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Secondary Once Again Ruins The Night (Overall thoughts)


Everyone wanted to point fingers at the run defense against Tampa, but what concerned me the most was that Byron Leftwich looked like a Pro Bowler against our secondary. I feared it would carry over to tonight and what do you know, we get torched all game long by the Giants.

"We have 3 great corners" is the company (and fan) line. I'm sorry, but we do not. Terence Newman is not even close to a great corner and Scandrick got his fair share of lumps tonight. Jenkins doesn't know how to play jam at all and as was pointed out in the telecast, doesn't know when to look for a slant on a critical blitz down. Our secondary on the whole is garbage from what I've seen of them this season. Hamlin is quickly becoming one of those players I just hate to see take the field and Sensabaugh is ok from what I've seen.

DeMarcus Ware was quiet all preseason and everyone said "it's ok, it's Ware we're talking about." Well how about now after two games can we be concerned? 0 sacks from him and what's worse is 0 sacks from the entire team. Wade's crutch that "sacks eliminate some turnover opportunities" is also falling apart since we have 0 turnovers as well. Spencer played the run well I thought tonight (as did Ware) but no one can seem to get to the QB before he can throw it away.

Overall, our defense is just miserable thus-far. I simply knew that the Giants would end up driving down and winning the game because that's just what always happens. Anytime we face a competent offense our games simply come down to which team has the ball last to go ahead and win it (assuming Romo doesn't throw the game away before that).

Speaking of Romo, for all the great things he did Week 1, he did twice as many bad things this week. The Witten ball will be brushed off as not his fault but you know what? He needs to hit Witten in the hands on that pass. That should be an easy throw all night long and he just totally screwed it up. Then he hearkens back to the Ravens game by throwing jump balls into triple coverage. Give me a break. Tony, I love you man, but tonight's performance was unacceptable. Miserably inaccurate throughout and boneheaded decisions make a terrible return.

I thought Jason Garrett did a great job on the playcalling tonight. That said, my one complaint is that he kept relying on Romo for too long. He finally said "time to run the ball" and it was fantastic. If he started that a couple drives sooner we win the game I think. Overall, very strong performance by him I thought. Felix looked bad as a kick returner for the most part, but he showed his usual burst on offense a few times. Good to see but he needs to get more involved in the passing game. MartyB as well.

I'm glad we played the Giants closely, because they are a great team. But I just want to pull my hair out because I know that we could've very easily won this game by multiple scores if Romo plays better and the defense doesn't just look putrid.

Great stadium, great game (entertainment-wise), but unless we fix the problems that popped up, we will not finish better than 8-8 this year. The pass defense is just simply terrible and the pass rush isn't there for some reason. Without either of those, it will be a long season.

BTW No false starts (or holding I believe) on Flo tonight. He played very well and even managed to take Tuck out of the game. I was overall pleased with his performance. Wasn't great, but was solid.

Jerry: Trade Newman and get a real #1 CB. Guy is made of glass and just gets burnt at least once a game nowadays it seems.

Sorry for the rant, but I'm just so upset with how this team played tonight. They played tough, but there were just too many bad things that, if fixed, would've earned us a huge win.

Another user-created commentary provided by a BTB reader.

2 recs  |  Comment 14 comments

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I think its tough to say how bad the secondary was

untill we see how the giants WRs do later on. Manninham has been really good to start the year.

Also, we’re really getting no pass rush, its pathetic. Its not easy to cover guys for that long

by foyesboys on Sep 20, 2009 11:12 PM CDT reply actions   0 recs

Yes, and no...

We aren’t getting sacks. We do get pressure a lot but still the CBs are nowhere to be found and the WRs are all wide open. Even when Eli got quick pressure, he’d still throw to a guy who was wide open after only 1 second of the play being started. Remember the Mike Jenkins slant play? And the Ratliff tip play? Quick throws due to good pressure, but still the WRs make the catch because they are wide open. Terence and Jenkins both seem to be just terrible at covering slants. Scandrick is more of the guy you worry about biting on double moves, but he seems great on single-move routes. Josh Ellis of DallasCowboys.com tweeted during the game that Scandrick may be the best CB on the roster right now, and I think he’s right. Newman just isn’t working for me.

by Key19 on Sep 20, 2009 11:42 PM CDT up reply actions   0 recs

Two stats...

Two games, 0 sacks. CBs can’t cover forever.

And -4 TO ratio. Amazing we were even in a position to win at the end. MINUS FOUR!!!! Most games with that number will be blowouts.

Larry Allen benched 700 pounds. That is Leonard Davis times two.

by Tim Wilson on Sep 20, 2009 11:18 PM CDT reply actions   0 recs

+1

Easy to blame the CB’s, but where has the pass rush gone.

Somebody explain to me what the heck Ken Hamlin is doing for this defense. He is never even in the picture when the QB tries a deep pass, and he doesn’t blitz, or come up and knock the tar out of RB’s. His play has not improved at all from last season.

So it begins...

by APerfectStar on Sep 20, 2009 11:54 PM CDT up reply actions   0 recs

Perfectly

put. They played awful on Defense all night. I don’t care what anybody thinks, this defense needs to get better! 2 games = 0 sacks, 0 turnovers. That isn’t a way to win. We won’t win 5 games if our defense cant get turnovers or get to the quarterback. They r awful at the end of games, in that weak zone with no pressure ever QB in this league will pick them apart. Nobody can make a play on defense, it’s pathetic. That said, Romo cannot throw 3 picks. we can beat bad teams like that but not anybody in our division. The running game looked fantastic, and the passing game equally as bad. The offensive line looked good for the 2nd game in a row. But, we scored 31 points and that should be enough to win every game we play. newman looked absolutely terrible how about that fake effort tackle on jacobs that took another defender off of him? He was just plain terrible, as were jenkins and scandrick. I’m beginning to rethink the whole Henry-Kitna trade my god. That defense looks soft and pathetic, if we event hink back to last week, the only reason we pulled away from tampe, was b/c on a 4th and 6 winslow dropped the bal when he was wide open over the middle. The pass defense is so bad I think the offense will score every time the line up in the gun it’s miserable. I don’t care if people want to blame Tony, they should, but we had a chance to make a stop and win after he led us down and scored, and we simply blew it, AS USUAL, can anybody make a play on Defense? anybody please.

Texas Stadium has a hole in the roof so God can watch his favorite team play football.

by iCowboy on Sep 20, 2009 11:19 PM CDT reply actions   0 recs

love TNew...

but this man got no BALLS skill, sometimes plays like a ROOKIE…

by LiLGiT on Sep 20, 2009 11:21 PM CDT reply actions   0 recs

This was one of the worst

games I have seen TNew play. He was pathetic. I would say Romo ruined the night. He basically spotted the Giants 14 points off terrible passes returned for TDs.

by D3R3K on Sep 20, 2009 11:45 PM CDT reply actions   0 recs

yup

It seems that this year, despite being healthy, he’s starting to show his age more and more. I just hope he can turn it around and show some of what he did in Washington last year.

After Fuentes blows a save and an Angels loss to the Indians:
"Angels still in first place" - UCI Halo
"Hey you know who would have gotten those 3 outs in the 9th?
Darren O’Day." - FirebatM3
LOL

by hinduplaya on Sep 21, 2009 12:24 AM CDT up reply actions   0 recs

When you rush only four guys that's what happens...

Hopefully we can adjust and I would just like everyone to keep in mind that on the most important play (in my opinion) we actually did get a pass rush and saw a tipped pass go directly into the receivers hands. That kind of stuff just is going to kill you. So while I am as saddened as anyone about the loss, the season is way too young to make blanket statements about who or what this team is. In the same way you can’t get too euphoric about beating someone in September, you shouldn’t get too down either.

If I had a nickel for every Super Bowl the Eagles have won, I would have zero nickels.

by Cowboyfan729 on Sep 20, 2009 11:57 PM CDT reply actions   0 recs

Even with all the defensive mistakes....

We would have won without Romo’s 3 INTs – he is the problem

by BishopWest on Sep 21, 2009 2:38 AM CDT reply actions   0 recs

The pick 6 really got to me.

The MLB read Romo’s audible and then audibled his defense into a Cover 2, which Romo failed to adjust for. He either got outsmarted or was overconfident on that throw.

So sick of his sideline passes.

And the sign said long haired freaky people need not apply ...
http://twitter.com/BloggingTheBoys

by Aaron Novinger on Sep 21, 2009 2:44 PM CDT up reply actions   0 recs

One positive

We clamped down in the redzone.

The Knights season may have just ended, but the Cowboys year is just begining!

by aussie_cowboy on Sep 21, 2009 3:59 AM CDT reply actions   0 recs

agree with everything except the "trade TNew" part

I too am worried about the pass rush. Nothing is getting done with the front four and we cannot rely on what happened last year. The few blitzes that come are being picked up. We are getting hits and scrambles, but much like a game, it matters how its finished.

I too am worried about the secondary. TNew got beat a couple times, scandrick missed a couple open field tackles and Hamlin was out of position a few times. I mainly blame the safeties because I just felt like we didn’t have any. We do have good corners, but I just feel that our safeties were RARELY there to bail out the corners. 3 opportunities for interceptions and came up with none.

Offensive play-calling was okay. Very surprised we had less play action than the g-men, considering our run game was far superior to theirs and our defense was biting on it. Where was MartyB, did they even line him up wide?

Defensive scheme was disastrous. Not sure why I seen things like 5 DBs vs the 4 gmen WRs. 4 man rush wasnt getting it done and rarely were there any creative moves from the dline. 0 turnovers and even worse, 0 sacks. We got beat by Eli and Manningham who only look good when they play us.

Turnovers did not go our way, clearly. I even saw a few holds that should have pulled back the gmen but never called. However as open as this game should have been for dominating them so bad. That is what the deserve for not capitilzing on them and being in that position. Felix coughed up a ball after a pic-six and the next time when hes running down the field he was TOO worried about losing it instead of turning on the burners.

Most concerning for me … was how it seemed as though Wade blew it all off with his comments. Like it was no big deal. Like everything was okay except the turnovers. I agree that they sucked and really made the game worse than it should have been … but its the NFL and you have to WORK to fix those things. I am now starting to feel as though Wade might not be in control as much as I think he might need to be or should be (450 yrds last week SHOULD have been the wake up call).

Few good things I want to mention:
Run defense looked outstanding (I am not surprised, I had Jacobs on my fantasy team and good things never happen there, lol). Few times I seen our dline blast too far deep and allowed a lane bigger than it needed to be, but overall much better.

Running game. Wow, anyone doubt Barber still? How many times did Witten take his block to Arizona and how many times did our guards decimate those LBs? The counters to the left were just too easy. The Romo scramble was a nice call and NOBODY saw that coming … I was hoping that was gonna spark Romo back to life.

Special teams was solid. No game breakers, but we asked for solid and they have been that. They did everything short of blocking the FG.

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by fuji1232 on Sep 21, 2009 10:30 AM CDT reply actions   0 recs

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