The Dallas Cowboys 2020 Season is Dead

Cowboys fans came into the 2020 season with high hopes. Jason Garrett and Rod Marinelli were finally out the door and with Mike McCarthy and Mike Nolan there was going to be more creative play calling on both sides of the ball. The additions this offseason were great as the defensive line was beefed up with several big-name free agent signings and the draft was a huge success with CeeDee Lamb and Trevon Diggs being the big names; however, with all that hope, the Cowboys are sitting at 2-5, and even though they are only half a game out of first place in the NFC East, their the season is lost.

 

Andy Dalton is No Dak Prescott

After Dak’s tragic injury the signing of Andy Dalton in the offseason appeared to have been a great move by the front office but it seems as if the world has forgotten that almost exactly 1 year ago, the Bengals decided to bench Dalton on his birthday for rookie Ryan Finley. There were plenty of people who thought he would be able to replace Dak with little to no drop off and some thought the Cowboys would somehow be even BETTER. As we know now, these people could not have been more wrong.

Dak Prescott had more than just the intangibles, he is an elite quarterback in this league, and he proved it in just the few games he played this season. He is the leader of this team and had the talent to keep this team in games that they had no right winning. Andy Dalton simply doesn’t have what it takes to replace Dak.

 

Mike Nolan’s Defense

Cowboys nation was excited for a new-look defense that would finally attempt to hide coverages and play games with new schemes. Fans hoped this would finally lead to more turnovers created by the defense that hadn’t seen very many the last few years. The signing of Dontari Poe and Everson Griffen would give Demarcus Lawrence the help he needed to get sacks and stop the run. Now, this appears to have been wishful thinking by Cowboys fans.

The defensive line has not been good, and Everson Griffen appears to have lost a step and is putting more effort into bashing writers on Twitter than into the actual game. The Cowboys have the 31^st ranked rush defense as teams steamroll the defensive line. The hybrid defense that Mike Nolan has been trying to implement seems to have been forced upon the team with very little time to learn with the shortened offseason and no preseason games and it’s causing players to look lost on the field. Mike Nolan had not been calling plays since 2014 when he was with the Falcons and the last few years he was there, their defense ranked closer to the bottom of the league. This season has left many people wondering if the Cowboys should have tried to keep Byron Jones and Jeff Heath instead of making some of their other moves this offseason.

 

Discord in the Locker Room

After the loss to the Cardinals, the Cowboys hit a low for the year. Jane Slater reported that some players thought the Cowboys coaching staff was underprepared and “just aren’t good at their jobs.” Former Cowboys defensive end Marcus Spears came out and said that he believes the players have given up. In a year that had the offseason shortened, there was little time for this group of players to make connections to a mostly new coaching staff and it appears that the player-coach relationship is on the rocks.

Without Dak Prescott there to lead the team it appears that there is nobody steering the ship and even with all the talent on the team, there are major issues that appear to be insurmountable in a single season.