Cowboys Offseason Headscratcher: Depth At OLB?

OVER-RATED

The few times he’s had to shine on field he does it, plus he gives everything he’s got on ST to stay in the game and to keep up with his peers. I like this guy alot and given increased field time and RR to Coach him up just a bit he could really shine for Spencer. If Ware goes down with an injury (knock on wood) God forbid noone will be filling that void. There will be a signifacant drop no matter who we got, but Butler is our best chance I think. Keep what we got their cheap and we could use the help on the DLine much more IMO.

All due respect to the Rat, of course.

Our secondary is the second-worst in the league
Our DEs are dunces
and our ILBs are so old they have to wear life alerts on the field.

A great player, but he’ll end up under-performing an insane contract somewhere in the league this year… let someone else take the cap hit.

he is 6-2 243….so right now he is “undersized” slightly for OLB…..more in the Height department than weight though…..Dallas’ OLB’s are ~6-5, 250-260lbs……so he is a true “tweener”… height is great for ILB…but weight wise is leaning more to OLB…..

as Green Bay was last year. On that level, Dallas cannot compete.

was it 6 opening day starters on IR at the end of the year…..it is like getting two draft classes, the starters back from IR and the current class

The depth of GB reminds me alot of what the cowboys had when Jimmy put those SB teams together……it is a little scary

I understand that the 3 most important positions on any team are QB, Edge Rusher, and Left Tackle…it’s obvious because these are usually the highest paid players. But I submit to you that with the advent of the salary cap era, free agency making it difficult for good players to remain with teams for their entire career, and roster limits at 53…true quality depth will never be what it was in the 70’s, 80’s, or even part of the 90’s. Do you remember the changes in the 90’s that cut short the Cowboy’s dynasty? Every team in the NFL has weaknesses, even the best ones…if Green bay loses Clay Matthews (same for Pittsburgh with Harrison), they’re in deep sh*t…the following article from their blog shows how mediocre their 2nd, 3rd, and 4th OLB’s are after Matthews…they think our castoff Walden is a find…so much for those thinking our drafting sucks and GB’s is superior…

http://www.acmepackingcompany.com/2011/3/2/2024447/examining-the-2011-green-bay-packers-outside-linebackers

How about the other top 3-4 teams last year…San Diego and the Jets? Name their edge rushers…not exactly a heady group. They do it with creative coaching. Scheme does matter. It matters with all the top teams. Great coaches hide their deficiencies, and accentuate their strengths. Which gets back to my response to your article…coach your own players up…that’s what GB did…If you admire GB so much, why would you deviate from their position of trying to get better from within by upgrading through free agency?

While I would agree that it could be better or that we have had some awful drafts in the past, I would have to agree with Cali in that the problem mainly has been coaching. If our scouting staff was horrible we would never find such a great assortment of undrafted free agents that make our team. Our problenm has been in cultivating the talent that we do bring in becuz we are blinded by contract numbers, athletic ability, measurables. Becoming too fixated on any one of those issues means that someone who can move up and play is left in the shadows. All this talk about what we need in free agency and at least one half of the coaching staff doesn’t really know what he has to work with. I think that defensively aside from a couple of minor additions for depth or competition what you see is what we will have this year. Ryan has to learn who is right for his scheme and who isn’t. Why replace a part that isn’t broken. Butler is fine as a backup/wave player. Williams might surprise this year after having a full year to comeback from his knee injury that robbed him of his rookie season. If it were me I’d save the money and let the safeties we have on roster fight it out to see if they can handle it. You never know until you give them a shot. All this talk about how they’ve never shown anything or they have never played. Sometimes you just have to give them their chance to see if the spotlight is too bright. Sendejo from what I understand was tearing it up in the UFL and while it is a lower level of competition at least he was playing and learning from NFL head coaches. AOA was drafted as the heir apparent. We keep hearing about his atheletic ability and his smarts. Let him show it in a game situation. We bring in a Huff then we are basically relegating them to the bench or special teams for their career simply becuz “they’ve never played”. Huff to me isn’t that good of a choice. While Ryan was DC in Oakland he benched Huff for whatever reason. First round pick didn’t see the field. Now all of a sudden he is playing great in a contract year?…how many times have we heard that. The best choice for us to bring in at any level for safety purposes is the player we never should have let go to begin with in Abram Elam. Knows the defense, cheaper than Huff will be, and also is familiar with some of the players already on the team so chemistry is already present, just needs to be reestablished.

you say the cowboys draft well and then admit that its only in the last two years that they’ve followed their draft board. The truth is that this is a schizophrenic drafting team, one that changes their drafting philosophy every season.

And I cant believe that you think the Cowboys have drafted anywhere near as well as the Packers the last five or six years or that their talent is comparable. That is insane. That Packers team is the deepest I’ve seen since the ’93 Cowboys. Sure, our starters might be comparable at lots of positions, but their depth is overwhelming.

They lost an amazing number of starter’s games to injury last season and still won it all. There is absolutely no way that Dallas could have done that, even with good coaching.

And the problem is not scouting; its management. Jerry Jones is too ADD to stick to a long-term plan.