We have drafted right before or after San Diego in a few recent drafts. Players we did not take, they took. Merriman comes to mind. And players we were looking at they took before we could get them. Our draft boards have had many similarities over the years as well.

…thinking that at worst we’d lost to SD and NO but win the divisional games and wrap up the division title.

Win 3 of the next 4 and we control our destiny. 2 of the next 4 and we have to depend on other things to shake out for us to make it. Less than that, and we watch the playoffs at home.

Hopefully, we start the 3 of 4 with a close, possibly OT, win over SD.

Only 25 more days until the foundering and frustrating Wade Phillips Era is over.

and they can win in December. They haven’t lost one of the 4 games by 7 or more points. They are in every game and it comes down to being mentally sound and playing to their ability. The Cowboys can do it and well I still believe they are a good football team. Only one team makes me worry on their schedule as a tough win and that’s NO. Cause well everything has just gone so right with them this year.

I just wanted to let you guys know the stat that everybody is going to be bringing up before and during this game:

The Chargers have won 7 straight games this season (longest streak by a team not in Indy or NO) and have won each of their last 15 game in the month of December (an NFL record). That means that Norv is undefeated as the Chargers head coach in December.

for our team playing home and going out to put pressure on Rivers? I think this game is ours. Once again, The questions that are the big one is 1. does Garrett finally realize playing Barber alot, and Sitting Tashard, is not good and 2. not fielding Tashard and Felix out there at the same time ALOT may be just as big a mistake.

I really don’t have too much quibbling about the Defense. i think they will be out for some vindication. But if this offense continues to squander it’s opportunities (the beginning of the game against the Giants were two drives that were missed opportunities), this defense isn’t good enough to overcome that. This pass oriented offense showed it’s ineptness by not taking it down the field and scoring on the first two drives. That is where a big story about a game is really told. Likewise this week against the Chargers.

that think Wade lacks leadership skills, and you know who you are (Tex, Bling)

He owns up to it every day in front of us," Brooking said. “Because you might not perceive it as that means nothing, means nothing to me, means nothing to the football team. I’m there every day. I’m there at every meeting, I’m there at every day during practice. You’re in the locker room for 35 minutes a day maybe, you’re on the practice field while we stretch. You’re not there every day. You don’t see what goes on at every meeting and every practice, the sacrifices that we make, the accountability that Wade Phillips holds us to every day.”

“I’ll go to fight for that man until I hang my cleats up and I’m done playing football, because I have the utmost respect for him. Everything I’ve seen from my teammates and everything I’ve heard, they feel the same way, bottom line.”

Way to tell them Keith!

Cowboys are 3 pt favorites at home.

Also projects this contest to be the highest scoring game of the weekend with the over/under up near 49…

Four shared opponents so far. Giants, Eagles, Broncos and Chiefs. The Chargers have helped the Dallas cause by defeating the Birds (easily) and the Giants (in a close game). Against their two games with Denver the visiting team has won each contest, with the Chargers most recently crushing the Broncos 32-3. They dominated K.C. both times winning by a combined 80-21.

Not sure if there is much to anything to be read into the way the Chargers killed their AFC opponents vs the way Dallas struggled against each of them. You play better against divisional foes, right? San Diego is in the upper echelon of the league in terms of putting points on the board, but have an average defense, especially in the secondary.

I expect both teams to play a lot of soft zone, blitzing conservatively, in an attempt to slow down each other’s proficient offensive attack. The QB that is the most patient will likely win this one…

but Romo’s stats are almost identical….Romo has 3325 yards and 20 TD’s.

Also, another way to think about is if the two players switched teams would the respective team performance improve? Rivers seems to be doing more with less surrounding talent right now vs Romo.

over 40 yards, and tries to fix the problem by sticking their fingers in their ears and going llalalalalalalalalala there are no kicking problems llalalalalalala. Looks like they fixed the covering steve smith problem in the same way.
So, when the chargers try to do the same thing to us, look for Wade phillips on the sideline with is fingers in his ears yelling lalalalalala i’m just as good as bill belichick lalalalala.

We have a very poor record against winning teams, 3 out of the 4 teams have winning records. Thus, what got us to 8-4 is NOT good enough to get to the playoffs. The team must play better period. I think those of us that look at the team objectively can see this. Can the team play better sure, of course. Will the team play better? Well, all we can go by, is what we’ve seen so far, and what we’ve seen so far is not good enough.

Norv had our number while in Washington.

He had our number while at the Raiders vs Parcells.

Norv was Jerry Jones choice to replace Parcells………and then a funny thing happened……..he hired the other Coordinator from the SD Chargers.

Wade vs Norv………

Norv vs Jerrry……..

Yoda (Norv) vs Vader (Garret)

lots of drama…………

Cowboys need a win………I hope the D and special teams bounce back and that the offense can score early and often.

scandrick isn’t doing anything to slot receivers, we might as well start bringing him outside dware and let bcarp scour the middle of the field

Tommie Harris got $12,00 for PUNCHING A PINNED PLAYER IN THE FACE.

“The Cowboys chose to pay Marion Barber big bucks after three seasons as a part-time back behind Julius Jones. Up to that point in his career, Barber was averaging 4.54 yards per carry, with a touchdown once every 16.4 carries and a fumble once every 79.5 carries. Since then, he’s been a totally different player. He’s got 390 carries now over the past two seasons, a total that approaches the 477 carries he had over the first three years of his career. His average yards per carry are down to 3.98; he’s scoring touchdowns once every 35.5 carries, and he’s fumbling once every 43.3 attempts. If you extrapolate his numbers in each role to a 16-game season, he went from averaging 771 yards and 10 touchdowns as a part-time back to 956 yards and seven touchdowns as the featured back. Everyone loves his style of running, but Barber has been a disappointment for the Cowboys since he put pen to paper.”

Soooooooooo…that’s not good. I know he has been hurt part of that stretch, and I know that Raf always cites the offensive line as the measuring stick for RB success…but those numbers are pretty damning. The worst one to me is the fumble rate, which has DOUBLED. That’s just not acceptable.

One of the reasons that fewer and fewer teams are willing to pay running backs.

Which makes sense— that’s their strength, and they’ve got a good bunch of receivers. For a TE to be top 3 in the league in YAC is ridiculous; Gates is clearly a special player.

But if one looks at their running attack for a moment, there are reasons for optimism.

The Chargers are 30th in the league in rushing and dead last in Yards Per Carry. (LDT is KILLING them. I like the guy but he’s got a giant fork sticking out of his back)

They are a one-dimensional offense. Hopefully Wade can figure out a way to take advantage of that.

Right here on MicThaRock’s FanShot.

Highly recommended!