The Dallas Cowboys seemingly took a big organizational step forward last season, managing to reach the postseason and emerging victorious from a playoff game for the first time since 2009.
The Cowboys (12-4) defeated the Detroit Lions in one of two NFC Wildcard Playoff games and were a controversial Dez Bryant non-catch away from finding their way past the Green Bay Packers and onto the NFC Championship Game. They finally saw the fruits of a tamer, more focused team-building effort that placed a premium on adding high-character and high-talent players, especially along the offensive line, and a steadier and more restrained hand in free agency.
Despite the positive forward momentum, will the loss of last season's leading rusher, DeMarco Murray, to the rival Philadelphia Eagles and the other advances made by Eagles head coach Chip Kelly spell another year of watching the NFL's second act from the sidelines for the Cowboys?
"Everything clicked for Dallas last season, pounding away at opponents with DeMarco Murray behind the league's grittiest offensive line," writes Marc Sessler of NFL.com, who believes the Cowboys may be in danger of missing the postseason next year. "Murray is gone -- to Philly, of all places -- leaving the Cowboys to talk up the aging Darren McFadden as a secret weapon. We still see the 'Boys as a dark horse to trade for Adrian Peterson, but reality suggests the team will be forced to lean on a rookie runner. Dallas -- no fluke last season -- will compete into December, but Chip Kelly's revamped Eagles will own the last laugh."
While it's always a bad idea to crown a winner in the offseason - many NFL pundits and even Cowboys owner Jerry Jones believed Dallas was destined to struggle last year - especially when the 2015 NFL Draft has yet to occur and rosters are far from set, it does seem that the Cowboys have thus far lost more than they gained in terms of overall skill and athleticism.
For the Cowboys, Darren McFadden has little chance to do the damage that Murray did last year, even behind the vaunted Dallas offensive line and while a first-round running back seems likely now, the 2015 NFL Draft, like every other NFL draft before it, will be a crapshoot about which nothing can be guaranteed until pen hits paper and paper is hurriedly transported to the podium.
For the Eagles, Kelly finally assumed full control over the Eagles roster and engaged in something of a quick rebuild, removing players not to his specifications in favor of those more directly in line with his desires and needs, so it's probably fair to say that what he's done this offseason doesn't really qualify as a free agency splurge born out of a desperate desire for a short cut to the playoffs.
Still, a big free agent haul, whatever it's matrix, has been proven as an ineffective means of team-building, as shown by several Cowboys iterations and by the 2011 Eagles and the importance of Dallas locking up their own pieces like tackle Doug Free, linebacker Rolando McClain and receiver Cole Beasley, while it fails to move the media needle for the most part, cannot be overstated.
Add in the questionable-from-a-PR-standpoint but absolute-homerun-from-a-football-perspective deal for defensive end Greg Hardy - even if he misses a handful of games - and the Cowboys defense suddenly looks a lot better down the home stretch of the 2015 season.
All in all, it's far too early to say with any confidence which teams will wind up missing or making the playoffs next year out of the NFC East - the New York Giants, with another season under offensive coordinator Ben McAdoo and expecting the return to health of wide receiver Victor Cruz to pair up with the unbelievably dangerous Odell Beckham, Jr. could be a force to be reckoned with as well.
It will be great theatre to watch as these notoriously heated rivalries play themselves out on the football field next season and to look back and see just what preseason/pre-draft/premature predictions turned out to be correct and which were entirely false.
