Apologies for the delay in this week’s edition, Cowboy fans. Saturday evening started with a celebration of Cowboys postseason success and then from Sunday to now I have been laughing at the expense of Southern Cal, rival to my Alma Mater, as Pete Carroll jumped ship, rumors of NCAA sanctions were around the bend, and then last night it climaxed as they hired Lane Kiffin out of nowhere. To say my research for this week’s edition has been slightly sidetracked with these recent developments is a gross understatement.
The Cowboys definitely made me eat my words this past Sunday. The Cowboys were flat out dominant against the Eagles in round two of their three round bout. For the most part, the worries I had last week about the lack of execution that plagued the Washington effort were not to be found this time around. Last week I felt like the Cowboys were fortunate to have a great defensive effort. This week I felt like they could not be stopped.
Funny to hear Trent Dilfer make these statements about Romo. We all knew Romo would get there. It was just a matter of time.
Cowboy fans, I hope every last one of you have braced yourselves and taken cover for the wonderful storm that has hit us all. Another December game, another December loss and now the Cowboys can do no better than 2-2 this month, and that would mean knocking off undefeated New Orleans this Saturday.
Things do not look good.
I’ve heard some radio personalities this week say that Philip Rivers is playing like the best NFL quarterback in the league right now. Let’s just stop right there and call BS. I don’t care what he’s done lately. He hasn’t done what Peyton or Brees have done this year.
But let’s give Rivers his due. His team is 9-3. That’s the record we hoped the Cowboys would have going into this week’s matchup.
Sunday’s game is easily the most confusing and frustrating game that I have broken down all season. Throughout the year, it has been fairly easy to point out the offensive shortcomings that have caused this team to fail in their losses. However, as we all will soon see in this week’s breakdown, the story is not so clear at all. The theories, axioms, and recipes for success that I have hung my hat on all season have been shaken to the core.
It’s always great to have a solid offensive performance to write about. Despite the fact that this effort was against the lowly Raiders, the Cowboys did exactly what they should and that is completely dominate a lesser opponent. Time to break this one down and see just why things went so well this time around.
Just How “Romo Friendly” Were We?
This footage dates back to March 2009 when Dale Hansen traveled out to the Florida Keys to interview the great Jimmy Johnson. It’s important to note Jimmy’s opinions of this current Dallas team.
A couple quick points:
- Jimmy likes Romo a lot
- He doesn’t blame Romo for a team’s worth of penalties and turnovers
- He thinks Dallas will turn it around
- He wants Dallas to win so bad it hurts
- He acknowledges Jerry Jones’ greatness as an owner (despite GM failings)
For the past two weeks, I have been doing a double take on my calendar and making sure the month does indeed read November and not December. For the second week in a row the Cowboys again only managed to place 7 points on the board, but thankfully we happened to be playing a team that wanted to lose worse than we did.
Once again, I am searching for answers on just who is to blame for this week’s offensive disaster. Last week, I placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of Garrett going beyond pass-happy. Did history repeat itself once again this week?
All good things must come to an end, and the Cowboys fantastic play on offense the past few weeks has done just that. For all intents and purposes, the Cowboys were basically shut out as Roy Williams late TD was most definitely an irrelevant occurrence against a defense that was playing incredibly soft. Everything that went wrong seemingly did. Romo looked awful and seemed to be on the turf more than he did on the ground, receivers were dropping passes, and turnovers absolutely killed the Cowboys.
Buckle up everyone – this won’t be pretty.
Don’t look now, but the Dallas Cowboys have now played half their 2009 season and are clearly in the driver’s seat for the NFC East after a bruising victory Sunday night over dreaded nemesis Philadelphia. It doesn’t get any easier though, as this Sunday, the Cowboys travel a bit further north to (with a Berman”esque” voice) Lammmbeauuuu Field to take on Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers.
Another week, another win, and of course, it’s time for another breakdown of the Cowboys offensive effort. While the Cowboys came far from “lighting up” the Eagles, they continued their now four week trend of solid offensive effort. Over these past few weeks, it’s quite clear that the secret to offensive success is to rely heavily on Romo. If Romo can spread the ball around, not turn the ball over, and make plays, the Cowboys win.