LOOKS like the Cowboys have done it again! Yet again, they’ve put on Bruce Springsteen’s “Glory Days” and reached into the fog, and back through the ages. They grabbed onto DE Everson Griffen’s 2017 reputation, and pulled it into the present. They stood over it proudly. Then they gave it some money. Never considering that Griffen’s body comes with his past reputation.
Griffen is coming off of an 8 sack season in Minnesota. He started 15 games, playing 848 defensive snaps. Apparently the Vikings felt that his back-up, DE Ifeadi Odenigbo (7 sacks, 0 starts, 368 snaps) made Griffen expendable enough to just let walk. That is telling. It makes me wonder about what went on in the treatment room.
Cowboys mainstay DE Demarcus Lawrence hasn’t been the same guy since his 14.5 sack season three years ago. Funny, that was also a contract year. Since getting his money, Lawrence has provided diminishing returns, despite having reliable help along the line.
Having not played a snap since 2015, it seemed that DE Aldon Smith was more like All Done Smith. Even before his 4 year hiatus, Smith had spent his last three seasons being a shadow of the player he’d been in his first two seasons. Frankly, the addition of Griffen, this late in the game, doesn’t indicate much faith in Smith.
The team also added DT’s Dontari Poe and Gerald Warren. Both are solid pass rushers, but they both saw diminished snaps in 2019, and were allowed to just walk out the door after the season.
So the Cowboys went out and assembled, what would have been a really good defensive line in 2012. Except well…Demarcus Lawrence wasn’t in the NFL back then. He and Aldon Smith have never been good at the same time.
Past rush, or pass rust, Griffen’s signing seems to indicate that the Cowboys are already disappointed with the firepower they added months ago.
In the blink of a young girl’s eye, glory days!
