Although I disagree, I understand why many Cowboys fans want to see starters play at least a qtr during the pre-season. Some teams do it. However, more and more teams’ coaches like Mike McCarthy choose not to risk injury to the largest portion of cap space in meaningless ps games.
Like it or not, Big Mac seems to have a clear pre-season strategy- play the long game. He may be thinking of January in August because the NFL season is a physical and mental drain. (Obviously this is just my opinion of what I think Mike McCarthy is thinking) So here is a quick summary of what I believe is guiding his thinking:
- It’s a long season with 17 regular season games and hopefully 3-4 more playoff games. It makes no sense (to me) to rush anything in ps and even more sense to not risk injury to a starter for a series or two in a game that doesn’t count toward playoff contention.
- Pre-season games do not use game planning or reveal more than 5-10% of the playbook. If getting starters in so they can “work on the offense” for timing reasons makes little sense when you aren’t going to run much of that offense in a ps game anyway.
- PS games are mainly for roster decisions.
- As mentioned earlier, I think Big Mac is thinking about the health and psyche of his team in January as much as he is for August. It’s a draining experience to play 17 NFL regular season games followed by what you hope is several playoff games. Keeping guys fresh – especially vets who have nothing to prove in TC makes a lot of sense.
Again, this is my speculation. Obviously I have no inside info. But I do believe this is what is driving McCarthy and his staff this summer leading up to the start of a very long grind- think long term, not short. With back to back 12 win seasons and a playoff win last year, I would think McCarthy has earned some trust with how he gets his teams prepared for a season.
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