Lacie's Line-Up: NFL News
Lacie's Line-Up: NFL News
Cowboys Chaos: Navigating Season Struggles and Management Missteps
Is Jerry Jones the real reason behind the Cowboys' head-scratching season? Lacie's Lineup takes a candid look at the chaos under the famed Dallas star, questioning everything from Dak Prescott's paycheck-to-performance ratio to the baffling loyalty shown to underperforming players. With the Cowboys' faithful facing a series of unfortunate events—highlighted by Prescott's untimely injury, Cooper Rush's short-lived stint, and ongoing management missteps—we ask if embracing defeat might ironically be the team's best play for a brighter future. Trey Lance emerges as a potential beacon of hope amidst the turmoil, but can he shine in a team struggling to find its footing?
As we navigate through this rollercoaster season, we also turn our attention to the much-anticipated showdown against the Texans, urging fans to keep the faith despite the team's ongoing plight. Could a strategic loss be the Cowboys' ticket to securing top draft picks and rebuilding from the ground up? We explore the impact of Jerry Jones' controversial decisions and hope for a strong resurgence of Cowboy Nation. Tune in for a mix of humor, frustration, and genuine hope as we dissect the state of America's Team with a critical eye on management's role in the drama.
Welcome to Lacey's Lineup where we talk all Dallas Cowboys and now it's turned into Cowboys Comedy Hour, because what else can we do but laugh about this? This has become a very frustrating comical season, so let's dive in and if we must find out what has gone wrong in this season, your lineup starts right now. All right, Well, let's just get to the meat and potatoes of this. I mean, dak Prescott has done nothing for us this year. He's gotten paid. He has not done anything significant. He only had three wins when he was in and I guess not last, not against the Eagles, but the week before in the pocket, in the pocket, guys, no contact. Maybe it came to start because he used his legs a little bit. He now has injured himself by himself, probably because he's too old and shouldn't get paid. But that's what it is. He is out for the season, season ending injury because in the pocket, by himself, no contact. He has ripped his hamstring off the bone. Tell me how that makes sense, but it is what it is. I'm not knocking on his injury. I think if I was in the position he was, it's probably better just to sit back and not be a part of this disastrous season. But this is where we are.
Speaker 1:So everyone kind of shifted gears, kind of off of Dak, and now it was rush hour in Dallas. You know he was Cooper Rush, has been five and one as a starter. We thought he might give us a glimmer of hope. Yeah, no, he did not. He was awful. I know that comes a lot from the you know O-line being so bad, but he had 48 yards of passing. That's it. It was unbelievable. So not only that, did he come in and not do anything? We ended up playing Trey Lance too. He came in, didn't really do much, he threw an interception but it was late in the game. If I'm being honest, guys, I think I'm going to roll with Lance. He's not the best option, but he's our best option. He's young, he has fresh legs.
Speaker 1:You know, if we had him under you know the starters right there at the beginning, I think maybe he could give us a little bit of a boost. But do we even really want that? I mean, do we want that? I think we need to just lose out and try to regain everything that we lost in this past offseason when Jerry Jones said we were all in right. What a bunch of bull, that all-in crap man. That haunts and I don't understand it. But we'll get into that in a minute.
Speaker 1:But not only that. When we've been at home, our last six games at home we have lost like blowout losses. Not even fun to watch as fans, do you guys agree? I mean it's becoming infuriating that we can't even. I mean, there's teams out there that are horrible, but they at least make it a game for most of it. We don't make it a game ever. I mean it is not fun to watch. It's frustrating. It's like things tack on more and more and more and it's just not something that Dallas Cowboys are used to.
Speaker 1:Yes, we're used to not being a Super Bowl contender, but we'd usually have decent seasons. We either start strong in bad seasons, you know, start bad, finish strong, but we haven't had any of that. We have literally just been terrible. But everyone could have seen this coming. Jerry Jones was awful. Management was awful.
Speaker 1:In this preseason we didn't do anything. We lost everybody. We didn't pay CD and Dak. If you had plans to pay them, you should have paid them in March and we would have had over $20 million in cap space. So we could have went after the Derrick Henrys and different people to help fill in where we lost this year. But he had to let everybody go and he literally waited because he knew that he was going to pay them. He literally waited because he knew that he was going to pay them. I mean it's so comical now that we have the highest paid quarterback who is now on a losing team. He has a season ending injury with no contact. He's was on his way out. If this was happening and we were like, okay, let's get our draft pick, we're gonna go after a new quarterback because this is he's finishing his last year, then it might have been a little bit more better. But you're stuck with this guy, unless you're stuck with his money for the next four years, because that was decision that the management made.
Speaker 1:I think it was a terrible, terrible call on management part. It's something about Jerry Jones. He stays loyal, like even bringing Zeke back. Zeke should have left when he was on. He does nothing for us. Now there's been some disciplinary actions with him and it's just not something that we are used to, but like the Jason Garrets of the world that we kept for way too long, he is loyal to his people and you can't be that way. You got to go, you got to evolve with the game and Jerry Jones is just not doing it and he doesn't care.
Speaker 1:If you listen to his interviews now I will say, in the past week and a half of his interviews it kind of seems like he's starting to take a little bit of blame. Do you guys agree with that? Seems like he's saying it's all his fault, this or that, but I feel like he was pinned up against the wall. What else was he going to say? I mean, it's clearly, clearly he's put together probably the worst roster that he has in a very long time. They were going to be mediocre at their best. We've hit injuries, we've had, you know, know, disappointments along the road, but even, let's say, everybody's healthy, everyone's hitting on all cylinders. We were always going to be mediocre, that was just it. I haven't Liked any of their decisions that they have made in the office.
Speaker 1:You get dalvin cook. You never activate them, you activate them. He does better. I mean rico was out, but he does. In the office. You get Dalvin Cook you never activate him, you activate him. He does better. I mean Rico was out, but he does, you know, decent enough, better than Zeke. But then you keep playing with him. If I was him I'd be frustrated, going back and forth and it's like, look, we stink and you still won't activate me Like that's not fair to that guy. So if I was Dalvin Cook I would be looking elsewhere as soon as possible. But then you come in and it's like, okay, we're gonna, we might be part playing in the trade deadline. So we're thinking, okay, well, at least maybe we can get someone in Guys.
Speaker 1:I had to look up this guy. No offense to this guy, but you traded a fourth round draft pick for a guy that's on a losing team and has had 12 receptions for the year. I'm talking about Mingo. Who is Mingo Literally? I had to look him up, I looked at his stats. That's how I knew that this guy is nothing. And you traded him for a fourth round draft pick. Now, anyone that doesn't know what all that means in the trade stuff Kansas City Chiefs traded for DeAndre Hopkins for a fifth round draft pick. We paid more for this guy, mingo, than the Chiefs paid for DeAndre Hopkins. Make it make sense. Make it make sense. It doesn't make sense. But here we are, mingo's making his debut.
Speaker 1:This week we have another primetime game, which I'm sure people aren't excited about, but it's Monday night against the Houston Texans. It's going to be another massacre at home, even though the Texans are faltering with their identity right now. I think when Diggs went out, I'm sad that we don't get to see the brothers go against each other. I think they were probably looking forward to that. But here we are. I mean we literally on our schedule and I don't even know if that, if we have one more winnable game, and when I say that it could be the Giants, but I think the Giants are playing way better than us right now. They just are.
Speaker 1:So Jerry Jones has to really look in the mirror. He has to look. He has to really say okay, look, in my lifetime, how am I going to see one more Cowboy Super Bowl or even close to a Super Bowl? What do I got to do? His all-in Zach definitely is not all in. He was all in on a rebuild. Possibly Maybe we just assumed he meant all in on a winning season. But he's got to figure it out. You got to go build your O-line back up. I mean Zach Martin, we don't know his future after this year. I know he's one year at a time and he's ending the end of his career and he's your best O-line right now. You got to develop some of these guys that we were excited about, like Mazes Smith and Tyler Guyton. I mean, they're not performing the way that they should for a, you know, a first round draft pick.
Speaker 1:So what do we do? Are we going to go in? Are we going to try to tank? There's talks of Deion Sanders and Shador Sanders. I don't see that happening. I think Shador will go earlier. Do I even want that? I don't know, guys, I don't know what quarterback we can have, and even if you have a good quarterback, I wonder, like the Jalen Daniels, the CJ Strouds, the new ones that come into the league that are dominating, would they do that under the Cowboy organization? Is it that we are a brand organization and we're not a Super Bowl organization? Are we more about taking pictures with the players or are we about attending and watching a team be like the Kansas City Chiefs and be 9-0?
Speaker 1:Right now, I don't know where the problem lies. It's frustrating, it's extremely frustrating, and that's just something that Jerry Jones knows inside and out. He's been a part of it and then he hasn't been a part of it. He's seen both sides. So if he's trying to get back in the good graces of his fans and deliver this offseason, this draft, this next season needs to be something, something special, special. And is that a quarterback? Is that adding another receiver? I definitely need a new head coach. No offense to Mike McCarthy, but he's just too soft. He's soft in his old days. Mike Zimmer needs to go.
Speaker 1:I mean, you got to build your all-star lineup because right now you're being the laughingstock of the NFL. Fans are frustrated and you get on and you act like you don't care. You don't entertain anyone's thoughts or feelings because it's your team and you're going to do what you want. And you continue to drive up ticket prices. I mean, who wants to spend thousands of dollars to go watch a game that ends 49-9, where you don't even score a touchdown? If you're a big Brandon Aubrey fan and you're there to watch him, or an anger fan who is there to watch punts, then yeah, pay those prices. But if you're there to see good football and you want to pay that type of money, you're not going to get it this season and it's frustrating.
Speaker 1:I'm a diehard fan. I'm not wavering, I'm not going away from them. I'm not picking a new team. I've been with them for this long I mean 30 plus years and I've seen this before. I've seen good, I've seen bad. This has probably been the hardest one for me, though, I think just coming off of at least a good season and you know we haven't seen a good off season but this is frustrating guys. What are we going to do? I would love to hear y'all's thoughts on this and let me know kind of where you guys fall.
Speaker 1:But something's got to change. Is it management? Is it personnel? Is it just the way we look at things? Do we need to get into the trade more? Where are we going to succeed so that we can turn this program around? I don't know. I mean, I pick my head, but I think it starts at the very top and you got to give control. Jerry Jones does not need to be the GM. He needs to give somebody those roles and him just sit back and be the owner and take that heat off of him. And you got to allow these young coaches that come in. You got to allow them to do what they do. It should not be controlled by puppet strings from the top. You got to let them go. They'll succeed, they'll fail. Then you figure it out, but you got to stay out of their ear. I truly think that's the only way this is all going to turn around. But it is what it is. It's we're the laughingstock. It is comedy hour. I mean, I don't even get stressed out. I used to sweat during games. I don't get stressed out anymore. It is what it is.
Speaker 1:The season, unfortunately, we wait all year for it to start and it, you know, wasn't even November yet and we are ready already for next year. And it's just hard for the fans. So I hate that for the fans. Hate that for myself. It so I hate that for the fans, hate that for myself.
Speaker 1:It's hard to talk about these things every week because there's not a lot to talk about. There's not a lot to show with the Dallas Cowboys, except the anger, the frustration and the way Jerry's running everything right now. So we'll see. Like I said, I think the best thing to do is to keep losing. At this point we need to get in the top 10. I think we need to start trading for more round picks and we got to build this arsenal back up. So we'll see how it goes.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to my frustrations. It has definitely been very frustrating, I will not lie about that, but we will get through this, we will figure it out, we will be better, hopefully again, and Cowboy Nations will rise again strong, and I will be happy to report on happier days. Until then, I hope you guys have a great week of football. There will be some good matchups this weekend. It'll end on Monday night with the Cowboys and the Texans. Usually a good game because it's the battle of the state. But if we were abetting people, I think we know who we're putting our money on. Unfortunately, cowboy Nation. Hang in there. We'll get through this together. Until then, your girl is signing out. Thank you.