(Editor's Note: Time to check the mail! The DallasCowboys.com staff writers answer your questions here in 'Mailbag' presented by Miller Lite.)
I feel like losing John Fassel is a bigger deal than most people think. Besides being a great special teams coach, he brought KaVontae Turpin and Brandon Aubrey into the building, and both have become All-Pro players. Do you think losing Fassel will end up hurting the Cowboys significantly next season?– H. Melvin/Ocean City, NJ**
Patrik: KaVontae Turpin isn't on the Cowboys' roster if not for Fassel. Brandon Aubrey is not on the Cowboys' roster if not for Fassel. If you love either of those players, and I know you love them both, then make sure you tell Fassel "thank you" if ever you see him in public.
Those readily dismissing what he meant to the coaching staff in Dallas are baffling to me, and it's almost like they've forgotten how much of a liability special teams was prior to Bones joining the team and literally making it one of the most impactful in the entire league. Yes, he is imperfect and, yes, there were a couple of fake punt decisions (one was actually on the player and not the coordinator, but I digress); but painting those rare errors as the totality of his time here is, and I say this respectfully, as ignorant as saying Albert Einstein wasn't a genius simply because some of his experiments didn't work. Seriously, get a grip, folks. It's a gargantuan loss and good luck replacing him. And, no, I didn't say this about a single one of his predecessors, but I'm saying it about him: ouch.
Tommy: I'm completely with you. It's easy to look at the failed fake punts and costly muffed kickoff return and be critical of Bones' last season with the Cowboys as special teams coordinator. And they were questionable decisions that ended up proving to be costly in their own respective ways.
At the same time though, that's going to happen when you play aggressive on special teams, which the Cowboys did. And there was a lot more good than bad, like finding and developing both KaVontae Turpin and Brandon Aubrey. The Cowboys have arguably the best kicker and kick returner in the NFL, and Bones should get a lot of credit for making it that way.
That's not to say Turpin and Aubrey won't have success going forward, but I always thought Bones did a good job of setting them both up for success and tapping into the strengths of their skillsets. He'll certainly be missed.
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