Do Dallas Cowboys Have Super Bowl Roster? 'We're Close!' Insists Stephen Jones
Three straight 12-5 seasons and three straight poor playoff exits for the Dallas Cowboys have fans wanting change this offseason.
While they won't get it in the head coaching department or at quarterback, one area they might is in personnel - or, at least, an approach in personnel.
The Cowboys have had the talent to make a deep playoff run for the last couple of seasons but came up short each time. So ...
With Jerry Jones' comments stating: “We will be going all in, I would say that you will see us this coming year not build it for the future.”
That is all good and well, but we aren't sure if Jerry means "all in" by signing players like Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb to extensions (which doesn't count as "all in''), or by going hard after free agents.
But to COO Stephen Jones, the team has always been "all in," and he stated that the team is close to getting where it wants to be, while also having praise for carryover coach Mike McCarthy.
“I mean, we're always 'all in' ... We've been that way for three or four years; we put three 12 and five seasons together - we think we're close," Stephen Jones said at the Senior Bowl. "Coach McCarthy has been very successful in the playoffs at Green Bay, he knows what it takes to have success in the playoffs.
"Obviously, we hadn’t done it here but we think we're really close and those are all the things that go into the holistic evaluation of what this football team's all about."
USA TODAY SPORTS
While Dallas' regular season record is one of the best in the NFL over the last three seasons, much to fan's anger, that has resulted in just one playoff win, against an 8-9 Tampa Bay Buccaneers team led by Tom Brady.
So this offseason will likely be all about how the Cowboys can translate their regular season success over into the playoffs. (And, apparently, about the Joneses repeatedly using the word "holistic'' for no good reason.)
Given how each of the last three seasons have ended, many fans won't be buying any Dallas stock in October if the team is 5-0. It's what happens in the playoffs that matters and Jones says they were working on rectifying that.
"I think we've won more regular-season football games over the last three years than any team in the NFL, including the Super Bowl winners," Stephen said. "But that's no answer to how do you have success in the playoffs, that's something we've got to continue to grind on and look for the way to ultimately get over that hump and have the success that our fans deserve.”
Instead, it is the Chiefs and the 49ers who are up and over that "hump.'' Again. And they'll be in The Big Game, with Dallas watching on TV, all after another promising year that ended the same way the previous two had - with a poor playoff performance.
With Jerry's "all in" talk and Stephen's acknowledgment of the team's shortcomings in the playoffs, are things really about to change?
Given the talent on the roster, time is running out to win with this group, and if Jerry and the Cowboys really are "all in," then now is the time to prove it.
