3 burning questions for the Dallas Cowboys in 2023
Once again, the Dallas Cowboys look like a dangerous team, but there are still some burning questions the team will have to answer in 2023. I’m a huge fan of what the Cowboys did this offseason. Not only did they somehow retain Dan Quinn again, but they re-signed their core of in-house free agents and made low-cost, high-reward external free agency moves.
Stephon Gilmore and Brandin Cooks are two very good free agents that the Cowboys got for pennies. They’ll instantly help this roster and team win football games. Dak Prescott looks to rebound from a shockingly inaccurate 2022 and Ezekiel Elliott is no longer the primary running back, which is for the better, I think.
However, there are still some burning questions the Dallas Cowboys must answer in 2023.
3 burning questions for the Dallas Cowboys in 2023
Will their major free agent additions work out?
Brandin Cooks and Stephon Gilmore are good players, but both are slowly aging and might be past their prime. There is a distinct possibility that both end up hitting a wall in 2023 and not playing how they have in prior seasons.
Cooks brings a unique skillset to the offense. He’s got insane speed and can stretch the field. Gilmore has been one of the best CBs of this generation and most recently won the Defensive Player of the Year award in 2019.
If they can both return to how they’ve played in recent prior seasons, both the offense and defense will be that much better. These additions could end up being huge when the end of season stretch and playoff chase begins.
Is Dak Prescott going to return to not throwing a ton of interceptions?
Dak Prescott was an interception machine in 2022 for some reason, which has been unlike him for his entire career. He played in just 12 games but threw the most interceptions in the league. It was honestly just weird to see him that inaccurate.
His interception rate from 2016-2021 was just 1.7%, but it ballooned up to 3.8% in 2022. He threw 1.25 interceptions per game. Is this the new Prescott? If so, the Dallas Cowboys could be in serious trouble. If this was just an outlier and down season that many QBs do have, the Cowboys should be fine, but Prescott left the 2022 season with more questions than answers.
He’s an efficient QB and has proven to be one over his career, so I’d bet that he bounces back in 2023, but with a new offensive coordinator in Brian Schottenheimer, can we be so sure about that?
Is this the year that Dallas finally makes a deep playoff run?
The last time the Dallas Cowboys made the NFC Championship Game was the 1995 season. I wasn’t even born yet. Each year they make the playoffs, they fall flat, which is a shame because they’ve fielded some very talented rosters in recent seasons.
In fact, this is a franchise that has drafted pretty excellently lately. It’s not like they don’t have the talent to make a deep playoff run. They have the most important positions in the modern-day NFL settled, so they have the necessary pieces to win a Super Bowl.
But I guess if you believe in curses, you might believe that the Dallas Cowboys are under one. Perhaps the 2023 season is the year they make a deep playoff run.