Per Rainer Sabin from the Dallas Morning News, Stephen Jones indicated on Tuesday that Keith Brooking and Bradie James may have reached the end of their playing days in Dallas:
"Bradie and Brooking are two of the best leaders, personalities I have ever had the pleasure of being around," Jones said. "They're great guys. Unfortunately, all good things come to an end. That's what we've got to decide. But no one respects those guys more than we do, our family does, than the Cowboys do. Obviously when you make a decision to continue or discontinue, it is a big one."
Obviously, this doesn't come as news for Cowboys fans, but it is the first time that the Cowboys have been this explicit about the two inside linebackers.
Both are deserved veterans. Bradie James’ six straight seasons of leading the team in tackles is the longest such streak in club history and the six seasons is also a club-high since the franchise started compiling tackle stats in 1979. Keith Brooking joined the Dallas Cowboys as a free agent in 2009 and was the starting middle linebacker for two seasons next to Bradie James. The Cowboys will surely do right by both players as they transition them off the roster, but it doesn't necessarily mean their time in football is coming to an end.
Bradie James just turned 31 last month, and could conceivably look to hang on an extra year or two as a defender for another team. As for Keith Brooking, it's unlikely that he'll look for a roster spot with another team at age 36, but there have been persistent rumors about him joining or transitioning into the Cowboys staff in some function.
So what say ye, would you like to see a Coach Brooking on the Cowboys coaching staff?
"If only the Cowboys had won more close games, they would have made the playoffs."
How often have you heard or read that comment? After last season, in which the Cowboys managed just a 4-4 record in games decided by four points or less, I’m sure you’ve heard that sentence a lot. In fact, I’m pretty sure you hear that sentence a lot in just about any major sport.
And on the face of it, it makes sense. Had the Cowboys gone 6-2 in those close games, they would have made the playoffs. But they didn’t. The thing that type of wishful thinking ignores is that in a league like the NFL - a league that worships parity like others worship the Holy Grail - lots of games are close until the very end, yet the better teams routinely win those contests.
There were 125 of 256 regular season games, or almost half of all games, that were decided by a touchdown or less last year. And the teams that went to the playoffs won a lot of those games. Teams that did not go to the playoffs lost a lot of those games. It's really quite simple: good teams find ways to win close games, and the Cowboys simply weren't that good last year.
After the break, we quantify all of this a little further.
Here we are in late February, and the restless throngs at BTB couldn't be happier. There are many reasons for such jubilation: we are in the offseason, when all teams entertain legitimate Super Bowl dreams; the NFL Combine starts this week, marking the official beginning of Draft Season; another FanPost Wednesday is upon us, and several fine members are about to be recognized for their stellar recent contributions. Huzzah!
Before moving on, I have to give a shout-out to 2011's FanPoster of the Year, ChiaCrack (now reborn as Archie Barberio). I remember when Chia received his first FPOTW honorable mention, after several months of honing his FanPosts; he gleefully stormed the comments section, as if his pants were on fire. Soon thereafter, he earned his first "Rabbie," and then proceeded to fill his trophy case with them. Now, his fine work will be found on the front page. ArChia's story is that of the American Dream: start at the bottom, work hard, hone your game, and find success. Congrats to the illustrious Mr. Crack (er, Barberio)--and let his story be an inspiration to the rest of you. Crank out some good material, because the front page awaits!
On to this week's awards. The dominant theme in the past fourteen days, much as it was the previous fortnight, has been the "offseason plan." The FanPost pages have been filled to the brim with interesting proposals and strategic takes. Some of the best of these were penned by VAFan, who wrote lucidly on Dallas' offseason priorities; Hank Hill, who offered us two terrific FPs, a slightly tongue-in-cheek piece on draft surprises and a more sober take on the Spencer and Routt situations; Michael Icebone Sisemore's post on draft and free agency is a must-read, as is BlueNSilverBlood's latest "Forward Thinking" installment. Lastly, how could I not mention dacolan's cleverly titled "Its Rabble's Fault"; if I can inspire such intelligent posts, I'll gladly take the blame each and every time!
More FanPost goodness after the jump...
Late last week, some comments by Jason Hatcher implying that there was a lack of leadership last season within the Dallas Cowboys created a bit of a stir amongst us fan types. It would appear that the fans were not the only ones who took note of the comments. DeMarcus Ware, who is arguably the best player on the Cowboys now and for the past several years, said in an interview last Saturday that he does not see it that way.
"The thing is on our team, there's not a guy who is just a straight up, solitary leader. I think it comes as a whole," Ware said. "You got to look at it as we have [Tony] Romo, we have [Jason] Witten, you have me, Bradie James, Sean Lee. Everybody has their role and they take on that leadership role when it's needed. Every team doesn't need just a one-time guy who is like the leader of that team. If everybody is checking everybody, that's all you need. There comes a time to step up when it's time to step up and get the job done."
So, who is right and who is wrong? Put your opinion in after the jump.
In part one of this series, I took a global look at the Cowboys roster, highlighting the positions that must be addressed this offseason and, unlike many of the pundits who have been offering offseason plans, noted that I'd be shocked to see a lot of big-ticket free agent signings in Dallas. Rather--and in no small part because both Jason Garrett and Jerry Jones have publicly declared that they'd like to operate this way--I'd expect the team to focus on building through the draft, using free agency to secure stop-gaps who can hold down the fort until they can add long-term "core" players through the draft.
This isn't because I don't want the Cowboys roster to improve, and in a hurry. Rather, I believe firmly that what they must avoid is to fall into the uneven talent-trap that plagued them during the Wade Phillips administration: stars at several positions and average guys at others, all backed up by marginal UDFA types. One way to avoid falling into that hole is to eschew the big-ticket signings that tend to happen during free agency's initial frenzy.
We have learned that Dallas is likely to have about 20 million dollars in cap room to spend towards upgrading the roster. At first glance this seems like quite a lot. But if we look at the reserves other teams have amassed, the Cowboys savings account looks a lot less impressive. ESPN's John Clayton recently published a partial list of 2012 salary cap numbers. It looks like a good year to be a free agent: the Kansas City Chiefs top the list at $62.995 million, followed by Tampa Bay with $60.496 million, and Cincy with $60 million. Some other numbers of note: Denver, $50.735 million; Washington, $47.56 million; Jacksonville, $45 million.
As Clayton notes, there will be about $711 million of cap space league-wide, which averages out to $22.2 million per team. So, not only will the Cowboys will come in below the league average in terms of cap space (even after cutting Terence Newman), but with so many other teams having so much money to play with, the top FAs, guys like Mario Williams and Brent Grimes, are sure to get huge, top-of-the-market deals. Dallas simply won't be able to compete, at least not for the handful of players who have been on blast at ESPN since the clock expired on Super Bowl XVI.
Make the jump...
Almost half of the 256 games played in the 2011 regular season were decided by seven points or less, 125 games to be exact. A little over a quarter of all games (67) were decided by 4 points or less.
In many games, the outcome was determined by a single play. Cowboys fans know this all too well: missed extra points, the self-icing of a kicker, a single route run slightly off target - it felt like the Cowboys got the short end of the stick quite a lot in 2011.
Eight Cowboys games were decided by 4 points or less, the third highest total in the league. The Cowboys finished 4-4 in those close games. Only the Broncos and Cardinals had more of these close games (9) and finished with a 6-3 and 5-4 record respectively. So does this mean the Cowboys were luckier than other NFL teams? Or unluckier?
Good news for everybody who's ever pondered this conundrum: a little bit of simple math can help us find the answer.
Sports fans tend to be proud creatures. We think we are special, enduring the insults of the poor benighted fools who follow lesser teams while devoting countless hours seeking to gain wisdom about our beloved team from the press releases and news articles that we pore over.
This is true for all fans, but I am here to state clearly that fans of the Dallas Cowboys go to extra lengths. We have to put more effort into following our beloved team. We have to learn to understand Jerryspeak and Garrettspeak.
For those of you who may not know, Jerryspeak is the unique method of communication used by Dallas Cowboys Owner/General Manager/Media Spokesman Jerry Jones, who seems to have been born with an innate and burning desire to make sure no reporter in sight is ever left with nothing to write about. Over the years, some of us have become rather fluent at deciphering this odd, meandering, stream-of-consciousness way of expressing thoughts. No one ever achieves a perfect mastery of it, because it is a fluid, protean, and above all spontaneous thing that springs from Mr. Jones' mind, often without benefit of editing or filter. Look at this sample from January of 2009, when the team was coming off a disappointing finish to the season, and Jerry was at the Senior Bowl:
When you say you've got something to prove, is that an organizational thing that trickles down to the players?
JONES: "Well, I'd like to not be down here at the Senior Bowl. I'd be out getting ready for the Super Bowl, and that's an organizational thing, that's everybody and that includes everyone. I think that's what we want, to take each thing as it turns out. This is the time of year when we're looking at these players and we'll shortly be headed up to the combine and we're just now initiating our evaluations, specifically our games. So all of that is at this time of year, and this is a real chance. During the year you've pretty much got your focus on week-to-week. Now we can step back and look at the big picture and evaluate this year."
There is a certain timeless quality to Jerryspeak captured here. But Garrettspeak is a newer mode of communication. Actually, it is a new mode of non-communication.
More content - or is it noncontent? - after the jump.
This is what you get in the middle of the dead season. A player makes a comment that comes out critical of the team, and it ignites a firestorm of commentary. In this case, that player is Jason Hatcher, and the comments were about the Cowboys lack of leadership. While speaking to Deion Sanders on a radio show, Hatcher spilled out these words (paraphrased):
Who are the leaders on the Dallas Cowboys?
"Dude. I gotta be honest with you: That's a good question. That's a good question. I really don't know. It's just another thing we really need ... like the Ravens, we don't have that. We've got the talent. We've got everything we need. I think we get like a Ray Lewis, like, everybody buy into him. When Ray Lewis speaks, everybody listens to him. A guy like that. We really don't got that. I think we definitely need somebody like that."
Do intangibles matter? Would that make a difference?
I think so. ... You've got to have somebody hold you accountable. With a leader like that [Lewis], everybody is accountable and guys aren't doing their own thing. [Lewis] is in there. Everybody's going in one direction. So once you have that, you'll be good. We're still looking for it."
While he was saying it, I don't know if Hatcher realized how his comments would be interpreted and dissected. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't, but once they're out there, there is no calling them back. In response, the Cowboys-related webishpere exploded in debate. Our own, very excellent FanPoster, ScarletO, penned his own response taking Hatcher to task. Kudos to ScarletO for his fine work, everybody should read it.
I'll be somewhat kinder to Hatcher, not because I don't think what he did was pretty stupid - it was - but because in the end I'm not sure of a couple of things. One, will Hatcher's comments really mean anything down the road? And two, is there any real validity in what he said?
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