It's never good to end a season with more questions than you started with, but that's where the Cowboys find themselves after another crushing, season-ending defeat.
The problem is, Sunday night's 28-18 loss to the Redskins didn't provide any answers.
The Cowboys went into the final game of the season with the guarantee of making the playoffs if they win, just like last year.
They lost and finished 8-8, just like last year.
The worst thing you can be in professional sports is mediocre, yet that's what the Cowboys are for a second year in a row. It's really three years in a row, since the 6-10 season in 2010 was skewed by a quarterback injury and coaching change.
As a team, you either want to be elite – so you can chase championships – or you want to be very bad – so you can purge salaries and rebuild through the draft.
An 8-8 season doesn't leave owner and GM Jerry Jones with either option. Finishing .500 leaves you with no clear direction, and an unwavering vision is what this team desperately needs.
Starting at the top, Jones won't fire the GM – himself – so that's not an option. He won't fire head coach Jason Garrett, who got the team to respond down the stretch and revealed legitimate leadership qualities in the wake of the Jerry Brown Jr. tragedy.
At one time, defensive coordinator Rob Ryan was thought to be the sacrificial lamb when the season soured. Yet Ryan held together a defense that was shredded by injuries. It wasn't always pretty, but the defense held on long enough for the offense to rally many times in the fourth quarter.
The reason Redskins running back Alfred Morris was able to rumble for 200 yards and three touchdowns? The Cowboys' defense had been gutted up the middle by injuries.
There was no Jay Ratliff, or even Josh Brent, at nose tackle. No Sean Lee or Bruce Carter at inside linebacker. Run support from the secondary? Safety Barry Church played in just three games.
So if the defense just needs to get healthy, what about the offense? It starts and ends with the offensive line.
The Cowboys phased out an aging, immobile group of linemen over the last two seasons, but have done little to upgrade other than the drafting of tackle Tyron Smith. Doug Free regressing at the other tackle was a major blow, but not as much as the unremarkable crew brought in at center and guard.
After spending big bucks for free agent cornerback Brandon Carr – a great move, by the way – the Cowboys went to the bargain bin for interior linemen and it cost them. Over and over.
The lack of protection for quarterback Tony Romo was borderline ridiculous for a team that had Super Bowl aspirations. There won't be a lot of cap room to fix the line in the offseason, but the Cowboys may have to reverse course and revamp with veterans on the downside of their careers.
Improving the offensive line is critical not only to protecting Romo, but also to dynamic, game-changing runner DeMarco Murray. Keeping both healthy and productive should be the number one offensive priority.
As for Romo, yes, he had another awful, turnover-filled game. But this wasn't Gunslinger Romo who was just flinging it, trying to make a play where none existed. This was a quarterback who was under constant duress throughout the season, and even more so in the finale because of the Redskins' relentless blitzing.
Just forget any thoughts of replacing Romo. It doesn't matter whether Romo is capable of taking the Cowboys to the Super Bowl. No quarterback could take this team all the way with that offensive line.
Considering it took Dez Bryant half the season to wake up, and Murray the other half to get healthy, Romo was what held the offense together.
So what can an 8-8 team with few options do to get better? Two things: Have a clear vision, and make bold moves that fit within that vision.
The only way for the Cowboys to accomplish that is for Jerry Jones to hand over full reign of the team to Jason Garrett. That's never going to happen, but there are good reasons to do it.
If there's anyone in the organizing who can stay on message, it's Garrett. His press conferences are often robotic, but it's not because that's his personality. It's because that's part of his plan as a coach.
In contrast, listen to a Jerry Jones press briefing. His thoughts are so scattered, his sentence structure would drive an English teacher into therapy.
It's not just that Jerry's thoughts that are scattered, it's his interests that are scattered too. He is involved in so many aspects of the organization, and so many of them that have nothing to do with the product on the field, there's no way he can have a clear vision of what he wants in a team.
Jason Garrett has that vision. From day one since being named head coach, he's worked to change the culture at Valley Ranch. It hasn't always been evident, but the Cowboys are getting more players in the Garrett mold. Guys like Sean Lee, who eat and breathe football, are starting to populate the locker room.
But it takes more than just vision when you're stuck in neutral as a franchise. There have to be bold moves made. Trading up to grab a cornerback, Morris Claiborne, makes for a nice draft day story, but how much impact did it have on the field?
The Cowboys need to make moves that will make them better immediately – or immediately worse if a total rebuild is the chosen route. It's harder to be bold in the salary cap era. There won't be any Herschel Walker trades, but the Redskins sacrificed a boatload of high draft picks to get Robert Griffin III, who will be an impact quarterback for many years. Standing pat is the surest way to continued mediocrity.
Garrett may not make the right decisions. Heck, he may not even be the right guy. But he has one thing the Cowboys franchise desperately needs: a clear vision of what this team should look like. It's what Jimmy Johnson had. It's what Bill Parcells had. They didn't just coach the team, they molded it to reflect their vision.
Garrett is just starting to see some result from implementing his vision. If the Cowboys truly want to stop wandering around, lost in the forest of mediocrity, the owner needs to give him an unobstructed path.
Follow Keith Whitmire on Twitter: @Keith_Whitmire
