FRISCO, Texas – Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones has faced plenty of scrutiny about Dallas' decision to not pursue now Baltimore Ravens running back Derrick Henry in the offseason. After Henry ran for 169 yards on 15 carries and scored two touchdowns Monday night against Tampa, Jones faced questions on the decision again on his weekly radio show with 105.3 The Fan.
"In my mind, we're not playing very good football right now at all, and it's beyond whether or not we have Derrick Henry or not," Jones said. "Derrick Henry is having a career year. I don't know if he'd be having a career year in our situation."
Henry leads the NFL in carries (134), rushing yards (873), and is tied for the most rushing touchdowns (8) through seven games. The Cowboys as a team have 133 carries this season for 463 yards and two touchdowns, with Rico Dowdle leading the team in carries with 59. Clearly, the Ravens and Cowboys schemes are different offensively, another part of the reason why Jones didn't pursue him in free agency.
"If [Henry] had not had as many carries as our running backs have had, then he certainly probably wouldn't have attained the level of impact he's having…" Jones said. "He's a real good complement to the type of offense they run. We don't run that type of offense at all."
Maybe the most crucial reason Jones decided to not sign Henry was the financial aspect of the deal, especially considering the plans the Cowboys had for Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb's contracts.
"Derrick Henry didn't fit because principally of managing the cap in anticipation of the players that we were going to sign weeks later," Jones said. "Or anticipation of the players we were going to be signing in the future."
There's nothing that the Cowboys can do now with Henry, so how does Jones and the front office approach searching for a running back that fits what they want to do?
"Has anybody thought about that if you're going to invest a huge amount of money in a running back, you better be planning on running the ball?" Jones said.
Evidently, the numbers have shown the Cowboys sometimes don't plan on relying on their run game this season. Mike McCarthy mentioned heading into the bye that he wanted to get Rico Dowdle more touches after a career best day in Pittsburgh a few weeks ago, but the problem boils down to whether or not the play calls and blocking schemes up front set the run game up for success.
"The types of things that we all think we should be looking at is we're designing bad plays, or we're designing bad concepts," Jones said. "The facts are that there's some of that but there's also some of execution."
Part of the lack of execution from the offensive line, most notably the two rookies Tyler Guyton and Cooper Beebe, and the Cowboys as a team has been their heavy influx of young, inexperienced players, something that Jones recognizes will take time to come along.
"I like our young talent, but young talent has a few more mistakes associated with it then if you are dealing with a veteran player," Jones said. "Although, you've got to have young talent."
The Cowboys will look to find their rhythm on the ground Sunday night against San Francisco, a defense that has given up 112.9 yards on the ground per game this season.
