FanPost

Cowboy Conundrums

I love the Dallas Cowboys. Most of you already know that. I might not be the most active BTBer on here, but I am always around. I check the site daily, and sometimes on a minute by minute basis. I find this to be one of the best sports communities I have had the pleasure to be a part of. But this fanpost isn't about how great Blogging The Boys is(although it is fantastic) it is about the major questions and concerns about the Boys this season and I wanted to thrown in my ten cents on these issues in my usual no holds barred fashion.

Concern Number One

Romo had two back surgeries how is he going to recover from that? He is going to be a liability and therefore suck behind center because he will be in pain and ineffective because of it.

That statement I hear all the time lately from fans and the media and it annoys me to no end. While you can make a case that Romo did have two back surgeries, what is missing from this annoying argument is the fact that only one surgery was to fix something serious. Only one. The spinal surgery he had after the Redskins win to fix a separated disc in his back is the only one that is cause for concern. And even that Concern is highly exaggerated. Many players have come back from it and played with it for many years after the surgery was completed. Heck, Our own Troy Aikman had the same surgery done and won the super bowl soon after. The other surgery was purely cosmetic. He had a cyst removed from his back. It was a little invasive but it was so simple of a procedure he was sent home the same day and had zero recovery time for it. So please open a damn medical journal or get your facts straight. Romo had one back surgery that really counts as concerning. Not two. Just because he had some work done on his back does not mean he had two separate surgeries to fix spinal issues. So please refrain from using that term lest you look like a complete moron. I am talking to you Calvin Watkins.

As for his performance this season? No one really knows for sure how it will turn out but to act like he will suck this year and will automatically be injury prone is foolish and stupid. Nobody whined about Peyton Mannning's performance after the had his neck fused together. How is Romo's season after back surgery any different? If anything Manning's procedure was even more risky and had even more questions associated with it. But that has worked out wonderfully for Denver so far, minus the super bowl wins of course but still pretty wonderful. Romo has just about the same probability of getting knocked out for the season(knock on wood) as any other quarterback does. His injury probability is not higher than normal, and neither is his inability to deal with pain. This is the man that played with broken ribs, a punctured lung and last season with a separated disc in his back and won both those games. Romo knows more about pain and how to deal with it than pretty much anyone in the NFL let alone on this page right now. He is one tough mother trucker. And I am not worried at all about his recovery. He is way ahead of schedule already and looks to be in prime shape and ready to blow up the league with numbers and production you haven't seen from him since 2009, and with this o-line hopefully he doesn't have to take as many hits as he used to or play Houdini 24/7. I think Romo will not only do fine and have a healthy and productive season, but his best yet.

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via img.bleacherreport.net

Concern Number Two

Brandon Weeden sucks. He sucked in Cleveland. Why in the world would we trust him to back up Romo?

Well he's a better option than a gold bricking neckbeard who failed to do the one thing he was paid millions of dollars to do. At least Weeden has upside. Orton has nada and is a giant nadface. I for one think Weeden could shine on this team. The fact he played for the Browns is not a reason to condemn the guy. It is not his fault that organization is the seventh level of hell every season. That reason alone is enough to give this guy a shot in my book. He had no o-line, and barely any weapons on offense and he played for one of the worst organizations in football. Let's see what he can do with the weapons he has here in Dallas before we say he is useless and is worse than Orton. Look up some highlights from his college days in Oklahoma State..he has talent. He is a bit long in the tooth but this guy isn't a complete scrub. He has a cannon arm. He just needs the time in the pocket to unleash it. He didn't have that time in Cleveland. Cleveland most definitely does not rock. Sorry Drew Carey. You are dead wrong. Brandon Weeden had every bit of a chance to succeed with the Cleveland Browns behind center as Howard The Duck.

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via cdn.fansided.com

Concern Number Three

Our defense is going to be the worst in the league. We didn't get at all better this off season. We only got worse. We lost our best defensive players in Demarcus Ware, Jason Hatcher and Sean Lee. This defense has no chance. Romo will be running for his life again with a bad back and the offense will be the only way this team can win games. Because the defense is full of scrubs injured players now and nobodies.

Everyone in the media as well as some of the fanbase has overreacted to this offseason in my opinion and who we lost on defense. Demarcus Ware? We didn't lose D-Ware in his prime. We lost a D-Ware that was consistently declining and getting injured more frequently. He was a shell of himself the past two seasons and was flat out getting embarassed on a weekly basis. How soon we forget RGIII and Alfred Morris clowning Ware with the Read Option in the 2012 season. He was so banged up last season he was playing on one leg. And even though he was still the best player on that defensive line? He was only the best by default because the rest of the defensive line not named Jason Hatcher or George Selvie were a bunch of scrubs that wouldn't even sniff the rest of the league's starting lineups. Speaking of Hatcher, his season last year was fool's gold. More than half of his eleven sacks were against divisional rivals. With more than a couple double digit games. But the rest of the season? He was invisible. And when his shoulder gave out his numbers dropped like a rock. And there is no way he was going to replicate that season again especially at his age. And look at him now, on the pup list with a bad knee for the Redskins. We replaced his production with a proven, and hungry vet in Melton who has more upside and is a lot younger. Now Melton is still a question mark in terms of his health but I think he alone makes losing Hatcher a wash. Now what's left? Oh. Sean Lee. The perennially injured Sean Lee. Look. I love Sean as much as the next guy but let's face facts here. Either the man is cursed or he is just injury prone. I will go with injury prone. He was in college. The probability of him getting hurt sometime in the season was high anyway. Losing him before the season even starts? It sucks and it hampers an already star deficient defense but it is a good thing it happened now so the team can fully prepare to be without him rather than in week 6. And lets not act like we have no one else on defense other than Ware, Lee, and Hatcher that can actually play a lick of defense. This team has a lot of depth now on defense that has yet to show themselves. And that is not a bad thing. I would rather have young talent than aging stars. Yes it is true we don't know what we have yet. But neither did Seattle last season. No one knew their D-Line last season let alone feared them and we all know how that turned out, and Seattle didn't have the all mighty Ben Gardner on their squad.

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via dy.snimg.com

Let's take a look outside our Defensive Line, and look at the secondary. Yes Brandon Carr was disappointing last season. But did we all forget how well he did for the first few weeks of the season leading up the Megatron Bomb? He was shutting down receivers right and left and getting timely picks and being an all around boss.

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How soon we forget. I for one will never forget that play. The reaction by Eli afterwards was priceless.

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via images.ftw.usatoday.com

Carr can do that again. He can make Eli pout for the second time as well as car jack the rest of the league. This isn't a total scrub we are talking about here. Brandon Carr is a talented dude. There is no doubt in my mind he can be as good as he was at the start of last season if not better. Why? Because he won't be playing out of position in a scheme he is not suited for this season. Instead of the ill fitting Zone he will be playing more man coverage in a Cover-2 defense which suits his strengths unlike Kiffin's defense did. And Mo Claiborne is fixing if he remains healthy(Knock on wood again) to finally have that breakout season we have all been waiting for. He honestly wasn't that bad last season either. He just wasn't healthy. And I think he lost his confidence playing out of position in Zone as well as being picked on by the refs. That Chiefs game was brutal. That was a ticky tacky PI call if I ever saw one. Also don't forget about Scandrick. He is very talented too. And our Safeties look better potential wise than they have in years. The formidable and solid Barry Church alongside the young and upcoming athletic freak that is JJ Wilcox with the Unicorn Matt Johnson bringing up the rear? This secondary has the potential to be as good if not better than the legion of boom.

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via a.espncdn.com

I am not saying the defense will be all pro or top ten, but I think with Marinelli at the helm, extra hungry and healthy athletic rushmen, and a Cornerback tandem playing to their strengths with more man coverage rather than Zone this defense has a good chance of getting more pressure and sacks than the year before. It is addition by subtraction in a nutshell. We lose Ware way past his prime, a one year wonder in Hatcher, and an excellent linebacker with a heart of gold who sadly just happens to be made of glass and gain a ferocious Tank of a DE, A hungry former Bear ready to kick some tail, a misused Texan with great athleticism, A big bruising sea Bass, a bucking Bronco and a young talented line backing core that can replace Lee's spot on the team at least for this season. None of them will ever replace him. Lee is one of a kind. A football mastermind and a beast of a linebacker when healthy. That's the issue though. Health is not something you can rely upon with Lee anymore. I wish him a fast recovery though and a long career that is not hampered with freak injuries. But there is something about this no name defense I like. I think it is the fact that their backs will be against the wall from the start of the season and barely no one is giving them a chance in hell of being even adequate. Everyone expects them to suck. Which is why I want them to prove them wrong and tear through the league like green rage fueled monsters and make them remember their names and learn to fear them. No one outside the pacific northwest was that familiar with Seattle's defensive line until last season. Then what happened? The world took notice. This team has a lot more depth than a lot of people think. And I would rather have young, athletic, and hungry men looking to make names for themselves than old, overpaid falling stars any day of the week. I cannot wait to see these young guns fight it out on the practice field.

That is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the concerns and questions I have heard about the Cowboys and want to debate. There is so much more...

The old tired meme that Romo sucks and is the worst quarterback ever in the 4th quarter and that all he does is put up big numbers and choke when it counts, the fact that Jason Garrett is the worst coach ever and has done nothing to make this team better, Jerry Jones is the reason why this team has failed to have success because he is a crazy moron who sold his soul to the devil for super bowl rings, Dez Bryant should be traded because of his bad back, and so many more that will have to wait till I write another installment. But for now, so long and thanks for reading.

Oh and one more thing, before I forget...

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GO COWBOYS!

via cowboysblog.dallasnews.com

Another user-created commentary provided by a BTB reader.