Cowboys/Chargers Postgame Thread

Hey Rafael,

How ’bout a summary for us poor souls unable to catch the game…those highlights just barely whet my appetite.

Fighter15,

You can get the play by play summary at http://www.nfl.com/scores

Things that make me feel comfortable from the game:

- Bledsoe, what a game! Those darts aimed right to the numbers to the middle of the field are though to throw.

- Glenn, Crayton and Key rotating on the slot, the nickel corner was overmatched all game.

- Julius can run to the right! That’s a change…

- Petitti needs to review a lot of film, he gave up a couple of sacks and was responsible for a bunch of penalties. But played fairly well when he wasn’t screwing everything up.

- The DLine looks to be a huge strenght in the near future, with all the players movement there were times the D looked like missing something, the main D is gelled already, now we need the rotation players to gell with the rest.

- Henry could be the best corner on our team now. Newman looked solid, but not great.

- The Safeties looked solid, I only saw Davis lost on coverage once, while Roy was near the line wreaking havoc.

The thing that I didn’t liked:

- If you blitz 7 guys you better take the head off the QB, which Dallas didn’t accomplished, if Gates had played we wouldn’t have gotten that W from San Diego. A good OLine with a QB with a quick release weapon would have made our team pay.

Any takers on which game will be the first to have 1000 posts????
If Dallas DOES go 4-0 hosting Philly, That will be the 1000 post game.
Here’s to rose collored glasses
If this team MIRACULOUSLY goes 5-0 … then I will be wishing my prediction would’ve been 14-2, currently at 12-4.

Hey all what a gameee I still cant believe we pulled that one out. Bledsoe looked real good but Philly’s blitzes will be hard. Henry he looked like an ALL PRO. Newman needs to cover better. Roy looked good, Keith looked OK. Canty looked good. We gotta cover kickoffs better. Overall a GREAT win. Cant wait till next week.

lets use the 24 hour rule and enjoy the win and talk about what needs to get better tommorow.

How ‘bout that game winning stop by Aaron Glenn? Shows the old boy still has somethin left in him after all. I won’t be too terribly surprised if him and Newman starts sharing snaps. As far as I can see, it looks like Peerless Price should be taking Terry Glenn’s spot if anyones, Crayton is looking amazing on crossing routes.

Chandus, Agree almost completely.. If they had gates and we kept the critical yards we gave up to penalties … I bet we’d of pulled it off similarly to what did happen. I’d have also liked to have seen a few more sucesses to our TE’s.
I’m a bit of a dreamer and hoping big this year … but I’m not scared to believe we’ll have the season SD had last year … Cinderella etc… We will see.
Regards,
Will

I was finally able to catch some highlights on ESPN. But they didn’t show the Crayton TD, which was disappointing. Boy, was Davis sure out of position on the second McCardell TD. As I said during the game, BE PATIENT! AND WHAT A GAME! The FUTURE is promising!

Will:
I think that Parcells wiselly removed the TE’s from the game, he knew that he needed Witten and Campbell blocking against those 3-4 OLB’s from SD and still they made plays, what would had happen to Bledsoe if it weren’t for Campbell and Witten blocking? He would have been slaughtered.

Good Point! Chandus.

I was pretty harsh toward “Bledslow” during the game but he sure kept it together. I guess the sack is better than INT’s. His rating proves he kept calm. Certainly the best team we’ve had on the field in recent memory and we still moan …. As long as we can improve from here even 2-5% week after week they may turn out to be great this year .

What happened today? We beat a superbowl caliber team, on their home field, opening day, picked off what would have been the game winning score in the endzone, with 30 seconds to go.

What’s more, Dallas is a team with lots of young players and rookies in key positions (perhaps more than any other team in the NFL), and San Diego was starting all of their 24 starters from last year, minus Gates (perhaps the only team to have KEPT all of their guys from last year).

And Dallas is literally just getting started!

You can’t buy the kind of confidence they have right now. The offense will believe in itself, even after a horrible start (like today).

AND the defense will play hard and believe in itself right until the last seconds on the clock. That confidence will stay with them all year, maybe longer.

WINNING LIKE WE DID TODAY WAS ACTUALLY BETTER THAN HAD WE BLOWN THEM OUT. It showed true character and talent.

How ’bout them Cowboys?

By the way … when was the last time we had thrown NO, ZIP, ZERO, interceptions?
Nor suffered injuries?

nor had to kick any damn fieldgoals….

YUP!

Crayton had a breakout game! Henry had 10 tackles!

I hat to say I told ya so……..and that I was dead on with the score but hey. When you got it ya got it! How bout them Cowboys 28 Bolts 24……..do I win a prize Rafael?

Ok so I was off by a TD with Drew, and was wrong on JJ yards……..but man how about our shutting down LT. Not a bad showing. The guy got some but all in all we beat a good football team on the road today. Granted penalties from the Bolts helped but hey! A win is a win, lord knows we were on the other side of those penalties last year. Hey Merriman and Gates hope you enjoy your post game soaks in the tub…….oh you didn’t play uh……..ok……..nevermind!

Jon Says:

September 9th, 2005 at 9:42 pm
Dallas 28 Bolts 24

Julius Jones will have 200 all purpose yards two rushing tds

Bledsoe throws for 250 with 2 tds……..Witten catches one…….Glenn the other.

Parcells is afraid to stick Cortez in for a FG so he goes for it on 4th and goal with Jason Ferguson as the FB………LOL………ok maybe not on that one……..but hey JJ scores on 4th and goal from 1.

Demarcus Ware records his first NFL sack in the first quarter! He has two sacks by the end of the game, and the rest of the league is trying to figure out a game plan around the new rookie of the year Linebacker! Canty adds a sack and Spears looks a little rusty………but plays well. Anthony Henry and TNEW look to earn they paychecks and Dat realizes he loves the 4 linebacker set and leads the team with Tackles.

one other thing………

Henry, Newman, and Glenn………

THE BLITZ IS BACK! Let those fellas earn their money. Henry sure did today. I liked what I saw out of him.

Dat is awesome. He is father away from the play than Bradie James and still in on the tackle………..we need an upgrade for Singleton and James…….and we would have one hech of a Defense.

Canty coming right through the middle of the line after Brees……..he is only like 8" taller……..I thought for sure that was going to be a batted ball or sack. Oh well………next time.

The other great thing…………a WIN ON THE ROAD against a PLAYOFF TEAM………….GREAT FOR CONFIDENCE which is exactly what the ROOKIES………….and Drew Bledsoe needed!

Lets go Boys………….Redskins up next!

Long time reader, first time blogger. I totally agree this is a great win as far as confidence goes. The first quarter was awful!!! Just flat out bad!!!! But the whole team played 4 quarters, and that is so important to learn for a young re-building team. Also, think of all the mistakes the Cowboys made on both sides of the ball. Look at how much they can improve upon. And what blows it all out of the water is that they won…they actually won the game!!!!

Agreed. Exactly my thoughts. On the flip side, had we lost in the last minute the game still would have been a huge building block. And I would have been OK with that. I think this team is about four games ahead of where I thought they’d be on day one. And this will get better as we go.

True to Parcells form, the Cowboys ran the ball more than they passed but it sure was tough sledding for JJ. He only had a 3.5 yd average today. Bledsoe did a good job taking care of the ball. Although he was sacked 4 times I account two were not his fault. One was a speed rush around Flozell and the other was a whiff on a block by Polite. Crayton had a great game. Three of his catches were for first down with one being for a touchdown. Though he needs to work on holding on to the ball. Witten had only one catch but did great some good blocking. Bledsoe said on the post game interview that the Chargers defense was rolling their coverage toward Jason all day. Some people may think Keyshawn is finished but he sure is proving them wrong with some acrobatic catches and tippy toeing the line.

As for the defense, they are a long ways away from being dominant but they sure have heart. Horrid special teams play put them on their heels but they only gave up 10 points. There was some semblance of a pass rush but not quite consistent. Stats say they only had 1 sack but they were quite a few hurries. Chandus is right, if you rush 7, you better bury the QB but that does show us how much the coaches have confidence on their DBs. By midseason, I believe this defense can be on the top 10. Anthony Henry is one that had a good game with an interception and darn near a second one. Although he gave up that 33 yard completion on 4th and 14, he broke up a sure TD on a fade pass in the end zone right after that and thus giving the defense a chance to finally grasp victory with Aaron Glenn’s interception

About that defense:

It held the league’s #1 RB to 72 yards, and a pro bowl QB to a 65.1 QB rating; a couple sacks; a couple INTs. Add to this that they’re young and will only get better.

bledsoe had a QB rating of somthing like 150. Both him and the wr’s looked very sharp today. I was totally impressed. Henry was great as well, when was the last time a player had 5 pd’s? Does anyone know what the record is?

Wow, what a game. Between my Longhorns beating OSU and the Cowboys upsetting the Chargers, it has been quite a football weekend. I was never worried about the defense, after the draft and free agency. But I was concerned about the offense’s ability. Amazingly, Bledsoe got good protection and made great passes – including three touchdowns. I voted that the Cowboys would go 10-6 this season. But now, after seeing them beat SD on the road in week one – the rookies and new players are only going to get better as the season progresses – I don’t see why the Cowboys can’t win 11 or 12 games. We’ll really get to see what this team is made of when the host the Eagles in week five (10/9).

Boy I’m pissed! We could have won.

I’ll tell y’all something, we’re a little better than Philly. Did you see us throw today, did you see our D, did you see LT?

You’re gonna do a lot better than win your division.

Congradulations for now, but we’ll meet again.

Thanks Charger Fan! Real classy…if only the Eagle and Redskin fans were like that. Great game…I could only shake my head in awe when watching LT. Good luck this year!

eagles > chargers.

close tho, especially w/ Antonio Gates. i doubt we win this game with Gates in there (we still have trouble with coverage in the middle of the field). still a good game, regardless of outcome.

Rich you echoed my thoughts exactly up there. The way that we won on the road against a playoff caliber team showed us the character and fight in our team.
 
There’s alot to improve on after this game especially with the special teams, mental errors with the penalties, and blown coverage assignments. But we have one of the best coaches in football to help develop and improve this team.

Next week I don’t expect such a close game. Im not getting overconfident here but I expect an easy win. Any1 else see the skins vs. the bears 2day? Wow, our defense should be able to give Ramsey/Brunell/it doesn’t even matter all sorts of problems. The skins offense is a joke compared to the Chargers, even without LT. Skins are in trouble, the whole nfc east will be if philly can’t jump up to a hot start. Im expecting a 4-0 start to the season, maybe 5-0 b/c were at home, we’ll see. How about dem cowboys!

“is a joke compared to the Chargers, even without Gates” is what I meant.

paul, even without BOTH.

this is a big win for the boys. if we keep getting better the sky is the limit for this team. GO COWBOYS.

Yeah, what everyone said.

Great win today. Thanks to the zebras for the call of Chargers hitting Bledsoe’s facemask. Without that call early on, things might have been really different.

And the Cowboys got my respect this early when, after 3 or 5 consecutive holding calls and punting from their 6 yd line, they held the Chargers from advancing the ball and then took the ball themselves down the field for a TD.

On another note, I’d like to read about Cowboys fans away from Dallas. For those at sports bars, did the Cowboys fans dominate the late game crowd? I was at the BBC (british bankers club) in Menlo Park, CA today. We outnumbered everyone, including 49er fans. When Patrick Crayton caught his first pass down the middle for a 1st down, we all roared. When he caught the touchdown, we roared again. Every big play by the ‘boys resulted in us drowing everyone else with our noise. No Chargers fans insight. I’m looking forward for more of the same throughout the year.

I called 23-17-i can’t believe we actually scored TD’s every time! I figured we’d have to settle for some field goals ….
-Not only did we beat a 12-4 team returning all starters, on the road-it was an AFC team. Remember that right now the AFC is dominant and kicking the NFC’s butt-should bode well for games against NFC rivals.
-Rams, Panthers, Cardinals, Seahawks, Vikings Alll teams we’re supposedly fighting for playoff spot ALL LOSERS!
-Redskins win-We match up well with them, as always-barring overconfidence/turnovers, no prob.
49ers win-But I think they were outgained 2-1. Although their big sp. team plays may mean trouble for us!
-I only have seen Crayton once-Seattle game-he seems like a stud and a great find

Jon,

Nice call on the score, and nice call with the LBs. I can’t wait until Fujita and Burnett can get in there and mix it up!! … This win really gives the defense more time to jel. Davis and some of the others need some time to learn their responcibilities in this defense, but I still have to give Davis a lot of credit as he played duel rolls, one at FS and the other a gunner on special teams. … The keys to the win were stopping the run and never becoming one demensional on offense.

Paul — I hope the Cowboys don’t go in to this week with expectations of an easy win. If they do, Dallas will lose. Washington may not have scored many points but the defense gave up six and looks to be as good as it was last year. The Cowboys can’t count on a repeat of two Quinten Jammer penalties to keep drives going, Jones will find the yards hard to come by and Sean Taylor will be looking for Bledsoe off the blitz.

No doubt, if the Cowboys cut back on the mistakes and compete as hard next week as it did this week, Dallas can win the game but easy? I don’t think so. Easy wins won’t come until the Cowboys can play mistake-free ball and cover kicks; something that did not happen yesterday.

The Chargers are definitley better than the Eagles. If the Cowboys stay healthy, there is no reason that the Cowboys shouldn’t win this division. For the last 9 years, there has been little consistency on offense, and every Cowboys team has been characterized by the tendency to choke and give up the game winning score in the last couple of minutes. This team reminds me a lot of the 1992 Cowboys team. I’ll bet the Eagels aren’t real thrilled with the debut of the New Cowboys….

i keep flashing back to taht year-the first time we played the Eagles they kicked our butt on a monday night-by the time we saw them later we were the better team-could be similar this year
BUT it all depends on injuries-although we have some depth at last

I know that we’ve got about a month till Philly, but I’m glad you guys are bringing it up. I personally see Dallas at least winning one out of two with philly. Philly has lost some key personel of late not to mention they have been playing in a very watered down NFC east since like…mmm…99…maybe. Philly is often overblown especially now that T.O. grabs so much press. I really feel like Philly has to respect Dallas now…definately after a win like this.

Thank you San Diego, for proving your point by suspending Gates for this game. Brees was looking for him as an outlet all game, since the other receivers kept dropping key passes. YOU PROVED YOUR POINT and lost the game. On the other hand, bledsoooo was, to my amazement, cool under pressure and didn’t throw any ints, which is what it is all about… no mistakes. The boys will only get better. They beat a very good team…and i live in SD, but i’m still a diehard cboy fan. good job parcell, though you are still an ahole.

Hi Everybody

You know…even though Oiler Troll saw that Son of A Bum Wade Phillips, plus that wonderful Center/Crooner Carl Mauck (who penned the words and music to “The Oiler Cannonball”) on the sidelines of the Chargers, Oiler Troll unequivocally cheered for the Cowboys. In fact, Oiler Troll has not cheered so much for the Cowboys since he was in some twisted youth church lock-up in which he had no choice but to watch Danny White blow his chance to undo the damage after Dwight Clark’s improbable grab. Tip: Don’t let your kids get involved in youth church lock-ups for overnight stays – they haze just as badly as fraternities, only worse, they bring God into it.

 Anyway, I dare say today’s game was made all the more entertaining by the very astute insight provided by this site, so thank you Dr. Vela.

And please forgive the pointless sappy nostalgia, but for those of you who love NFL history, you guys are lucky – Oiler Troll misses the Oilers playing the Chargers. As some of you may remember, in the 1979 playoffs on the Saturday before the Cowboys were to play the Vince Ferragamo “led” Rams, a very wounded Oiler team took on the juggernaut that was Dan Fouts and the Chargers. Playing without Earl Campbell, Dan Pastorini and Ken Burroughs, the Oilers turned to Gifford Neilsen, Bobbie Clark, Rob Carpenter and the diminutive-but-angry Mike Renfro. With Joe Bugel’s O-Line, they did just well enough to allow the defense to win it for them in what has to be one of the greatest upsets in football.

Said Tex Shramm at the time: "I’ve never rooted for the Houston Oilers in all my life and I didn’t think I ever would. But the courage they displayed…made me root for them. "

Today’s game was not such a big deal, but still a nice win and a nice way to start the season. They looked good and you knew what they were trying to do. There is much work to do but they looked like pros against a team that can play.

Huevos Bledsoes for all my friends!

oiler are right about church lock ups…….not only do they haze and bring god into it……..but they won’t let you leave til you swear on the bible you are saved………i resisted as long as I could with my “I am the AntiCHRIST!” Til I finally had to give in and pretend to speak in tongues just to be allowed to get on the bus back HOME………LOL!

The Cowboys gave up no points in the 4th quarter against the Chargers. Last year, they gave up over 150 points in fourth quarters, the most by any team in any quarter. If we keep this up, the play-offs are eaily in our future.

OT,
Sorry that both of us had to go through that church thing. It is something I remembered when they came around asking for my kids.

The Cowboys are back in the saddle once again. Haven’t said that since the decline of the Three Amigos. They actually have a shot at a successful season this year. Well done Parcells and company. Now that we are a potential threat, I’d like some reassurance in this ever changing salary cap/free agency era of endlessly changing faces, that we can maintain a well balanced team. I sure hope Parcells doesnt do as he always has and part ways just when the going gets good. His departure will be as heartbreaking as Tom Landry, or Jimmy Johnsons. If Jerry Jones brings in another string of coaches that wither away in decline, well, I dont think I could take it.

parcells for president

Douglas did you see the skins play on Sunday? They are not in the same league as the Chargers, and that was on the road and we have the skins at home. I don’t want Dallas to sit back on Monday night and expect an easy win to fall in their lap but I expect a double digit win, if we win by only 4 points against the skins at HOME I would be disapointed in our play, but not our record. Remember, that skins defense was playing against a rookie quarterback playing his 1st nfl game. Their defense does look good, but their offense with their rotating quarterback situation looks like they will finish around 25th or higher in the league in offense again. Dallas should improve on their week 1 blunders and show up Monday full throttle. And it should be an easy win :).