The Dallas Morning News has their own blog going and late today I saw a post on it by Gerry Fraley. Sometimes people write things just to get a reaction. That has to be the case here, because this is wrong on so many levels. And it's getting a reaction. Fraley's post:
Think the Cowboys regret passing on them to take DeMarcus Ware in the first round of last year's draft? They should be kicking themselves.
Ware might be capable, but he's a cut below these guys. Tatupu shows there is more to football than time in the 40. He's a player.
So I was all ready to do a standard takedown of the post. Explain about schemes, what coaches like and what teams need, then segue right over to some stat comparisons and deliver the coup de grace. But Todd Archer beat me to it on the DMN blog.
Now, Ware and Merriman is a good comparison. Merriman had 10 sacks. Ware had eight. Merriman had six tackles for loss. Ware had 10. Ware had three forced fumbles. Merriman had two. Merriman had four pass deflections. Ware had one. Merriman had 57 tackles. Ware had 62. Ware had 19 pressures. I don't know what Merriman had, but it was not as high as Ware's total.
Ware did all of this while learning a new position. Merriman played largely the same position he did in college. And there's some off-field issues with Merriman that swayed the Cowboys' opinion. If the Cowboys took Merriman, the story would have been how they picked a poor character again.
Here's the deal: neither team made a poor choice.
Excellent rebuttal by Archer. Fraley was shooting blanks in his original post and suffered the consquences.
When it all shakes out, Dallas is going to be more than happy with DeMarcus Ware.