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.
The past few weeks we learned a great deal about this Dallas Cowboys team:
- They can beat teams of a high caliber in the NFC (Philadelphia, Atlanta)
- They can avoid the so-called “trap-game” (Seattle)
- They can overcome adversity and find a way to win (Kansas City)
These points say quite a lot about the Cowboys this year and with each win, I think every fan should grow more and more confident in their ability to play meaningful football in late December, and dare I say it… January and beyond. However, before getting to far into the future, let’s take a look at what we can hope to see out of this team on Sunday.
The Competition
The Packers are less than impressive this year but make no mistake, they can certainly throw a wrench into the four-game win streak that Dallas has enjoyed over the past month. Though the Packers are a mere .500 on the season (4-4), Aaron Rodgers is hurling bombs all over the football field and they are going for six-points as far as the eye can see. Rodgers is averaging over 280ypg and he has thrown 16 TDs including a couple of +70-yarders. This is where Dallas must look if they want to prevent, what I think, would be a critical loss that could deflate an otherwise jubilant mood at Valley Ranch.
The Cowboys were able to hold the Eagles to a mere 16 pts; and as I mentioned in my blog, the Eagles had been successful when scoring 20+ (with the exception of their blowout loss to NO). Dallas was able to keep Donovan and crew from hitting the “big play” and without that capability, the Eagles offense was rendered pretty much less than successful aside from one big screen pass to McCoy that went for 45 yards. The key to winning this game will be keeping Rodgers from making the big play, because a couple of 70 yard passes to Jennings and that would certainly not bode well for Dallas.
Keys to Victory
There are two things left that I will say about what Dallas needs to do to ensure the best chance at victory.
1. Continue to protect the football. Tony Romo did have one giveaway against the Eagles, but they face a Packers team that has twelve interceptions on the season, so adding anymore to their total could be costly.
2. This team absolutely has to do something about the ridiculous penalties that they’re committing game-in and game-out. These are not only numerous, but they come at the most in-opportune times for the Cowboys. Being on the wrong side of either of those statistics on Sunday could mean the win-streak ends at four.
GO COWBOYS!!