FRISCO, Texas – For the past two weeks invariably keep getting asked this same question:
With the way this 2024 season is going, when do the Cowboys pull the plug and start playing the younger players to better evaluate them going forward and allowing them to gain experience?
Understand the reasoning. Why, the Cowboys are heading to Landover, Md., just outside Washington D.C., to face the 7-4 Washington Commanders, noon Sunday. They own a humbling 3-7 record, and has been five years since anyone around here has experienced a season like this, and really is only the second time in 10 years. Oh, and just the third time in the past 15 years, going all the way back to 2010 when owner Jerry Jones fired head coach Wade Phillips after a 1-7 start, hired his offensive coordinator and head-coach-in-waiting Jason Garrett, who turned the season around the second half with a 5-3 record to finish 6-10.
Even at that, 6-10 was a rare occurrence, having to go back to the 4-12 of 2004 to find worse.
So understand this rare occurrence, one so rare seems as if the Cowboys are at the end of the earth for those who weren't around for the three consecutive 5-11 seasons from 2000 through 2002. Or for those who were not here for the 1-15 of 1989, occurring during a streak of five playoff-less seasons from 1986 through 1990, the Cowboys posting a five-year record of 25-54.
Yuck.
Yes, this from a franchise once setting the NFL record with 20 consecutive winning seasons from 1966 through 1985 that included 18 playoff appearances, five Super Bowl seasons, winning two of those Super Bowls, playing in two NFL Championship Games, 10 NFC title games and two Eastern Conference title games prior to the 1970 merger. Such unprecedented success causing the growing world of Cowboys fans to think it being their inalienable rights to cheer for a first-place team, doing so 13 times during those 20 seasons.
But now this: Four games below .500 with seven games to go. A five-game losing streak, along with an oh-and-five home record. Just one game from being in last place in the NFC East, only the 2-8 Giants worse, and they have been so bad they not only benched their starting quarterback Daniel Jones, not wanting the veteran QB they re-signed last year to a four-year, $160 million extension to activate an injury guarantee, that they granted his request on Friday to be released.
So bad here that these Cowboys fans took to booing their hometown boys at AT&T Stadium during this past Monday night's 34-10 loss to the Texans. Maybe it's a good thing this Sunday's game is at newly minted but surely the unstably named Northwest Stadium. And now, on this day, Friday, Nov. 22, 61 years since President John Kennedy was assassinated on the streets of downtown Dallas, so many already want to look into the future, wanting the Cowboys to play their young players.
Makes me sort of laugh. Like, what in the world do you think the Cowboys have been doing almost this entire season? Playing their young but out of injury-induced and salary-cap strapped necessity. Has everyone been watching?
One recent day during a rare down time, began doodling on my notebook, listing the young players or inexperienced ones maybe playing a significant role for the first times in their careers that the Cowboys have been playing over the first 10 games of this year, the majority in no more than their third seasons.
My list, and in no particular order, last names only: Lance, Dowdle, Richards, Mukuamu, Brooks, Flournoy, Liufau, Overshown, Butler, Turpin, Henry, Bass, Hoffman, Beebe, Guyton, M. Smith, Tolbert, Mingo, Aubrey, Bell, Thomas, Carson, Oruwariye, Schoonmaker, Ferguson, Spann-Ford, Fant, Luepke, Vaughn, Johnson, Wheat, Cropper, T. Smith, Kneeland, Clark, Booth, Hall, Waletzko and they hope Bland for the first time this year.
Only Trey Lance, Rico Dowdle, Israel Mukuamu and Amani Oruwariye are in more than just their third NFL seasons. See what I mean? And seven of those guys started the season on the practice squad. Two others were acquired after the start of the season.
Why, the Cowboys already have played 63 players at least one play. Twenty of that group of 39 above have started at least one game.
See what I mean? You want young guys playing? My gosh, they already are playing the young.
"And like I say, I'm compelled to say this now. You've got to be able to deal with injuries to have success in the NFL," Cowboys owner Jerry Jones says. "But you got to have depth. That's the challenge. And to make up for that injury this year, I think we've – by having as many young players as we've got for our depth – I think in places we've had basically more shortcomings than I would've anticipated. But still, that's not an excuse. That's just what's happening.
"But I seem to have gotten a little criticism, but we can do better and we will do better by making that statement about the team. But it's a fact, the more reps you get of young players, the better they get. In our particular case, they'll know what to do more instinctively and the better they'll get.
"And what is critical that I want the fans to know is that every series, every quarter, every game we play is critical for the future because we want to use the games to not only win the game, but we also want to use it to develop and establish the way a lot of these young guys need to play for the rest of their careers."
Now, that doesn't satisfy a world of instant gratification since few these days aren't dealing with tomorrow. It's today, and the reason today so many of these young players already are playing has to do with injuries to starters, and to Pro Bowls starters at that. Just consider this with 10 games yet to play:
The Cowboys already have missed 55 starts to injury, and for sure that number will increase this week since Dak Prescott is now out for the season, guard Zack Martin is being listed as doubtful after leaving Monday night's game with ankle injury, tight end Jake Ferguson is out, still in concussion protocol, and along with guard Tyler Smith listed as questionable after leaving the Houston game with an ankle/knee injury is defensive end Marshawn Kneeland (knee), who moved into a starting role when the Cowboys lost Sam Williams, DeMarcus Lawrence and then Micah Parsons at defensive end.
So count on Prescott and Williams both missing the remaining seven games, that being another 14 missed starter starts. Who knows who's next.
Snakebit? Maybe. But let's not act like it's time to wave the white flag by pulling veteran starters to get young guys playing time. They already are getting playing time. A lot of it. If you just take Monday night's game against Houston, 11 of the Cowboys' 22 starters were in no more than their third NFL seasons and another 16 played, including second-year kicker Brandon Aubrey, yet another young starter.
Well, uh, it's the awfully young and winless Cowboys over the past five games going into Sunday's game against the Commanders, losers of their last two games and having only beaten one team currently with a winning record (Arizona 6-4) for their seven wins. Always a chance.
"I know we're growing," says Micah Parsons, this being his third game back after missing four himself. "I know some of these young guys who then get the opportunities, they're getting better. Let's look at the film. Let's break it down. Yeah, of course young guys are still going to make mistakes. That's what learning is.
"But in terms of how I believe we are and where we're going by the end of this year, you all are going to say Mike Zimmer didn't have all his pieces, but we sure did put a damn good defense together and I can take that. I know we can grow from that."
The offshoot from playing so many so young.
