Both Brandon Carr and Morris Claiborne can commiserate about the Dallas Cowboys’ 2013 season. It wasn’t a good one for both cornerbacks. Only two players in the entire NFL were burned more than Carr while Claiborne dealt with the professional indignity of losing his starting role as well as the physical hardship that accompanied shoulder, knee, hamstring, head and finger injuries.
The disappointment that has marked the recent pasts of Carr and Claiborne has surprised many outsiders. Carr, after all, was signed to a five-year $50.1 million deal in 2012. Claiborne was drafted sixth overall that same year after the Cowboys traded up for the rights to choose him. They’re expected to make major contributions. But is it really that shocking that Claiborne and Carr underperformed last season, considering they specialize in man coverage while toiling in a zone-based scheme?
The moves to bring in both players, invest so much in them and then switch defenses less than a year after their acquisitions have to be among the most befuddling the Cowboys have made in recent memory. But it indicates that Dallas operated at the time with a short-term outlook – a sort of myopia that really has sent this franchise into the 8-8 rut from which they have yet to escape.
Organizational decisions aren’t made in a vacuum. There are so many factors to consider when structuring the roster, choosing players and picking what systems to run. In 2013, the Cowboys hedged their bets on quarterback Tony Romo and linebacker Sean Lee, electing to shape the offenses and defenses around both players.
Dallas cornerback Morris Claiborne (24) and Brandon Carr (39) talk while loosening up at the Dallas Cowboys OTA workout at Valley Ranch on Wednesday, May 23, 2012.
They gave both Romo and Lee contract extensions totaling $150 million. But there was serious risk involved in both deals. Romo was about to be 33 and inextricably linked to Jason Garrett, a head coach that had yet to prove he is a winner and now stands on shaky ground because of his lack of success.
With Garrett in the final year of his contract, there is a realistic possibility that a quarterback at an advanced stage of his career could be forced to direct an entirely different offense next season for the first time since the year he made his inaugural start back in 2006. That could prove as challenging for Romo as recovering from two back surgeries performed in a span of eight months.
But it’s hard to tell if the Cowboys considered such a scenario when they made such a serious commitment to Romo in 2013.
What is clear is the Cowboys did contemplate Lee’s injury history when they locked up the linebacker. Playtime incentives were included in the contract and only a modest portion — $16.13 million – was guaranteed. Still, it’s perilous to build a defense around a player so unreliable from an availability standpoint. Lee has never played a full season and has missed 18 games in his career.
The Cowboys now have to face the consequences of that decision after Lee tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee – a serious blow to a unit that was the NFL’s worst last season and remains unsettled to this day.
The injury to Lee stings so much because he is viewed as an extra coach on the field capable of organizing the players around him. The Cowboys didn’t simply lose a skilled tackler and their top defensive playmaker; They lost much more.
But the Cowboys have made their bed. Carr and Claiborne are playing in a defense that doesn’t suit their strengths and wasn’t in place when they were acquired. Romo is operating under a lame-duck coach and facing the prospect of a new offense next season at a point in his career when such a change could be counterproductive for all parties involved. And the Cowboys are without Lee – a great talent that a bad defense planned to rely upon after the organization bid adieu to DeMarcus Ware and Jason Hatcher this off-season.
As the Cowboys look down the road, the moves they’ve made with each of these players could come back to haunt them simply because they didn’t have the foresight to consider potential scenarios that were plausible or didn’t let those possibilities influence their thinking if they had been discussed. A scheme switch. A possible coaching change brought on by continued underperformance. An injury-prone player getting hurt.
But whether the risk factors tied to each decision were self-induced or beyond their control, the Cowboys can be sure they will be deemed culpable in the end. And if so they only have themselves to blame.
The disappointment that has marked the recent pasts of Carr and Claiborne has surprised many outsiders. Carr, after all, was signed to a five-year $50.1 million deal in 2012. Claiborne was drafted sixth overall that same year after the Cowboys traded up for the rights to choose him. They’re expected to make major contributions. But is it really that shocking that Claiborne and Carr underperformed last season, considering they specialize in man coverage while toiling in a zone-based scheme?
The moves to bring in both players, invest so much in them and then switch defenses less than a year after their acquisitions have to be among the most befuddling the Cowboys have made in recent memory. But it indicates that Dallas operated at the time with a short-term outlook – a sort of myopia that really has sent this franchise into the 8-8 rut from which they have yet to escape.
Organizational decisions aren’t made in a vacuum. There are so many factors to consider when structuring the roster, choosing players and picking what systems to run. In 2013, the Cowboys hedged their bets on quarterback Tony Romo and linebacker Sean Lee, electing to shape the offenses and defenses around both players.
Dallas cornerback Morris Claiborne (24) and Brandon Carr (39) talk while loosening up at the Dallas Cowboys OTA workout at Valley Ranch on Wednesday, May 23, 2012.
They gave both Romo and Lee contract extensions totaling $150 million. But there was serious risk involved in both deals. Romo was about to be 33 and inextricably linked to Jason Garrett, a head coach that had yet to prove he is a winner and now stands on shaky ground because of his lack of success.
With Garrett in the final year of his contract, there is a realistic possibility that a quarterback at an advanced stage of his career could be forced to direct an entirely different offense next season for the first time since the year he made his inaugural start back in 2006. That could prove as challenging for Romo as recovering from two back surgeries performed in a span of eight months.
But it’s hard to tell if the Cowboys considered such a scenario when they made such a serious commitment to Romo in 2013.
What is clear is the Cowboys did contemplate Lee’s injury history when they locked up the linebacker. Playtime incentives were included in the contract and only a modest portion — $16.13 million – was guaranteed. Still, it’s perilous to build a defense around a player so unreliable from an availability standpoint. Lee has never played a full season and has missed 18 games in his career.
The Cowboys now have to face the consequences of that decision after Lee tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee – a serious blow to a unit that was the NFL’s worst last season and remains unsettled to this day.
The injury to Lee stings so much because he is viewed as an extra coach on the field capable of organizing the players around him. The Cowboys didn’t simply lose a skilled tackler and their top defensive playmaker; They lost much more.
But the Cowboys have made their bed. Carr and Claiborne are playing in a defense that doesn’t suit their strengths and wasn’t in place when they were acquired. Romo is operating under a lame-duck coach and facing the prospect of a new offense next season at a point in his career when such a change could be counterproductive for all parties involved. And the Cowboys are without Lee – a great talent that a bad defense planned to rely upon after the organization bid adieu to DeMarcus Ware and Jason Hatcher this off-season.
As the Cowboys look down the road, the moves they’ve made with each of these players could come back to haunt them simply because they didn’t have the foresight to consider potential scenarios that were plausible or didn’t let those possibilities influence their thinking if they had been discussed. A scheme switch. A possible coaching change brought on by continued underperformance. An injury-prone player getting hurt.
But whether the risk factors tied to each decision were self-induced or beyond their control, the Cowboys can be sure they will be deemed culpable in the end. And if so they only have themselves to blame.
