Yep, not like these are top candidates with the luxury of picking the perfect job. I bet our secondary coaches goes right away. Al Harris won't be waiting.
And I'm sure they will drag their heels as much as possible because it makes them feel like big smart men. Probably won't fully get a resolution on McCarthy until next weekend, while about 5 other teams will have already interviewed at least 2-3 candidates.
We will drag our feet. And then suddenly McCarthy is going to look like the best option left. And as long as no one else wants him McCarthy will be back in Dallas. If someone else wants him we will end up with a retread like Kellen Moore or Zimmer as head coach. Given the lack of excitement by our fan base you'd think Jerry would want to make a splash at coach (Since he won't in free agency, and it doesn't come out of the "pie"). But the reality is that our front office is cheap as hell and our lack of spending has nothing to do with pie. They are cheap and Stephen views every extra million spent on a coach as a million less he gets in inheritance. He can't see the forest through the trees, in that if we continue much further down this path attendance and engagement is going to start to drop. They will go with comfortable and bank on a bounce back season keeping fans around.
Depends on what you mean by "have a chance".
I mean I wouldn't go that far. But injuries are a problem. Guys like Diggs and Overshown not being ready for the start of the season really hurt us. Obviously we saw that Zimmer can piece together a solid defense with lots of meh players. He can make do with a guy like Vigil if he has to for example. Or Golston playing DE. Or Oruwariye if he has to at corner. So I'm not so freaked out about a "hole" on defense. I just want to get some more play makers.
If we had Dak all season I think we'd be at least 9-7 right now, so yea I think if he's back for a full year and the defense is somewhat competent as they were over the last two months (as opposed to the first 6-8 games) then we're a pretty good bet for at least 10 wins. Remember that the defense was literally unable to get a single stop in several games over the first half of the year, there's no reason to think they'll be that bad again unless they just let everybody leave without replacing them because they're cheap assholes.
No one is going to let this happen. Not with us drafting 13th.
I think it's less about the holes and more about the lack of studs. If that makes any sense. We need guys like Overshown, Bland and Diggs out there making plays. Which we basically never had this season and we won't have to start next year. On offense our second best weapon this season was Dowdle. The blocking was fine. Think about it, he is a runner who averaged 4.7 yards per carry and went over 1000 yards. We can all agree he is just "so so" which tells you. You don't have to have great players everywhere. You just can't march out absolute turds like Zeke.
It doesn't have to just be Jeanty, I could see a duo of Hampton/Johnson and Dowdle being a big upgrade over what we had in 2022 and 2023.
I could see Jeanty going top 10. Wouldn't surprise me at all. But I could also see him dropping because he comes in at 5'8" and runs a 4.45 or something. But like you said, go get Hampton or Johnson in round two then. Hell pair Judkins/Henderson with Dowdle and I feel damn good. I like Nicholas Singleton and Ollie Gordon too. It's not that complicated. Draft one of these dudes in the first three rounds and pair them with Dowdle (I'd extend it to the fourth round but thanks a lot Mingo).
Almost any RB in the first 3 rounds in a timeshare with Dowdle is going to be an upgrade over Pollard/Elliott in 2022 and Pollard coming off his injury pretty much on his own in 2023.
If he runs a 4.5, I could see him fall
I mean the guy was a big play machine in college but yeah I don't know what that forty will be. Doesn't really matter that much to me. I mean how often are you concerned about a RB getting caught from behind going 40+ yards? But I do think that NFL teams could shy away if he doesn't have the same measurables as other past top RBs. It's like a corner running a 4.55. It basically makes them undraftable at the top of the draft. Even though someone like Andrew Booth could run a 4.4 and get toasted deep regularly.
And he probably will. He ran an 11.3 110m in high school. That doesn't translate to a good 40, and teams always overvalue the Underwear Olympics for RBs.
40 time is a huge stat for me for both RB's and WR's.
