FORT WORTH, Texas — The most productive move Dallas Cowboys veteran defensive tackle Dontari Poe has made since he joined the team is dropping to a knee during the national anthem.
That gesture, which enrages so many, has saved him from being dumped when his play says he should be on the next Uber out of town.
There is no way Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is going to cut the one guy on his team who has joined the protest movement.
Jerry has made no secret about how he dislikes the national anthem protests, but he also does not want to perpetuate the unfair perception that he's the white team owner who's making determinations on how his players, who are predominantly Black, chose to express themselves after the racial reckoning that the country has witnessed in 2020.
Jerry isn't perfect, but he's no bigot.
So Poe, 30, takes a knee and stays on even though his play says he's a just another football player who is finished. He is the rarest of creatures; he is a 6-foot-3, 346-pound human being and he can't seem to push a bag of leaves.
Watching him play and it's evident his last season with the Carolina Panthers, in 2019, should have been his last season in pro football.
He's a good guy, a pro, who just doesn't have anything left. His position in the middle of a defensive line is all about push, and he is simply a pushover.
What Poe has done this season effectively embodies the Cowboys' defense. He has started all seven games, and has been credited with seven tackles.
He has been in on 266 defensive snaps this season, about half of the plays, and has ... seven tackles.
His position doesn't result in big numbers, but law of averages says he should be able to push his tackle total into double digits.
The NFL is a passing league, and opposing offenses don't even need to bother. The last two quarterbacks to beat the Cowboys — Arizona's Kyler Murray and Washington's Kyle Allen — combined to complete a total of 24 passes.
Poe is in the middle of a run defense that allows a league-worst 178.3 yards on the ground per game. And many of those opposing running backs often head in Poe's direction.
The rest of the numbers for the Cowboys' defense are so bad they are nearly unbelievable.
This defense is not solely on the frame of one man. It takes all 11 to buy in (or not) and be this bad.
Poe's ranking by Pro Football Focus is one of the worst in the NFL. The good news for Poe is that it's his teammates whose rankings are worse, starting with rookie defensive tackle Neville Gallimore.
Defensive tackle Tyrone Crawford is certainly in his last season with the Cowboys. He's 31, and the games played combined with injuries have caught up to him.
The Cowboys should trade defensive end Aldon Smith if they can get anything of value for him before the NFL's Nov. 3 trade deadline. He would be worth a fourth-rounder for a contending team that needs a pass rusher.
The Cowboys are one game from the halfway point of their season, and while they may fall into another win or two, they are where they are for reasons beyond just injuries to the quarterback and offensive line.
The offense was supposed to function as part of the defense; ball control and points were going to make the defense better.
That plan seldom works. Once the offense demonstrated it required assistance in the form of stops, the defense was exposed for something not even the darkest cynic could have predicted.
In this, their 60th anniversary season, the current Dallas Cowboys defense is not as good as that first year in 1960, when they finished 0-11-1.
Every single defensive player has been a disappointment, and all of them have played their way into the discussion that this season will be their last with the Cowboys.
A guy like Dontari Poe shouldn't even make it that far, but he will because he wisely took a knee.
