According to multiple sources, Pro Bowl tight end Jason Witten has a broken rib but he hopes to play Sunday against the New York Giants.

DMN.com

Damn, Hard Knocks “Curse”…

It’s going to be 50/50 whether he plays. They could shoot him up with pain meds on Sunday so he can play, but I have a feeling they will keep him out to give him two weeks to recover for the Redskin game.

and basically said he expects Pacman to be back.

Hey, conspiracy theory time. Does it seem odd to anybody that a day or two after he got hurt, Romo was like, “I wanna play next week,” and then all of a sudden he is out 4 weeks?
My conspiracy theory (which I don’t truly believe, but intrigues me like the one in the title of the post) goes like this:

Tony is ok. tony wants to go, because that is the kind of player Tony is. Jerry (aka God) sees this as an opportunity though. We have several key players injured, and are not playing “inspired” football. Last year we peaked during the middle of the season, while the Giants peaked at the right time.
 Inside Jerry’s head:
 “I bet if Tony doesn’t play, we can still win one of those three games, still making it to the bye week at over .500. Then some people may count us out, and we’ll be the comeback team, not the cocky, has-all-the-talent team, and, after the bye, we can start revving up the machine to win a playoff game. The return of the starters will light a fire under this team’s butt, and they will start playing with passion and heart, and get me another ring!!”

in Bollinger as well if he ever gets into the game Sunday. Brad might be over the hill with nothing much left, but Bollinger was a street FA for a reason, he’s not good either.

Lets face reality here, the offense isn’t scoring more than 14-17 points no matter who is under center and believe me, 14-17 points is being extremely generous.

The Cowboys need at least 2 scores by their defense or ST, or we’re headin’ into the bye at 5-4 and really after all these injuries, I’ll take it and so should you.

Put me down as voting for Bollinger. After watching Brad Johnson for the last two weeks, it is painfully obvious that Dallas has zero – and I mean ZERO – threat of getting the ball downfield either via the pass or the run. It might have been possible that this style of Brad Johnson offense would have been somewhat effective if we had Felix Jones out in space and Johnson hitting the wide receivers in stride on short crossing routes; alas we have neither of those. That renders our other threat, the power running game, feeble and irrelevant. It is an offense that leaves Dallas with about a 1% chance of winning this Sunday on the road against the 6-1 defending Super Bowl Champions.

So, while it is unlikely that Dallas will have success with Bollinger throwing the ball downfield, at least it does have some potential for success. I would rather go with a low probability than a 1%/no probability. I would rather go down fighting and taking our shots than having a replay of last week’s offense.

This game is almost in the loss column here on Tuesday. We truly have nothing to lose. Let’s go for broke. I believe the Cowboys need to come out with a very aggressive game plan on both offense and defense. Start the first offensive series with Bollinger throwing a bomb to Roy Williams. Then have him throw another to Owens. If the passes are incomplete or picked off, so what! At least we would be serving notice that the defensive game plan of bringing nine guys in the box and all eleven within five yards of the line of scrimmage will be threatened. And who knows…..maybe the game starts with a few big plays in Dallas’ favor and the momentum shifts. Let’s see the halfback option. Let’s see Crayton and Stanback in the shotgun a few times and also taking the end around. How about an eight man blitz? Fake punt? Check. Fake field goal? Maybe. Go for it on fourth? Check.

In an earlier thread, TimSchultz36 said "Yeah, Bollinger could preside over a 45-7 loss, but the point isn’t to try and lose gracefully, but to give ourselves a chance to win." That’s exactly how I feel. Let’s pull out all the stops. It’s a long shot but it’s the best card in our deck this weekend. Losing 17-3 is the same as losing 48-21.

Oh yeah, one more thing – if we are behind 31-0 at halftime, then I’m all for resting the few stars that are left. No sense in running Barber, Ware, TO, Witten (if he even plays) out there. It would be a shame to lose another critical player in a game that had become meaningless.

Signed him off of the Saints’ PS. Had to release Darren Stone to do so.

Link

i figure brooks can’t be any worse than brad. but i’m struggling to believe he could be any better. the main thing is whoever we play at QB can’t turn the ball over, we hafta have an efficient running game and we need turnovers. we don’t win under any other scenario….

But we will only probably lose with Bollinger under center.

At least there is a chance with Brooks. He could throw 3 picks but, he could also throw 2 long TD’s on broken plays. If he does throw 3 picks who cares, we would lose anyway with Brad. At least there is the possibility of a big play with Bollinger. And at least the Giants have to defend the whole field.

To start Johnson he has played 2 games n Bollinger has played 0, they won last week, he didn’t turn it over (although a few passes should have been picked). If you start Bollinger, than the very little rhythm the offense had is lost, he moves around better, but our blocking has been awful so it really won’t matter. he hasn’t played at game speed yet, and the Giants D plays fast, very fast. SO they will start brad and they will take the bad with the mediocre. Our defense has to show up and if they do like they did last week, we’ll have a shot. Barber has given the Giants fits when they play, so the plan will be give it to Barber, check down to barber, screen to barber. 1 Special teams/ defensive play can change the game, and that’s what we’ll hope for. If we turn it over, were done. If we can maintain good field position Nick Folk might keep it close n that’s all we can ask for.

They don’t play the games on paper, and in a rivalry anything is possible. We’ll be ready to go, but we have to keep it close.