Dallas Cowboys' Problems Are Front and Center

The 2010 Dallas Cowboys continued their  50^th Anniversary celebration, with what seems like a 50-year issue.

While some have suggested that the Thanksgiving Day loss to New Orleans showed that interim coach Jason Garrett still has things going in a positive direction, I have to pause with amazement.

This loss was exactly the same as many other losses I can point to that all shared one thing in common: They just didn’t seem necessary. You were left with that “what if” feeling followed immediately by “screw it”, in so many words.

It really does seem like for decades we have been witnessing a team that still cannot snap the ball correctly. How many poor snaps does owner Jerry Jones, interim head coach Jason Garrett or anybody else have to witness before this is addressed? Excuse me if I say that this is hard to give thanks for in any way.

Yes, mistakes happen in football, but when your center is basically an annual co-star of another NFL Films blooper production, it might be time to start letting that sink in. After that, do something about it.

Listen, this is not about playing Monday Morning Quarterback following a loss. I’m talking about one of the most basic operations in the game of football and one that is generally well established by high school.

There were questions regarding whether or not Denver Broncos rookie Tim Tebow could even take snaps from center coming out of college, since all he did was operate out of the shotgun.

The point is this: there’s no excuse for a sloppy center to quarterback exchange, especially from the shotgun. Against the Saints, we saw Andre Gurode, as he seems to do once or twice per season, snap the ball right over the head of quarterback Jon Kitna. It wasn’t exactly a turnover, by definition, but it might as well have been. The Cowboys ended up punting the ball right back to New Orleans, anyway.

In searching for a particular moment made famous mostly by Gurode, it took me no time to locate the 2007 “snap-turned-missile” at Texas Stadium in a game against St. Louis. This time the play actually worked, but not before Romo regained possession of the ball some 35 yards behind the line of scrimmage.

We can agree that this is a cool highlight. But the only thing cool about it is the fact that it created a good play. Normally, this kind of error is disaster and the Cowboys have been victimized too many times.

Just searching this phenomena on YouTube offers several examples…not just bad snaps, of course, but rather bad snaps by Gurode. I honestly cannot recall how many of these mistakes have occurred, but I know it has been several. They also seem to accompany catastrophic losses late in the season.

I saw at least two other snaps in Thursday’s game that also were well off-target. One time, Kitna had to reach far to his left with both hands just to make sure the ball didn’t pass into the backfield again. This reminds me of somebody openly complaining about the fact that they always misspell a given word. If you know it is a common and frequent issue, then it should be time to fix it.

How this issue has been either missed or tolerated for so long completely baffles me. This is the same offense that sets up any Dallas signal-caller to have to throw the ball at least 30 times. Since passing attempts are typically high and rushing attempts are on the decline, would one not want to make sure that a task as simple, yet important, as snapping the ball to the quarterback be flawless?

Of course they would.

I realize that Gurode has been to Pro Bowls, but I have trouble understanding exactly how. It seems to me that Gurode is a guard who’s simply playing out of position. Former head coach Bill Parcells thought this as well for a time but then changed his mind sending Gurode back to center following 2004. So what’s the deal?

And let’s also give thanks for Jason Garrett’s decision to try Barber on another outside run on a key fourth down play in the second half. A similar decision was made in last years’ playoff loss to Minnesota. Let me make it simple: Barber isn’t going to get outside much anymore. He’s in his sixth year in the NFL and has really been hit a lot.

I’m just saying that I don’t see him getting any better or quicker at this stage of his career.  Barber is a physical runner and certainly brings things to the table but there’s really no denying that he just isn’t the guy who’s going to sweep around the end for a big play. At the very least we know that this particular offensive line does not get enough push to spring "The Barbarian" anymore.

Garrett knows this and continues to call plays that just make you feel ill. We all know the saying about continuing to do something the same way while expecting a different result.

No, I cannot place the blame solely on Gurode or Garrett for the loss to the Saints. Historically a Roy Williams defender since he arrived in early 2008, I place most of the blame on him. He had the game won and just dropped the ball. But in looking past this disastrous 2010 regular season, I think wholesale changes need to happen…beginning with the center, of all places.