Early in the offseason, the Cowboys told fans that the emphasis of the offseason was to upgrade the defense. But then they let seven defensive players walk in free agency (Brandon Carr, Morris Claiborne, Barry Church, J.J. Wilcox, Terrell McClain, Jack Crawford, Ryan Davis) who had accounted for 33% of all defensive snaps and 37% of all starts on defense in 2016.
And when the Cowboys only made cursory replacements in free agency with players like Nolan Carroll, Robert Blanton, or Stephen Paea, lots of folks jumped on the Dallas-lost-everything-in-free-agency train, and the battle cry of the disenfranchised quickly turned from "the defense is holding the team back, Dallas needs to upgrade” to “OMG, how could Jerry Jones let those defensive players walk,” as our own Dave Halprin pointed out in March.