Since his injury-ridden final years with the Cowboys, and after his brief stint with the Ravens, former Dallas star Dez Bryant has given himself a nifty side hustle as a frequent commenter on social media.
His Twitter/X account has 3.4 million followers, and he has not been shy about putting his opinions on record. With the Cowboys mired in a puzzling 3-3 season, and with coach Mike McCarthy under fire from within–owner Jerry Jones criticized the team’s offense this week, and it’s McCarthy who calls the plays–Bryant stepped in with some pretty stone-cold thoughts.
He would have fired McCarthy eight months ago, he wrote.
“Should have kept Dan Quinn and made him the head coach,” Bryant wrote. “These old ways is no longer in style for this new age of football.”
The post attracted 300,000 views on Twitter/X.
Bryant, of course, has nine years of NFL experience behind him, as well as three Pro Bowl appearances. He has some credibility and, certainly, after the Packers drubbed the Cowboys out of the playoffs on their own home field last January, Bryant was not alone in calling for McCarthy’s job.
Cowboys’ Mike McCarthy Under Fire Over Play-Calling
This week, it sounded, too, like Jones wondered whether he’d made a mistake in keeping McCarthy, especially with Quinn off to a 5-2 start in his first season with Washington.
“We’re designing bad plays, or we’re designing bad concepts,” Jones said on 105.3 The Fan in Dallas this week. “The facts are that there’s some of that, but there’s also some execution [issues]. There’s some of the talent. I like our talent, I really do like our talent. I like our young talent, but young talent has a few more mistakes associated with it than if you’re dealing with a veteran player.”
It should be noted, of course, that Jones doubles as the team’s general manager, meaning he is responsible for the talent. Perhaps it should come as little surprise that he is quickly selling out the play-caller, with the team’s talent coming firmly into question.
It is also worth noting that the same “bad plays” that Jones is referencing were the plays that led the Cowboys to a league-best 509 points last season. The system is the same, as is the star quarterback (Dak Prescott) and receiver (CeeDee Lamb). But the talent evaluator allowed two of the team’s top offensive linemen to leave, and replaced them with rookies.
Oh, and the top running back was allowed to go, and was replaced with a relic from the scrap heap, Ezekiel Elliott. But, hey, yes … the Cowboys struggles must be the fault of the coach designing the bad plays.
