11 games? You bet it can. Even though injury is part of the game, I don’t feel like this defense will lose Sean Lee and Jay Ratliff for over half the season, I don’t feel like thatDeMarco Murray will miss six games and I know that DeMarcus Ware will be 100% healthy by the time the season opens against the Giants. All these injuries crippled a team that still managed to finish 8-8.

I have said this a bunch on “Talkin’ Cowboys,” give me this defense healthy with Lee, Carter, Ratliff and Ware and the outcome in several of those loses, I believe it is a different story. I feel the very same way about Murray and without him in the running game as bad as it was at times, he still gave you a chance just on his ability.

Don’t focus on who this team plays and where but focus on Dez Bryant, Jason Witten, Tony Romoand Tyron Smith. Focus on Miles Austin, Brandon Carr and Morris Claiborne. Focus on guys like Anthony Spencer and Barry Church, these names are the reason why this club will win more games. Coaches put players in position to make plays, it’s something that we hear all the time from Jason Garrett.

Great players tend to make great
coaches, just ask Phil Jackson about that. Monte Kiffin and Rod Marinelli have a solid plan on defense and you can see how players are in better position to make plays and it’s more about that than trying to out trick the opponent. From my experiences with Bill Callahan, he has always played to the strengths of his players and along with this offensive staff, he will find ways to move the ball consistently and finish drives.

We all learned last season what a factor injury can play in these games on a week-to-week basis but I have always believed this: It’s about the Jimmy’s and Joe’s and not the X’s and O’s. I have the utmost respect for the coaches in this league but generally the most talented teams win. This team when healthy, can compete with any other in the league and if that remains the case, they will be the difference in three more victories in 2013.

Counterpoint: Betting On 11 Wins Puts Expectations Too High

Posted 2 hours ago

Rowan Kavner
Dallas Cowboys.com Staff Writer

IRVING, Texas – 6-10. 8-8. 8-8.

That’s the Cowboys’ record in each of the last three seasons, respectively, a combined 22-26 line that can’t be ignored.

A lot has happened in the offseason and with the progression of some of the younger players, including Dez Bryant, Sean Lee and Bruce Carter, it’s possible to believe that at any point the Cowboys can turn things around and get out of the mediocre state they’ve found themselves in the last few years.

That improvement could occur this year. They can win nine or 10 games and fight for a playoff berth, but assuming they will go out and finish with 11 wins is a bit far-fetched and a reach.

That doesn’t mean they won’t play well. After all, the Redskins won the division last year by winning 10 games. The Giants won it the year prior by winning just nine and the Eagles a year before that by winning 10.

It wouldn’t be a ridiculous notion to think the Cowboys can do the same, but nothing’s occurred in the last few seasons to suggest they will all of a sudden win three more games than they did last year. I’m not sipping the Kool-Aid just yet.

The amount of injuries that afflicted this team last year was bizarre and almost impossible to overcome, but I’m not sure they win three more games at full strength. Keep in mind that they started the season 2-3 without many serious injuries at all.

The Cowboys have young stars who could help shift the momentum and the culture. But they also have put together just three 10-plus-win seasons since 2000. They still have to play their always-tough division games, not to mention a trip to Chicago and matchups against Green Bay and Denver. The road to 11 wins is treacherous.

Reaching the 10-win plateau this season should be considered a victory. That mark would have likely won them the division in each of the last three years, depending on what teams those victories came against. There’s no reason to believe a nine or 10-win season won’t be enough this year again.

They have the talent to compete with the best in the league and have done so, coming down to the wire with the Ravens last season before Baltimore pulled it out at the end.

But there’s been no proof to this point that the Cowboys will win games outright without needing a late-minute comeback. There’s been no proof to believe the Cowboys can all of a sudden get movement on the line of scrimmage and start to run efficiently enough

for Tony Romo to play off of that. There’s been no proof that the players with “injury-prone” labels can shake that mantra.

All it takes is one season and one playoff run for the Cowboys to get out of the state they’re in. But as head coach Jason Garrett says, there’s a process. That process is a marathon, and the trip out of mediocrity will take time.

Broaddus has made himself into a flaming homer.

boozeman said:

Broaddus has made himself into a flaming homer.

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He and Watkins have both joined Spags in that category.

Iamtdg said:

He and Watkins have both joined Spags in that category.

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That's a bit harsh. Broaddus will still call Jerry Jones out on the Talkin' Cowboys show. He did it a number of times around draft time. He's been pretty critical of some of the personnel moves this organization has made and is also the guy who argues with Spags and tries to keep him in check an awful lot on Talkin' Cowboys. I'm not going to defend the guy too much because he is an opinionated blowhard that loves to hear himself talk and can get real sensitive/defensive when challenged, but comparing him to Spags...not fair.

E_D_Guapo said:

That's a bit harsh. Broaddus will still call Jerry Jones out on the Talkin' Cowboys show. He did it a number of times around draft time. He's been pretty critical of some of the personnel moves this organization has made and is also the guy who argues with Spags and tries to keep him in check an awful lot on Talkin' Cowboys. I'm not going to defend the guy too much because he is an opinionated blowhard that loves to hear himself talk and can get real sensitive/defensive when challenged, but comparing him to Spags...not fair.

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Fine, then how about... he is on his way to becoming another Spags?

Iamtdg said:

Fine, then how about... he is on his way to becoming another Spags?

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God I hope not. He'll be absolutely worthless if he goes that route. No need for more than one little propaganda-spreading Jerry Jones lapdog.

LOL WUT?

Although in all honesty, if we can stay relatively healthy, Frederick solidifies the interior of the OL, we can find a decent safety to pair with Church and Garrett learns to stop icing his kicker we could win 10 or 11.

All of that just isn't very likely.

I'm lining up on the half full glass side.

L.T. Fan said:

I'm lining up on the half full glass side.

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You have never lined up on any other. We expected nothing different. Props.

Iamtdg said:

You have never lined up on any other. We expected nothing different. Props.

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Through thick and thin, through hot or cold, just call me true blue even though I'm old.

L.T. Fan said:

I'm lining up on the half full glass side.

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You're like Charlie Baileygates.

What recent history says about Cowboys' 11-win optimism



MIKE FISHER |

Published: Tuesday, June 25, 2013, 4:47pm


IRVING, Texas – Two respected Dallas Cowboys voices not given to hyperbole – All-Pro tight end Jason Witten and scout-turned-analyst Bryan Broaddus – are in recent days offering rosy forecasts for 2013.

"Can this team win 11 games?'' Broaddus writes on the team's website. "You bet it can.''

Meanwhile, Witten was speaking before a crowd in his hometown of Elizabethton, Tenn., on "Jason Witten Day'' and starting a sentence, "When I'm standing in New York in early February holding up that Lombardi Trophy …''

I often call the NFL "a .500 league,'' and because it is true, the opportunity for the Cowboys to rebound from consecutive 8-8 seasons toward regular- and then postseason greatness surely exists.

But because it is a .500 league, the odds are great that Witten's wish and Broaddus' analysis will be offbase.

This is a one-bounce-of-the-ball NFL, and here's one way to tell: In 2011, 13 of the 32 teams finished within one game of .500. That means 40.6 percent of the league's teams were at .500 or within a whisker of it.

Can it be a two-bounce league? Sure. In two of the last three seasons, an incredible 19 teams in each year finished within two games of .500. There is essentially a 59.4 percent chance that an NFL team will finish within two games of .500.

How do you bust out of the pack to win 11, as the astute Broaddus sees Dallas doing? Over the course of the last four seasons, it's happened to only seven teams per year. So there's a 78.1 percent chance a team won't win 11 games.

That number goes down, by the way, when it comes to trying to emerge from the NFC East with 11 wins. Maybe this is because the Cowboys play in such a challenging division (or maybe it's because the NFL East is lousy with mediocrity). But in the last three years, 12 editions of NFC East teams have obviously wished to get to the 11-win mark … and none of them have accomplished it.

So, the odds of winning 11 in the NFC East? Over the course of a three-year sample size … zero.

Cowboys fams, you want some optimism to buoy you, to allow you to join Witten and Broaddus in their feel-good outlooks? Four years ago, an NFC East team actually won the division with those almost-impossible-to-get 11 wins. That team? Your Dallas Cowboys.

You guys do realize the NFL of today sucks and there are no great teams out there. A few real good teams, a few real bad teams and a lot of ok teams. We fall in that ok team category. With some good luck we could win 11 games. With some bad luck we could win 6.

boozeman said:

Broaddus has made himself into a flaming homer.

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And it can only be interpreted to be blatant suckupage. Every bit of homerism erodes the credibility that justifies why I'd even read one of his articles.

Counting preseason, maybe but not likely.

Scoffers! Bah Humbug!

Tony D said:

You guys do realize the NFL of today sucks and there are no great teams out there. A few real good teams, a few real bad teams and a lot of ok teams. We fall in that ok team category. With some good luck we could win 11 games. With some bad luck we could win 6.

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So in this league of sucky teams with no great teams, how come we can't even win enough games to get in the postseason?

Why do have we one a single solitary postseason win in 17 years?

The answer is, we are not in the "ok team" category, no matter how much we would like to think we are...or we are just gosh darn it that dagnabbingdest unlucky team in the history of forever.

ravidubey said:

And it can only be interpreted to be blatant suckupage. Every bit of homerism erodes the credibility that justifies why I'd even read one of his articles.

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I'm telling you, he is shooting towards Spags levels.