Has anybody checked the temperature in hell this morning? I’m just wondering because it might be ready to freeze over as I’m about to reference a Randy Galloway article. I know, every time I do this I promise to never do it again, but sometimes I just can’t help myself. It’s like Lindsay Lohan and that last line of blow - I know I shouldn’t but willpower is apparently not my strong suit.
What’s Galloway babbling about today that has caught my interest? Why the cornerback situation, of course. In the article he lays out some thoughts on the departure of Aaron Glenn. Again, I’m not torn up about the cutting of Glenn, I’m just wondering why they didn’t have more of a backup plan. Look, we can pretend that having Jacques Reeves and Nate Jones as the primary backups is an OK thing; that the coaches know more than us and we should just trust them. But really, do we ever do that? Not usually, most the time we form opinions on what we’ve seen and voice those opinions with regularity.
Galloway’s article teeters between satire and truth. For instance:
Over the weekend, for no other sensible reason than Phillips thought Glenn could no longer help his team, the old Aggie was told his shelf-life at Valley Ranch had expired.
This gets to the point that if the coaches didn’t think Glenn could help them then they should have cut him. You can cover your own butt as Galloway references in the article by keeping the safe choice, or you can strike out on your own and use your own counsel as a guide. But here’s where I have the problem. Unlike some recent converts to Reeves and Jones, I’m sticking with what most of us were saying for the last few years and that was Reeves and Jones are nice special teams guys, but we didn’t want them actually covering guys in the secondary. BTW, if you’re claiming you were behind these two guys all along, you better dig up come old comments showing as much, or I just won’t believe you!
So my complaint ends up being that the Cowboys didn’t have any other alternatives ready if they were going to cut Aaron Glenn. Back to Galloway:
Four months ago, Aaron Glenn was still short, and still rather slow, which is normal for a cornerback who was about to turn 35 in July.
Well, he’s not slow, but slower in comparison to his younger self.
Did it take the Houston exhibition game, when Glenn struggled in coverage against the big and swift Andre Johnson, for the Cowboys to decide Glenn was not their man? The apparent answer: Yes.
But the draft was in late April, and the Cowboys did nothing to address cornerback outside of seventh-round picks. Forget the first round, with all that wheeling and dealing, but in the second and third rounds, a total of seven cornerbacks were taken.
The Cowboys, with no second-rounder after a busy first round, took an offensive lineman in the third, and he's a guy who wouldn't have made this final cut had it not been for his high draft status.
You guys know I was pushing for a CB to be drafted early, one who could push Glenn for the nickel spot and eventually take over on in a starter’s role. That didn’t happen, although at this point any CB picked early would have been a better pick than James Marten who has looked truly awful in his short time in Dallas.
I will concede this point – Jacques Reeves looked OK at camp and pretty good in the preseason games so maybe I was wrong about him, maybe he can play a substantial role in the defense and not be a liability. But I’m not sold yet, so I will watch him closely to see how he does. But with Nate Jones, I’m not sold and probably never will be. I just don’t think he can handle more than special teams for us on a consistent basis. Some people have touted Evan Oglesby and that maybe he can bring something to the table. I understand that rose-colored glasses are always in style before the start of a season, but the guy was let go for a reason. They didn’t think he was good enough to help their team. I’m not saying he can’t help ours, but I need to see him play a little first.
I guess my basic complaint is that the organization should have been better prepared for life without Aaron Glenn. It does seem astonishing that they would only figure out that he wouldn’t make the team in the last week or so. I mean, talk about knowing what you’ll get from a player, Glenn had a long history of play to evaluate.
Maybe it’s my own personal issue here, that we are now depending on a couple of players who over the offseason I was sure we we’re looking to replace. Drafting back-to-back corners in the 7th-round assured me of that, at least I thought. So sue me for not being confident that a couple of 4th-year benchwarmers can suddenly be saviors in our secondary. I worry about this stuff, but it doesn’t mean I’m rooting any less for the Cowboys to win and I will be happy to dine on crow if Reeves and Jones work out. Maybe Terence Newman will just play every game and I won’t have to worry about it too much.
Julius Jones is angry and wants to prove his doubters wrong.
T.O. might not be talking all that much this year, but he is writing letters. Check out his appeal to be drafted in your fantasy league.