What needs to happen:
Overall: The team must maintain the 5th seed. They need to play the NFC South champion in the wildcard round. Mike must get better at game management, Kellen must find a way to scheme his best players into getting the ball, and Quinn must find a way to get his pass rush home with stunts, etc. Oh, Turpin needs to be OK with touchbacks a bit more and/or we need better kick-return blocking. That’s been an issue no one is talking about lately. They are starting at the 10 or 15 way too often.
Offense: The offense needs to continue to gel. Tyron looked good at RT yesterday and they need to really solidify that over the next two weeks and figure out the best starting 5. Ideally the Washington game is a rest your starters game. TY Hilton needs to come in and we need to figure out if he needs to spell Gallup or Brown. Everyone thinks him replacing Brown is a given but Gallup has been a ghost on the field. Kellen has to find a way to get his receivers open and they need Fergueson back so they can dial in more 12 personnel looks. Dak needs to limit his turnovers but if he plays like he did yesterday then that’s all you can really ask of him. Other than the first pick he looked great and his throws were on target.
Defense: Never thought we’d be here just a few weeks ago but this team is unbalanced again and the defense looks weak. They should win every game the offense scores 30-plus. They have to figure out the CB position, whether it’s moving one of the safeties like Mukuamu or hoping one of the FA signings can get up to speed. It’s times like this you wish the trade-deadline didn’t exist. The pass rush MUST regain their ferocity and we have to hope Armstrong isn’t out long term (I can’t remember if he came back yesterday). Need to get Tak some looks over these last 3 games. Hell, maybe sit Micah the last two weeks if the 5th seed is a sure thing. LVE going down is maybe the worst injury they’ve had. He’s been playing great. Barr looks rough and Clark is a rookie. It’s baffling to me and to pretty much every media analyst who was at training camp as to why Cox can’t even be active on game day. If LVE is out for the season we have to just pray Cox can come in and help the run defense because Barr is slow. I have faith Quinn will figure this out but it’s going to get very difficult if he’s that shallow at LB and CB. Thank God Bland came out of nowhere and is playing as well as he is. (Edit: Just saw the good LVE news; that’s HUGE)
We have to remember that every Super Bowl winning team has ugly losses in the regular season. The Jags are much better than their record and Lawrence is currently playing as good as any QB we’ll play in the NFC playoffs. We have to keep that perspective despite our overwhelming sense of dread that this is when the Cowboys start Cowboysing things up after a promising regular season. I’m in "show me" mode like the rest of you, but it’s also important to look at the way they’ve lost instead of just the fact that they lost. Yesterday’s reasons are easily, easily fixable. And whether you like it or not, other than the one or two bad throws per game that get intercepted, our QB is playing pretty damn well right now and has been far from the reason we’ve lost the two games since his return. Let’s come together, root for the team to turn it around, be happy if they do, and wait until they don’t to start pointing fingers and demanding heads to roll. Because that’s totally going to happen and my word salad will immediately change the hardened hearts less than 24 hours after a loss, lol.
