Lack of a pass rush, takeways was the defense’s undoing all season
According to the football minds making personnel and roster decisions, the Dallas Cowboys needed an explosive pass rush and a swarming, take-away defense to make a run to the Super Bowl in Glendale, Ariz., next month.
So as an announced crowd of 90,000-plus exited the turnstiles at AT&T Stadium following a 34-23 loss to NFC East champion Washington, Cowboys faithful were left to wonder what adding defensive ends Greg Hardy and drafting Randy Gregory really did for a defense that couldn’t close the deal in a 4-12 season.
A heated public relations nightmare around Hardy was one thing, but just three additional sacks from last season’s total (28) and a record of futility for takeways (11) were some of the others.
“Yeah, I don’t want to get into any of the players evaluation or contribution. As it turns out, Hardy is the football player that we thought he was,” Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones said. “Now we probably have a lot of reasons why his sack contribution wasn’t higher, that don’t necessarily have to do with his skill, or his effort. But he was a very positive player on the field for us.”
Jones has insisted all season that Hardy was the kind of player that could have a long-term future with the team.
“That’s not my job. That’s a GM question. I don’t do the contracts. I got one of the sick-nastiest agents in the world, off all-time. So I’ll just let him and the Joneses do their thing,” Hardy said. “The season sucked. That’s the whole statement on that one, the season sucked.
“There was not enough wins. You’ve got to win to be relevant. I’m not a fan of being not relevant, especially when my man [Jerry Jones] took a nice chance on me and I would love to repay that debt with a million sacks and a ton of wins.”
Hardy, who finished the season with six sacks, had one tackle against Washington Sunday.
That meant roster-bonus triggers of $500,000 for eight sacks and another $500,000 for 10 were not reached. He missed the first four games of the season on NFL suspension.
Gregory was injured in Week 1 against the New York Giants and when he returned, he was used sparingly the rest of the way.
The Cowboys shared the worst season in NFL history for takeaways with the 2013 Houston Texans and the 1982 Colts.
“I just think we were not mentally tough this year,” defensive end Jeremy Mincey said. “We showed some fight and we showed some resiliency, but it takes more than that to win in this league.”
This story was originally published January 3, 2016 at 9:17 PM with the headline "Lack of a pass rush, takeways was the defense’s undoing all season."