The Dallas Cowboys’ Five Most Valuable Stars for 2009

According to my good friend, Merriam-Webster (dot-com), the term “value” can be defined as “relative worth, utility, or importance.”

In other words, value cannot be conclusively defined, because hey; its all relative!

While the crazy cat lady that lives across the hall from me (there is no crazy cat lady, I made her up) might value her collection of decorative shawls as absolutely priceless, I would probably value it as about the equivalent of my discarded razor-blade after this mornings’ shave.

Trash.

It’s the same with football. To borrow an old and tired—but true—expression, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” Likewise, one team’s bench warmer is another team’s All Star.

Every team has the players that make them tick, guys that are absolutely vital to their team’s success. Maybe it is because they are superior athletes or have uncanny intelligence, or it could simply be that they have a leadership style that the rest of their teammates really respond to.

No matter what makes them “valuable” to their respective teams, one thing is for certain. Their teams need them.

The Dallas Cowboys are no different. There are a handful of players that they are counting on next year if they hope to have any chance of making it to the “Promised Land.”

The following is a list of the five most valuable players (in my eyes) on the Dallas Cowboys’ 2009 roster:

 

1. DeMarcus Ware—Outside Linebacker

DeMarcus is an easy pick for the most valuable Cowboy on the roster. He is arguably the best defensive player in the league, and he is unquestionably the backbone of the Dallas defense.

With questions surrounding the offensive side of the ball, it is imperative that the Cowboys take their defense to the next level next season, and they will need a healthy and productive Ware in order to do that.

The defensive secondary is the weak link in the Dallas defense, and they cannot be hung out to dry. Defensive pressure will be an absolute must, and in 2008 there was nobody better at bringing pressure than Ware, who raked in a league-best 20 quarterback sacks.

His continued dominance will also be key in the continued development of Anthony Spencer, who is filling in as the permanent starter in the wake of the Greg Ellis release.

 

2. Tony Romo—Quarterback

If this were last season, Romo would undoubtedly be at the top of this list. Thankfully, the Cowboys have made moves to bolster the strength of the Cowboys quarterbacking group with the trade for Jon Kitna and the drafting of Stephen McGee.

Still, the quarterback is always the most important position on the field, and Romo’s value cannot be understated. While the Cowboys can afford to go with Kitna for a few weeks if Romo faces another injury, Dallas will need Romo on the field if they have any hopes of going the distance.

Although there have been questions surrounding Romo’s leadership ability and his failure to deliver in “big games,” he has also been one of the top statistical passers in the game since entering the league.

At best, Romo is an elite quarterback in the making, and at worst he is still a very important key to the Dallas Cowboys’ future Super Bowl chances.

 

3. Jason Witten—Tight End

Jason Witten is Romo’s most important and reliable target, and therefore one of the most valuable players on the Cowboys roster.

Last season, he finished in the top 15 in the NFL in receptions (81) and top 25 in receiving yards (952), and he did this with a broken rib and bum shoulder for the last eight games. The only tight end to finish ahead of him in both categories was Kansas City’s Tony Gonzales (96 for 1,058),

But Witten is more important than numbers. His value lies in his consistency, his toughness, and his example. He’s not a flashy guy, but he rarely makes a bad play, he plays through injury, and has a work ethic that would rival most any athlete.

Whenever Romo and the Cowboys need a big play in the passing game, they look to Witten, and more often than not, he delivers.

 

4. Roy Williams—Wide Receiver

Roy Williams is very important to the Cowboys’ success next season for multiple reasons. Perhaps the biggest is the shoes he is being asked to fill.

Terrell Owens has been a dominant receiver throughout his entire career, and that was no different in Dallas. If the Cowboys hope to get their offense back on track in 2009, Williams will have to be a very big part of that.

But a productive season from Williams is not only needed to bolster the Cowboys passing attack. I have said it before and I’ll say it again, the Cowboys need to run the ball next season if they hope to experience true success.

They cannot hope to run the ball effectively if they do not have a legitimate receiving threat, and as great as Witten is, he cannot be Romo’s only target through the air.

If the Cowboys have a great season next year, it will largely be because Williams lived up to his hype.

5. Terence Newman—Cornerback

Perhaps one of the most under-appreciated cornerbacks in the league, Terence Newman is a very valuable weapon for the Cowboys defense.

With the departure of Anthony Henry, his value increases even more. With nothing but youth on the opposite side of the field and the safety positions still very much a question mark, Newman must stay healthy next season.

Although not a shutdown corner in the mold of Deion Sanders or Champ Bailey, Newman still has the ability to completely shut down his man when he is healthy and playing at the top of his game.

Without Newman, an already suspect defensive secondary could become a very large liability for the Cowboys.

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If you enjoyed this article, then you might also enjoy my breakdown of the 10 most valuable offensive players in the NFL.

If you did not enjoy this this article, then you might enjoy Shawls Unlimited, a website for decorative shawl enthusiasts around the world!

The Dallas Cowboys’ Should-Be Motto for 2009: Just Run the Ball!

Months after watching another season slip through their fingertips, the Dallas Cowboys are trying to re-group for the upcoming year in football—this time hoping for a longer season and a happier ending.

Another 9-7 season that results in sitting at home come playoff time will not cut it for the Cowboys next year. In fact, I would go so far as to say that if the 2009 season replicates the 2008 disaster, we will be seeing quite a few new faces in Valley Ranch come 2010.

But while next season’s results will be expected to far exceed those of last year, one thing is worth mentioning about the makeup of this current Cowboys team.

On paper, not much has changed.

Sure, they have added a new rookie class, but no matter what the experts said on draft day, we really do not know what to expect from them.

Whether Jason Williams and Vincent Butler work out for the Cowboys or whether they disappoint, they will still be—at best—backups to DeMarcus Ware and Anthony Spencer next year, and if Stephen McGee even hits the field, the season is already over.

Igor Olshansky and Keith Brooking were both nice additions, but they were also both brought in to fill holes that were left vacant by players from the 2008 roster who were on the way out.

Olshansky will be filling in for Chris Canty while Brooking will do the same for Zach Thomas. Another noticeable addition, Gerald Sensebaugh, will try to shore up the safety position that has been vacated by once sensational, but now unwatchable, safety Roy Williams.

I am certainly not trying to say that some of the new guys cannot or will not contribute next year, and I also would not be naive enough to suggest that the Cowboys might not miss some of the players who have moved on to other teams. 

However, of all the additions and subtractions the Cowboys have made this offseason, only one is truly significant in regards to next year.

If you have read this far, and if you have been paying any attention at all this offseason, then you should probably already know who I am talking about.

Terrell Owens.

Love him or hate him, Owens was a huge part of the Cowboys’ offense—many will argue too huge. The Cowboys can elect to keep trying to run the same offense that they ran with him, in which case they will sorely miss him.

Or rather, the Cowboys can elect to make an adjustment in their offensive philosophy that could actually turn the absence of Owens into a positive thing.

I have been saying it for months, I’m saying it now, and I am sure I will say it again. If the Cowboys want to turn their offense around next year, they are going to have to make it a point to run the football.

Until Roy Williams and the other receivers can step their game up and prove that they are a legitimate receiving corps that can put up big numbers and make big plays, the Cowboys offense needs to play to their already proven strength—running the football.

The Cowboys have a luxury that few teams have. They have three solid running backs in Marion Barber (885 yards in 2008 despite injury), Felix Jones (8.9 yards-per-carry), and Tashard Choice (5.1 ypc).

With two of those backs being rookies last year, it is quite possible that the Cowboys coaching staff did not quite know what they had in their stable coming into the season. However, by season’s end, there was absolutely no question that the overall talent in the Cowboys’ backfield, when healthy, can rival any team in the league.

Unfortunately, there was never a point during the 2008 season when all three running backs were being used at the same time due to injuries sustained by Jones and Barber at different points in the season.

With the knowledge of what they have got now firmly in place, and with all three running backs entering into next season at full strength, the Cowboys could and should “hit the ground running” come September.

Setting the Bar on the Dallas Cowboys’ 2009 Season

It’s that time of year again.

Fans of the NBA and NHL are in the middle of cheering for their team’s playoff lives; fans of the MLB are just getting settled into another great season of baseball; meanwhile, fans of the NFL are miserably and impatiently counting down the days until next season.

NFL fans still have 123 days to wait it out before the Tennessee Titans face the defending champion Pittsburgh Steelers to open the 2009 season, and 126 days before opening Sunday.

It is in this period of football fan purgatory (Hell is, of course, the day after the Super Bowl, and Heaven is the beginning of the new season) that fans are left with nothing else to do but to speculate on what the coming season holds.

Even some players get in on the action, with Detroit Lions’ running back Kevin Smith predicting on Friday that his Lions would follow up their perfectly imperfect season (0-16) with their first trip to the post-season since 1999.

Indeed, this is the time of year when preseason expectations are brought to the forefront, and the bars on all 32 teams are officially set.

But expectations are a funny and fickle thing. Oftentimes, the bar is set unreasonably and unrealistically high, and when expectations are met or exceeded, they change.

If a fan was expecting their team to squeak into the playoffs, and their team does, then they will start to expect a playoff win. If they expected one or two playoff wins, then they will suddenly expect a Lombardi Trophy.

And for a fan of a Super Bowl winner who expected and predicted that win? They want two.

With all of that in mind, I offer to you my expectations for my team, the Dallas Cowboys. Of course, these expectations are subject to change.

 

Setting the Bar

The Cowboys are a franchise that has quickly earned the reputation as one of the most underachieving teams in the league. In the past three seasons, a lot has been expected of the Cowboys, but little has been delivered.

In fact, the Cowboys have been nothing but frustrating for more than a decade.

Since winning the Super Bowl in the 1995 season, the Cowboys have had only four 10-plus win seasons and have won only one playoff game.  In that same 13 year stretch, they have had one season where they accumulated more than 10 wins in the regular season.

That season was in 2007, when the Cowboys won 13 games en route to a first round bye and home field advantage throughout the playoffs. Despite the season ending when the Cowboys lost a heartbreaking game to their division rivals—and eventual Super Bowl champion—New York Giants, the overall successful season fueled some serious Cowboys love.

The Cowboys became the new popular pick to be the Super Bowl XLIII champions. I was one of the fools that caught the “Cowboys Super Bowl Fever” and helped set those lofty expectations, but I will not make that mistake again.

If the Cowboys have not shown that they can be a true contender in the past 13 years, there should be absolutely no reason to expect them to be true contenders in 2009.

The Cowboys are a very talented, but inconsistent, team that is just as likely to hoist the Lombardi as they are to spend January sitting at home watching the playoffs.

I do not believe either of those two scenarios will pan out next season, however.

I expect the Cowboys to make the playoffs, finish in the top two of the NFC East, and win at least one playoff game. Anything less than that is a season failure and probably leads to organizational changes, and anything more than that is icing on the cake.

 

Why the Cowboys Fall Short of Expectations

To understand how the Cowboys could fall short of their expectations in 2009, one needs to look no further than last season.

Here was a team coming off of their best regular season in over a decade, was receiving accolades that they probably did not yet deserve, and then after getting off to a red hot start, their wheels just flew off.

There have been several scapegoats—Terrell Owens, Tony Romo, Jason Garrett, and the “injury bug” to name a few—but the reality is that it took a collection of efforts to screw up what could have been a great football team.

If those same problems rear their ugly heads again next season, the Cowboys could be staring at yet another disappointing year.

In particular, the two biggest problems with the Cowboys last season, and the two biggest potential roadblocks for them next season, are as follows:

 

1. Lack of Team Cohesion

Some will maintain that this problem has been “fixed” with the departures of Owens, Adam “Pacman” Jones, and Tank Johnson. With those players on the way out, coupled with high character free agency additions such as Keith Brooking and Igor Olshansky, the Cowboys seem to be moving in the right direction.

Still, the Cowboys’ might not yet be out of the dark.

From all accounts, Tank Johnson appeared to be a fine locker room guy, despite his past legal issues. His problems were on the football field, where he just did not live up to his hype. Pacman, although a slight—OK, major—distraction in his time wearing the star, was either injured or suspended when the Cowboys were playing some of their worst football.

Terrell Owens is a different story. I was, and still am, of the opinion that Owens got a bad shake last year. Yes he is a cocky, abrasive, and polarizing player, but relative to his first two stops in the NFL, he was an angel with the Cowboys—and he was entertaining to boot.

Still, whether he was or was not a problem in Dallas, concerns about team cohesiveness still remain.

If Owens was in fact a divisive force in the locker-room, how will his departure affect those that are still with the team? If there is still a faction of Owens supporters and Owens detractors, it is possible that the Cowboys could see a negative reaction similar to what we saw a couple of years ago in Philadelphia.

If Owens was not a divisive force in the locker-room, then the Cowboys could have an even bigger problem on their hands. There were Cowboys players and personnel leaking information to the media regarding Owens and the drama that seemingly always surrounded him.

If these leaks were giving out this information to try and rid the Cowboys of their “problem,” then that is one thing. But if they were leaking false information or were just trying to stir up drama, then they were the Cowboys’ real Achilles heel.

No matter what their motive was for leaking the harmful information, that has got to stop next season. The Cowboys attract enough negative attention as it is. There is no need to add to that attention by sharing locker room problems that should remain in-house.

The Cowboys players and personnel do not have to like each other, but they do have to respect each other. Last year, that did not seem to be the case.

 

2. Poor Offensive Scheme

This may seem to be singling out Offensive Coordinator Jason Garrett, and in a way, it is. Garrett received a big payday to stay with the Cowboys after their tremendous 2007 season, but has yet to live up to that payday.

This could be attributed to a number of things: the departure of Tony Sparano, the turmoil surrounding the team, the injury bug, or just plain poor execution.

No matter what the cause, it needs to be corrected for the Cowboys to rebound in 2009. Last season, Garrett’s offense was under constant scrutiny, and for good reason.

Tony Romo and Terrell Owens both questioned the system, and opposing Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis claimed that the offense was so predictable that he knew what play the Cowboys would run before they ran it.

In the Cowboys heyday, they could afford to run a vanilla offense. That was what made them so good. The opposing team oftentimes knew what they were about to run, but they could not stop it.

But Tony Romo is not Troy Aikman, Roy Williams is not Michael Irvin, and the Cowboys’ promising three headed running attack still do not add up to make Emmitt Smith.

The Cowboys have got to be more creative if they want to have an explosive offense again.

If Garrett does not earn his paycheck next year, then their season will end in disappointment yet again.

 

Why the Cowboys Exceed Expectations

Unfortunately, the Cowboys surpassing expectations set for them is not as easy as me (or you) willing it to happen. If that were the case, Jerry Jones would have more than three rings on his fingers.

A lot of things have to go right for a team to put themselves in position to make the playoffs, and even more has to go right for them to do damage once they get there.

Outside of the typical “work hard and execute” instructions for how to succeed in the NFL, however, there are a couple of keys to a solid Cowboys season in 2009:

 

1. Continued Improvement on Defense

One of the most exciting things about this team is their steady improvement on defense. Outside of the two long running plays in the Baltimore game and the embarrassing final effort in Week 17 against the Eagles, the Cowboys defense looked better in the second half of last season than they have looked since the early ‘90s.

Although there are still question marks in the secondary, particularly the two safety positions, the Cowboys’ front seven is still positioned to be one of the best in the league.

With DeMarcus Ware coming into his prime and Anthony Spencer looking better every game, Dallas should wreak havoc on opposing quarterbacks in the coming season, and in years to come.

If the Cowboys can just manage to get a few turnovers to go with their smothering defense, then look out!

Last season, the Cowboys had the league’s eighth best defense in terms of yardage surrendered, but finished 20th in scoring defense. This was partly because their offense oftentimes gave them miserable field position through stalled drives or turnovers, but it was also aided by the Cowboys’ lack of ability to gain turnovers themselves.

The Cowboys finished 20th in the league in turnovers forced, and 30th in interceptions. If there was a stat for dropped interceptions last season, I am almost 100 percent certain that the Cowboys would have led the league.

With continued pressure from the Cowboys front seven, some added work on the jug machines for the secondary, and maybe just a sprinkle or two of good fortune here and there, the Dallas defense has the potential to be a special one next year.

 

2. Roy Williams Succeeds in His New Role

While Tony Romo is the absolute most valuable piece to the Cowboys’ offensive puzzle, Roy Williams’ importance cannot be underestimated.

If the Cowboys hope to get back to the playoffs—and do some damage while they are there—then they will need to fix their offense, and if they hope to fix their offense, Williams is going to have to become a legitimate number one receiver.

Although Dallas boasts one of the finest tight end duos in the league with Jason Witten and Martellus Bennett, the depth at wide receiver is going to be quite shallow next season, and that is putting it kindly.

Williams has never been a dominant number one receiver, with only one 1,000-plus yard season to his resume. Patrick Crayton, although a nice receiver that can make some big plays, is a middle of the road number two receiver at best.

Miles Austin, Sam Hurd, and Isaiah Stanback have all shown nice flashes, but none of them have shown that they can be a consistent and reliable threat throughout the course of a 16 game season.

This means the Cowboys are going to have to rely on their running game more than they have in years past. Unless some of these receivers step it up to a previously unseen level when the season gets under way, the high flying pass attack is no longer going to work for this team.

The Cowboys have three different running backs who all showed signs of brilliance last season. If they can remain healthy, then they can resemble the New York Giants’ great running trio of the past couple of seasons.

However, without Williams stepping into and owning his new role, defenses will be able to shut down the running game, and the offense will sputter.

 

Time will tell what will happen with this latest Dallas Cowboys team.

Will they exceed their preseason expectations and bring home a Dallas Cowboys record-tying sixth Lombardi Trophy, fall short of expectations as they spend another playoff season playing golf, or will they simply meet expectations as they join a handful of other contenders who get close but get no cigar.

Nobody knows for sure just yet, but the answers start coming in 126 more days.

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