Blogging The Boys
Many of us, especially the East Coast of Cowboys Nation given the late night, still haven’t recovered from Sunday night’s wild stalemate between Dallas and Green Bay. The unusual result and the performance dichotomy between the Cowboys’ offense and defense have raised numerous questions. Here are a few of the big ones.
Ties are only as good or bad as the circumstances dictate. If we get to the end of the year and there are a bunch of 9-8 teams vying for a wild card spot, and you’re 9-7-1, then you absolutely love that tie. If those other contenders are all 10-7, then you curse it. The same goes if we change directions and start looking at draft order instead of postseason goals. Either way, we can’t really judge the impact of this outcome until December and see what’s going on with the other teams we’re trying to get ahead of.
The bigger debate since Sunday night has been whether ties should even be allowed. They don’t exist in the three other major American team sports. You get as many extra innings, overtimes, or periods as it takes for a winner to be decided. Even gentlemanly golf will keep playing extra holes until someone finally claims first place.
But football is different in terms of physical toll. The benches aren’t that deep and the risk of major injury increases with fatigue and worn bodies. You saw how both Cowboys and Packers players were sucking wind even late into the fourth quarter, let alone overtime. Tired players become sloppier players, and sloppy play leads to things that can get you or the nearest guy hurt. If you genuinely care about player safety, you have to draw a line somewhere.
Is 10 minutes too soon? Maybe, but the change was done in 2017 to reduce injuries, so that would be hard to walk back. A better solution might be, once that time has expired, to have the game decided by a field goal shootout. Kickers get asked to win games every week, so why not expand that?
Sanborn was basically handed the middle linebacker job when he came to Dallas, following Matt Eberflus from Chicago. It made sense as Dallas’ last MLB was Eric Kendricks, who wasn’t re-signed after Mike Zimmer’s departure. Sanborn was supposed to bring stability and strong communication to the center of the defense.
Well, given that the Cowboys are currently defending at a pretty horrific level, it’s hard to see where Sanborn’s leadership is helping much. Individually, he’s not the most athletic and has been caught more than once making the wrong read or reacting slowly. It’s not all bad all the time, but enough that he feels like a big part of what’s broken right now defensively.
Unfortunately, there’s only so much you can do right now. Kenneth Murray is not a middle candidate, and Marist...
