So it's hard to walk the contradictory lines that this coaching staff has to walk this season. On the one hand, they're installing an extremely complex and intellectually challenging defense that requires players to be versatile in ways very few have been asked to be versatile in their past, but, they're also working with a ton of brand new to the system players so there is no veteran to help them learn the ropes. For the players, it's like being a cat and the coaches trying to herd them … everything about it seems awkward and uncomfortable. Then, the coaches are trying to drill the basics and preach fundamentally sound football, while also rewarding playing time to young players with high potential … who are exactly the types who do not play fundamentally sound football. The coaching staff is trying to boost morale and a sense of work ethic by professing to play the best player, regardless, but then their hidden agenda is to develop gems in the rough who are exactly the types who wouldn't earn playing time if they play the best player. They're trying to improve the skill level of these athletes and build a belief in the players … all the while intentionally tanking so they can get even more great young players.
All of those things are contradictory, but this staff is placed in between a rock and a hard place to accomplish both opposing goals. By design it's an impossible task. All that can be asked is that the balancing act is maintained so that we're growing as players and as a team within the systems, so that we accelerate the improvement in the future, but not so immediate that we win games and lose draft position in the present. The 2020 and 2021 drafts are going to be the ones that make this team, so we need to protect this season's draft place by losing so we can have those seminal drafts like Jimmy Johnson's Dallas Cowboys did with the gains from the Herschel Walker trade. Drafting Emmitt Smith, Troy Aikman, Michael Irving, Larry Allen, Nate Newton, etc., built that Dallas offense into a dynasty team. If we can pull off a draft like that, we'll instantly vault into perpetual Super Bowl contenders for a decade like the Cowboys were back then.