A year ago at that time, Dallas Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy poked fun at media representatives who suggested that one solution to the wounded offensive line would be to use a “best 5” approach, the all-pro rights to attack.
Fantasy football nonsense, ”McCarthy scoffed.
Far too many weeks later, McCarthy and the coaching staff gave in and moved Martin outside for the November 22nd game in Minnesota.
Three months. It took the cowboys three months to find out.
Unfortunately, there is now a similar dilemma. La’el Collins, who was absent with a hip injury all last year – which required the use of poor backups and ultimately Martin’s “fantasy” – is once again unavailable, this time due to a five-game ban held by Collins’ circle for unjust.
Maybe like this. But the coaching staff cannot argue. It has to respond.
“Of course, playing Thursday night gives us some time,” McCarthy said on Friday. “The players have the mandatory three days off. So we bring in the players on Monday, we spend the morning working on Tampa and then the afternoon working on the chargers.”
And then? How is the offensive line set up?
We will contradict claims that Dallas “has a lot of time” to find out, especially given that in a remarkably similar situation last year, it took the organization three months to see the light.
The question is simple: are the Cowboys – not just against Chargers Pro Bowl Pass rusher Joey Bosa, but more for the next five weeks – better able to win with an offensive line that looks like this from left to right:
Tyron Smith. Connor Williams. Tyler Biadasz. Zack Martin. Ty Nsekhe.
Or so:
Tyron. Williams. Biadasz. McGovern. Martin.
That’s it. That’s all.
Is McGovern a better guard than Nsekhe a tackle?
That’s it.
“Ty and Terence (Steele, another tackle) worked both left and right so I’m very comfortable playing with these guys,” said McCarthy, who may not fully understand the meaning of the word ‘comfortable’.
“Best 5” has a successful tradition in Dallas; the cowboys won three Super Bowls with it in the 90s. That doesn’t make this group “The Wall 2.0”. (Martin is on record that he prefers to stay in his future place in the Hall of Fame.) But it does mean McCarthy unfairly rejected the idea in the fall of 2020, and it means he will be wrong if he does refuses it again.
“We opened our eyes wide,” said McCarthy. “You have to be because things happen. We want to have as many combinations as possible.”
“Eyes Wide Open” vs. “Fantasy Football Nonsense”?
That is progress.
