Baltic and Mediterranean

Everyone has chronicled the struggles of the Cowboys’ defense…It hasn’t been bad, but I would classify it as definitely inconsistent. They started off decent against Cleveland, were not good against Philly, played better vs. GB, and looked lost against Washington. Looks like it is time for their defense to step up again. And Cincy should be the perfect game for that to happen.

However, if Dallas plays soft against the Bengals 3 WR sets and doesn’t get great pressure on Palmer, The sky will be falling in Dallas.

They better treat this game like a divisional opponent. No room for losing to one of the worst teams in the NFL.

If the boys play down to the next three opponents, this team will implode. If they come out and play their game, there will be three convincing wins and the world will be right again.

Of course, the MSM will say things like “yeah, they won but…” because they will ride the cowboys all season. This next game will showcase this team’s ability to block out the garbage and play ball.

The Washington loss should insure that..

You’ ve addressed my two biggest concerns, the lack of sound tackling technique and the lack of forced turnovers. I can live with most of Romo’s faux pas, because he’s that type of player and usually his ability to create more than cancels out the boneheaded plays. But for PROFESSIONAL football players to suddenly forget how to tackle with proper technique after playing this sport for most of their lives is unforgiveable in my opinion. I think alot of this problem lies at the feet of the coaches though and they need to get their crap together.
That also dovetails into the lack of turnovers as well, at least forcing fumbles. Proper tackling should help with putting their helmet on the ball and popping it out more often.
The lack of interceptions, to me, again falls at the feet of the coaches. Why are we playing so much damn zone? Why are we playing 8 yards off of receivers? ESPECIALLY against West Coast offenses! We put together, on paper, an excellent secondary in the off season with great man-to-man coverage skills. Lets start taking advantage of that. Let’s press the receivers at the LOS, knock them off their routes, disturb their timing with the QB and either force the QB into making ill-advised throws or holding on to the ball longer for potential sacks or just throw it away, effectively wasting a down. Will we get beat sometimes for big gains? Sure we will. But this dinking and dunking crap all the way down the field is for the birds and WILL NOT put of us the position of making some INTs.