That was mostly TO’s ankle and Romo’s thumb, helped by a ferocious Giants’ pass rush. I don’t think you can go 13-3 and be able to claim that coaching was holding you back.

Phillips has a different style, one that has worked for him and other coaches (Dungy, Holmgren, Gibbs come to mind). He treats the players and coaches like men and expects them do what they are supposed to do. So far, I don’t see evidence of discipline break-down except in the imagination of fans and the media. You can’t talk about late season failure or penalties either – those were present and accounted for under the arch-dominatrix Parcells only in even greater numbers.

Personally I’ve seen both styles succeed in sports and in the Army. There’s absolutely nothing to support the idea that Phillips is too soft except fear and conjecture.

is what i want to see executed to its fullest. Last year was a transition from one style of 3-4 to Wade’s style. that’s fine and we did see some improvements, but shoddy CB play and some injuries may have hampered us there. No such concerns this year hopefully with out improved stable of CB’s and safeties. If anything, I think this is where i wanted Phillips to come in and place his stamp on the team. This was the main reason i wanted Phillips as opposed to Norv Turner, to bring in his experience and skill with defense.

i’d expect some improvement in our defensive play this year just from the added experience and the better personnel. hoping for even more of an upgrade by next year and don’t see any reason why that shouldn’t happen. (unless of course, wade isn’t with us next year…) :)

i think he"s done an excellent job. makn a transitition from a coach like Parcells could have been a disaster, if the right person was"nt in place. He got the players on his side right off the bat, & they played hard for him. the record is the proof, nothing changing this year, & our results should be even better.

I have a great deal of respect for what Wade has accomplished with this team. But I have to hold him responsible for the issues this team has with penalties. And ultimately, if we lose games because of critical penalties, the blame has to be laid at Wade’s feet.

Unfortunately, I don’t see Wade’s demeanor as one that enforces discipline and penalties for losing mental focus on the field. Like I said, that’s my only issue with him, and that’s where his soft media image needs improvement.

Every other team loses in the playoffs or doesn’t even make it that far. Is every other coach a failure and their coaching style to be questioned? Belichick lost the superbowl, his coaching style must be to blame! (I’m not saying you are saying this, Brandon, just that sometimes that’s how the criticism of Wade sounds.)

One or two plays different in the playoff game, things that were really out of Wade’s control like Crayton dropping that pass and the bad call on Ware’s offsides, and the Cowboys could have been in the superbowl, and none of this would be a question. Just like one or two plays different in the superbowl, things out of Belichick’s control, like Tyree not catching that pass, and the Pats are the champs again.

By the way Belichick’s Patriots look even worse this preseason than the Cowboys, but he’s still considered one of the greatest coaches of all time and the Patriots are still considered the best team in the league by most analysts. Yeah, he’s won the superbowls to earn it, but the point is you don’t judge a coach or a team too much based on preseason performance.

The Cowboys went 7-12-1 in the preseason from 1992-1995, and went 49-15 in the regular season and won 3 superbowls. In 1989, they went 3-1 in the preseason, then 1-15 in the regular season.

Thanks for being the voice of reason Scottmaui!

these are professionals, not junior high school kids. They have the responsibility to displine themselves not to committ penalties, plain and simple.

To blame the coaches is ridiculous.

“We had probably our best practice of the year so far!” Wade beamed.

The Cowboys are getting into their regular-season routine, meaning they worked on specific stuff for this week’s game. After all, the Governor’s Cup is a great source of pride. No way do the Cowboys plan on letting those sorry Houstonians celebrate during their last trip to Texas Stadium.

And, golly, Wade sure was proud of the focus and concentration the Cowboys showed today.

Sounds like the focus is returning…

drink-a-link

will get the fellas fired up as well.

We had two injured receivers starting for us, simple as that. Occam’s razor.

Spags has a good perspective on Premature Panic. He’s a glass-half full guy, but what he says makes a lot of sense and has some good background and insights.

For one thing, we know it is more about preparing for the regular season than winning the game, but here’s a specific example:

But did you realize the Cowboys were trying to work on specific things in the game? Like, did you not find it curious first-year tight end Rodney Hannah had four more catches than Jason Witten, who had none? Asked Witten about it, and he said actually against the Broncos linebackers he should have had a nice day. What happened though, is when the Broncos played their eight-man front and the Cowboys had a run called, instead of audibling out of the play, they went ahead and ran Barber, wanting to make sure they actually worked on running against an eight-man front.

He also goes into the historical perspective of the total lack of correlation between preseason and regular season records.

But he also notes that with the expectations on them this year, the overreaction to their preseason performance presages the pressure (how’s that for alliteration) they’ll be under as the regular season starts, so it’s good for them to start getting used to it now.

There is a lesson here, I do believe, about keeping your finger off the panic button – at least for now – but also a preview of what’s to come. That this team is about to face unmitigated pressure this season. Because I’m starting to get the feeling anything less than 13-3, something the Cowboys have only done once before in their 48-year history and never in consecutive seasons, will be considered uncivilized.

So this is good – good preparation.

“Your goal isn’t just to win the game,” Phillips said of these preseason ones, “it’s to progress your team.”

so them maybe they’ll peak in January instead of November this year. Its an old saying, but so very ,very true..its not how you start, but how you finish.

I could care less how great they play now and in Sept and Oct, I just want them to play well after November into Jan.

Nice write-up Brandon. Great topic. Here are my two cents.

I have no problem with Phillips coaching style; I much prefer it to Parcells’ dictatorial, demeaning approach. However, I believe that the biggest problem on this team is a Leadership void.

Leadership on an NFL team usually emanates from the head coach, the quarterback and a handful of veteran star defensive players. While Phillips is a great defensive coordinator and has also managed to create a nice family atmosphere, he does not provide Leadership. On offense, the quarterback went on a vacation to Mexico the week before the most important game of the year. I don’t want to reignite this controversial topic, but I really believe that whereas the Mexico trip may not have effected Romo’s preparation, it was a very poor decision from a Leadership standpoint. Without trying, he was sending the message that this game isn’t important enough for me to be a Valley Ranch preparing for the game. If it is not important enough for the star quarterback, then why should any other guys show up? On defense, the great veteran players (Ware, Newman) do not seem to be Leadership guys. Hamlin might be now that he has a long-term contract and hopefully Zach Thomas will fill that role.

Annual December swoons
Lack of accountability (we had a great year at 13-3!)
Penalties from a lack of focus
Guys taking vacations before the season is over
Average players who choke in the playoffs shooting their mouths off on a regular basis
The same problems seemingly go unresolved year to year

And on and on….there are many more examples. These all are symptoms of a Leadership void. I do not think Phillips can change – at this point, what you see is what you get. My hope is that a maturing Tony Romo, coupled with a leader or two on defense, will provide the Leadership this extremely talented team so desperately needs.

One final comment on Leadership as it relates to Parcells. I do not believe he is a Leader. He joins a bad organization and commands attention through fear and treating NFL players (grown men) like children. Note that I said Parcells commands attention. That is very different that earning respect. Without respect, the boss cannot be a leader. This approach can work in the short term at making a bad team average. However, pretty soon his act wears thin, the players stop fearing and paying attention to him and then Parcells quits because he knows he is about to lose his team. I have zero respect for Parcells as an NFL head coach.

will be magnified a million times because he is the QB of the cowboys. He says he is okay with that and he says the vacation last year was to prepare in peace and I buy it. The only thing is that he practically tripled the pressure on himself because of it.

If he comes out this year, has a great regular season and wins some playoff games, all of this will go away but until he has a postseason win, this topic will never die and only get worse.

St. Jimmy at thedallascowboyshow.com has a good perspective on other teams tackling issues across the league…

I’m not really sure where all of this angst comes from but the main problem they seem to be having is tackling. Or more specifically the lack of tackling on the practice field and on the game field.

But I have some news for these people. IT’S NOT JUST THE COWBOYS!!!! It’s happening across the NFL.

Last night’s game between the Giants & Browns was a perfect example. The Browns couldn’t tackle Stephen Hawking even if you took the battery out of his wheelchair. The Giants weren’t much better. The New England Patriots defense was absolutely disgusting in there beatdown by the Tampa Bay Bucs. The Colts couldn’t tackle, hit, or cover anyone on the Redskins team. The Rams couldn’t tackle anyone on the Titans leading to 340 yards rushing by the Titans. The Titans couldn’t tackle the Raiders running game. The Texans couldn’t tackle anyone on the Saints offense and the Saints defense made the Texans’ Chris Brown look like Earl Campbell.

Want me to continue? Cause I could go all day with this s***.

The answer to this problem is a simple one. As the Guaranteed Money goes up and the Roster Spots go down the hitting will suffer. Teams are afraid to get their big money players injured so they don’t want a lot of hitting going on. And with the shrinking rosters (there was a time where each team could bring over 100 players to camp and now it’s down to 80) there are less bodies to be having smash together 100 times a day. Welcome to the new NFL…this ain’t your Dad’s NFL or even your older Brother’s NFL.

but that was said about Dungy as well.

this is one of the worst post’s a mod. has put up in a long time. Last year i had 13 great weaks, they were exciting ,thrilling and yes at the end a bummer. But if you think about it we were playing most of the year with our db’s dinged up, now during pre-season we have a rookie playing 1st team db because of newmans injury, so yeah he’s going to bite here and there but that’s what pre-s. is for…and i think we’ve settled this stupid idea that hatcher is waaaay better than spears…sorry got off subject there.. I just think that negitivity breeds negitivity, and i watched both pre-s. games again and there are alot of good things there…..wade is doing a great job as coach, last year we kicked azz and earned a #1 seed, not like pacells limped in and crawled out……..GO COWBOYS!!!!!!!!! bad post brandon……

I agree with you on this, Brandon:

To me, Wade Phillips is more of a team manager than the head coach. He allows the assistant coaches and coordinators to do their jobs with minimal interference on his part.

And that is fine with me. While Parcells was here with his staff, they did instill discipline, work ethic, and a winning attitude. Those attitudes did come with the players Jerry acquired (with Bill and Co.’s consult, except for maybe TO). The combo of the players and learning the 3-4 system and change of QB solidified the team as a future contender.

Wade didn’t have to come in a work guys Dick-Vermeil style. These weren’t a bunch of scrub players just looking to make the squad. They were all looking to improve and learn how to get to the next level of excellence. Wade’s approach allows the players to grow while they learn