A mid-season trade brought the former Detroit Lion wide receiver to the Cowboys. After that not much was heard or even seen of Roy Williams! Until Friday! Then Roy Williams went on the offensive. Roy Williams spoke on Mike and Mike in the Morning on Friday morning and had some very insightful things to say about the practice habits of our beloved Dallas Cowboys, you can read those remarks here. With all the talking the Cowboy players seem to be doing, my first thought was “Oh No! Why can’t you guys just keep your mouths shut?” Then Roy called in to Galloway & co. Friday afternoon, and my opinion changed.
I was a big advocate of bringing Mr.Williams to Dallas, and still am! If used properly, This guy adds a large element to this team. Unfortunately for him and us he was not only not used properly, but was hardly used at all!
I remember saying several times this year that this team needs to run more slant, crossing, and out routes. You cannot just run the same routes every time and expect different results! This however is what Jason Garrett and the offensive coaching staff repeatedly did.
At one point during the Galloway & Co. interview they asked Roy about how he or any other player on the Cowboys roster could be critical of the coaching staff, for the players failures. Roy had the best comeback you could ever ask for, “I agree with that for some players, but with other players like myself, sometimes your not put in a position too win on the field”.
The questioning followed with this from Galloway; some very credible football people say that no one can be blamed for your failures except you. Roy drops this bit of knowledge on us; “you tell your NFL whoever it is that when your running the same route, every game and not being able to move and not being a part of the game. That’s why you did not see much from me!”
Well now, does this sound familiar to anyone? Sounds an awful lot like another receiver we have! Now Roy’s statement carries a little more weight with me just because Terrell was saying these same things even though he was being looked at 15 – 20 times per game!
Not much further along in the interview Roy makes a statement that really caught my ear, “I continue to have opposing teams corners ask me, why do they keep having you run this same pattern over and over again?” So let me get this straight, the Cowboys went out and made a trade for another receiver to take the pressure (double teams) off of T.O. then we completely refuse to get him involved. Does this make any since to any of you? Now some of you will say “Roy did not know the offense that well” and “well Roy was hurt” and on some levels you might have a point, but he was not hurt enough to not play and Roy himself said “the only difference in this offense is the terminology, it is the same I have been running in Detroit!”.
I hope Jerry,Wade, and Jason were all listening to this interview. Why? All of those people spent all year long telling us that nothing was wrong with the offense, and we all spent the entire year agonizing over their piss poor play. Then in one sentence Roy Williams tells them what the rest of the league thinks of their offense, “why do they have you running this same pattern over and over again”.
Translation? The Dallas Cowboys will run the same play, with the same formation the entire game, just play these routes and you can stop them! How can I come to that conclusion from one statement from one player? Well I can promise you if they are having one guy run the same route over and over again, they are doing the same to everyone else!
I have spent all the time I am going to spend on bashing this teams piss poor decision making. I am officially climbing down from my soapbox! With the season officially ending last night, with the Pittsburgh Steelers defeating the Arizona Cardinals in the Super Bowl. It is now time for not only us here at A Cowboy Nation, but for everyone who are followers of the Cowboys to turn our attention to next year.
This team has all the tools to turn the ship around, and get things back going in the right direction. The interviews that Roy gave on Friday could have been taken many different ways by many different people. I however took them this way. Roy Williams wants to win and he is willing to do whatever is asked of him to make that happen. I think these players are tired of being called losers,quitters, and failures. I have asked all year for someone to stand up and fix the things that they have control of. I finally got what I was asking for from Roy Williams, when he said “when I first came here I would say for the first week or two during practice when a receiver or back caught the ball I was continuing to block until the play was dead. I looked around and no one else was doing that. So I stopped, but this year I do not care who is or who is not doing it, I am going to do it! and hopefully others will come with me. It is time for us to just shut up and play, and for me to take a larger roll in leading this team.”
