Cowboys Season Over, Some Overhauling Must Happen

The season came full circle with another disappointing loss to end the Cowboys 2011 campaign. It was Garrett’s first complete year, and 8-8 is the result. Most writers had pegged the Cowboys to finish between 9-7 and 8-8, since it was seen more of a rebuilding year in transition, looks like the pre-season consensus was correct. So, all Cowboys fan’s are still enraged and asking what happened, and what is the future of the team for 2012. I’m going to go over a few things to consider:

Defense

Garrett will need to sit down and decide what he wants to do on the defensive side of the ball. There’s two ways to look at this mess:

1. The 3-4 isn’t working in Dallas
2. We have the wrong players to execute the 3-4

Garrett needs to evaluate whether or not to stay the course with the 3-4 (with or without Ryan), by most accounts, the 3-4 has been a flop in Dallas since Parcells brought the scheme to Dallas. I still think a move to the 4-3 should be considered more than ever, and there will be some top tier assistants out there that can run it here in Dallas. Regardless what system we run, one thing is certain, these players need to be purged out:

1. Anthony Spencer
2. Terence Newman
3. Bradie James
4. Keith Brooking
5. Alan Ball

Secondary

The secondary needs a major overhaul to make a run inside the division in 2012. The Giants are stacked, the Eagles are stacked, and the Redskins will improve as well, this means its time to get the secondary competitive to keep up and ready to defend these guys. The Cowboys will need to focus on corners for the draft, and they will need to consider some free agents.

Coaching

Norv Turner should be available, and we need to bring him in here to clean up and add to the offensive play calling.

The secondary coaches need to be held accountable, thus they need to be canned in the coming days, sorry, Campo and Maxie did not get it done.

Offensive Line coach Houck is past his prime and needs to be replaced as well, Doug Free looks like an amateur at LT, look for him to make the move to RT, and rookie sensation Smith will move to LT and stop Pierre-Paul next season. We have to do the right player moves to defeat our division rivals.

Special Teams

There hasn’t been anything special about DeCamillis as the coach of special teams, in fact, its been horrid. There were big mistakes all season long, and there weren’t any memorable positive plays. Replace DeCamillis.

Miles Austin

I’m officially nominating Austin is trade bait for the offseason. He’s been injury plagued, and inconsistent most of his career in Dallas, and if we’re looking for more players, Austin gives us some ammo with trade value. Bryant improved this season, and next season will be better, we have Robinson who has emerged as a top target for Romo, and we have Radway who will be coming back from his pre-season injury. It’s something to consider.

Let’s review what needs to change:

1. release Spencer
2. release James
3. release Brooking
4. release Newman
5. release Ball
6. evaluate the future of defensive scheme 3-4 or change to 4-3
7. fire Campo, Maxie, and DeCamillis
8. hire Norv Turner to be the offensive coordinator
9. possibly trade Austin