It seems that the Cowboys are in the spotlight lately, especially with that Ezekiel Elliott thing. That isn’t changing this time either, and we have for you yesterday’s highlights of the Cowboys story broadcasted on Dan Patrick show on NBC Sports. Dan wasn’t alone though, he had company, and it was from Tim Cowlishaw, sports columnist for SportsDayDFW.com and The Dallas Morning News, author of Drunk on Sports and panelist on ESPN’s “Around the Horn.”
Dan asked some questions that were rather interesting, and Tim gave straight answers to all of them. Here are some highlights from the conversation:
Will the Cowboys make the playoffs?
We are sorry to burst fans bubble on this one but as it turns out Tim thinks that there is a slim chance that the Cowboys will make it to the playoffs. Here is his opinion: “I would say right now, no. I think they have a chance… but you’ve got to get to 10-6.” According to him, they have tough competition, and they will have to give everything they have. Tim made an observation saying “You can’t sneak in at 9-7. You look at Carolina at 7-3 and Seattle at 6-3, although Seattle’s beat to hell. Then you’ve got some good 5-4 teams, and you know about the Lions and their easy schedule, so you’ve got to get to 10-6, and this team is 5-5 after Sunday night.” In percentages, Tim gives them “30 percent, maybe 25 percent chance they make it.”
Thoughts on Tyron Smith not playing Sunday against Philadelphia?
You all read our last post that had this question in it right? Well, here is what Cowlishaw thinks it will happen: “They thought he might, but he didn’t make the team. Sean Lee also didn’t. Obviously Zeke didn’t play. Watching that game on Sunday (against Atlanta), Tyron Smith went from maybe five or six on everybody’s list right to No.1. Six sacks, and it’s not like six sacks from JJ Watt or Khalil Mack. It’s a guy who had two sacks in the first eight games, and was a fairly inexpensive free-agent signing in the offseason. So yeah, they’ve got to have him. That was a disaster.” Smith was missed against Falcons, and against Eagles too. He is still in doubt to play vs. Chargers.
After this came the all popular question that seems to draw a little more attention than the Elliott suspension. Dan asked “What is the local reaction to Jerry Jones fighting against the league, Roger Goodell, and fighting for Ezekiel Elliott?”
Tim gave pretty much a straight answer, and it states “I think people are on his side in terms of is there some way to take down the evil Goodell? Go get ’em, Jerry. That sort of attitude. Beyond that, I don’t think there’s really much of an understanding because he hasn’t said anything publicly about what he’s doing or why he’s doing it. There’s a lot of guesswork involved.” He also added “Clearly this is some type of reaction to what happened with Zeke, and he tries to pretend it’s not. I mean, it is. Let’s just establish that it is. My thought is Jerry’s right about the contract. Why pay the guy $49 million that you’ve negotiated against?”
Since they’ve touched the Elliott topic, a natural question rose up: “Thoughts on how Elliott would have been perceived if he’d taken the suspension at the beginning of the season?”
Apparently, Tim Cowlishaw already stated this and wrote it even, and his opinion is that Elliott should have taken the suspension at the start of the season, and stopped dragging the inevitable this long. He said on the show “We had the Brady scenario, it could go into 2018. Don’t just be the running back who’s going after the league for the first two years of your career. The things they said in their release yesterday was pretty much what I said at the beginning of the season. It’s not an admission of guilt, we don’t agree with this, but for the good of the team, for the good of everybody involved we’re going to… go ahead and take this penalty.”
Tim also touched the team and the impact this suspension had on them and stated “From the team perspective, I don’t think they would’ve gone worse than 3-3 without him which is what they went with him. They would’ve had a better structure in terms of “alright, we’re not going to have our guy for six games, but then we’ll have him for the last 10.” Instead, they had this up-and-down is he going to be here? Is he not? They lost him two days before the Falcons game where they played a terrible game in Atlanta. Now you don’t have him until the stretch run until there are two games left to go. But… if he doesn’t fight it at all, does it look like an admission of guilt? And I guess if you’re in that position you feel like I’ve got to fight this for a while.”
