Just when Cowboy fans thought that they would enjoy a squeaky clean, suspension free 2018 it was announced earlier this week that David Irving was slapped with a 4 game suspension. Once again the Cowboys will have to shuffle their roster to accommodate a completely avoidable absence while repeat offenders like David Irving continue to make the same mistakes. The loss of David Irving is unwelcome news for a defensive line that finds itself serious lacking in depth and talent on the interior. The news also comes shortly after Cowboy fans learned that Irving had shown up for camp late, overweight and in a poor state of mind following a tumultuous offseason. Is this just another unfortunate event for the Cowboys as a result of bad luck or are there larger forces at play here?
When a ship is sinking it is always the captain that takes the blame. Jason Garrett is the captain of this ship and since he took over as the full time head coach in 2011 the Cowboys have lost more games to suspension than any other team in the league.
Losing man games to suspension is a huge problem for this team and what’s concerning is that the problem has gotten progressively worse during Garrett’s tenure.
The Dallas Cowboys have become notorious as an organisation that is far more tolerant of off the field indiscretions. This has proved true not only for superstars such as Dez Bryant and Ezekiel Elliott but even to fringe starters and backups such as Joseph Randle, Lucky Whitehead and Terrance Williams. Other coaches or GM’s would quickly make examples out of players who exercise poor judgement and thus send a message to the rest of the team that indiscipline will not be tolerated. The Cowboys have failed to accomplish this and the result has proven to be more and more suspensions.
In recent years the number of suspensions has been inflated by a few players that were “high risk, high reward” that the Cowboys took a chance on. Greg Hardy, Rolando McClain and Randy Gregory are a few of the names that come to mind. Those decisions were highly motivated by the Cowboys struggles against the salary cap. Now that the Cowboys have seemingly dug themselves out of “Salary Cap Purgatory” it may be time to reconsider how they approach players who have a hard time staying on the field. Certainly, not signing David Irving to a long term deal this offseason was a step in the right direction.
*Photo by Keith Allison (c) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/legalcode
REFERENCES
www.Wikepidia.org List of Suspensions in the National Football League, June 19, 2018 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suspensions_in_the_National_Football_League
Gaines, Cork and Pelisson,Anaele; www.businessinsider.com, Ezekiel Elliott’s Suspension adds to the Dallas Cowboys’ huge NFL lead, published on Sept 6, 2017, 2:22PM http://www.businessinsider.com/dallas-cowboys-players-nfl-suspensions-2017-9