Rationality be thy name

WHERES OUR R.O.I.?…..ROMO IS NUTTIN BUT LONG TERM DEBT AT THIS POINT.. HES PAID NO DIVIDENDS, HE HAS POOR MANAGEMENT, POOR HISTORY, AND HIS PRODUCT SUCKS…U WERE PROLY LONG ENRON TOO

For those wishing to dump their stock, look at Anthony Spencer for justification. Ratliff and Ware were occupying two or three blockers on almost every pass play, while one guy was keeping Spencer away from Eli for almost the entire game.

Did anyone watch the Raiders game Ellis still has it why did we dump him?

Many of the flaws you mention are real ones, but you gloss over them:

The lack of a pass rush- I thought Spencer actually had a good game, and contrary to what you say, Ware was often single-teamed by Diehl, a guy he had owned in the past, but was unable to get by him. Rat got excellent penetration and we were unable to capitalize on it, and other than a few successful Bradie blitzes, we did not get to Eli even when rushing more than 4. That is worrisome to me. 0 sacks in 2 games is worrisome to me, particularly when we’ve owned the Giants’ OL in recent years.

The poor play by CBs- I agree that some of it was due to a poor pass rush, but that’s not really a good thing, is it?

The bad safety play- yes, I get that Hamlin messed up and blaming him for the breakdowns is just as valid as blaming the CBs…but Hamlin’s on our team too, right? Why are we supposed to feel more bullish because he messed up instead of the CBs?

Yes, I think Tony will rebound. His career indicates that a 3 INT game is not the norm for him. But was anyone saying that that was the case? QBs with 3 INTs as their standard don’t last very long in the league, in my experience. I think the problem that people have is not that Romo does this on a regular basis, but that he does it occasionally, and that’s a problem.

I am pretty bullish on Romo in general, and I think he should be judged on his body of work over the entire season, but pointing to an overall statistically strong career is an indicator of the overall mean level of performance, not of game-to-game consistency. This isn’t a stock market— it’s the NFL, where one bad day can hurt your championship chances immensely.

My biggest concern is that many of the same things were said about the warts we saw early last season, and that was a team achieving better results than this one. Part of the problem is that this team’s historical trend has been to regress as the season progresses, not improve. I am cautiously hopeful that we can fix some of these problems, but there is a 3+ year track record on several of them at this point. If your point is that we should use historical indicators to gauge future performance, then I am concerned.

For 3 seasons I’ve watched a fired up Dallas team rush head-long into the season with an overinflated idea of their own self-worth and skill. They always seemed to peak early then ride a looooong bumpy road down. The most positive thing I saw last night wasn’t much different after the game than it was before it: they aren’t fooling themselves this year.

Yeah they looked awful last night. They also could not catch a break while the Giants caught several. At no point did they give up though. They’re not talking about the playoffs…they’re talking about winning the next game. Another big difference is that because of the restraint in bluster and ego pre-game, after the game they weren’t out there having to explain how they can talk that talk then play like they were stoned.

I think this loss is a sign that they are in a much better position to peak much later in the season than they have in the past. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

(PS yes I belatedly realize the irony in my signature line….now off to find a new one….)

After last night, I encourage everyone to go back and read the Cold Hard Football Facts article on Romo.

[Romo’s] production is not merely good: It’s spectacular.
 
Just 40 starts into his career, Romo is on pace to challenge or even rewrite the records in some of the most important indicators of quarterbacking success. He’s certainly living up to the standards of a franchise that’s been consistently blessed for more than 40 years with some of the best field generals in the game. But not even Dallas legends Aikman, Staubach or Dandy Don put up these kinds of numbers.
 
Romo is still shy of the minimum 1,500 attempts needed to qualify for official NFL records (he’s attempted 1,334 passes). But he’ll reach that milestone some time in October – and when he does he’ll find himself in very elite statistical company.

Here’s some of the cold hard stats:

Passer Rating
After the Bucs game, Romo was #2 in all-time passer rating leaderboard, which takes into account interceptions. All-time. That’s better than Peyton Manning, better than Tom Brady. Maybe he’ll slip back to #3 after laying the egg last night, but still… And Romo isn’t that far back from Steve Young at #1, and if he can manage to clean up his bad decisions, this season he could become the most efficient passer in the history of the game. Yet some ready to look for a replacement after one bad game so far this season. (And oh btw, after the first 2 games, Romo has a better passer rating than Tom Brady so far this season.)

Yards Per Attempt
Romo is #3 all-time in YPA, which is a good indicator of QB quality and team success. Romo is better in YPA than Brady, better than P. Manning, better than every other QB who has played the game except Otto Graham and Sid Luckman. Yet some ready to look for a replacement after one bad game so far this season.

Victories
Romo is 28-13 overall, with only Brady and Big Ben having a higher win percentage among active QBs. Yet some are ready to look for a replacement after one bad game so far this season.

Look, I’m as upset at anyone about how poorly he played last night, and that the ball security focus that he was supposedly putting in in the off-season obviously needs more focus still. He deserves most of the blame for that loss, and deserves plenty of criticism.

But I think a lot of fans are really overreacting to this one game, especially given that this was against a defense that is rated as one of the best in the league. What he doesn’t deserve is to have so-called fans calling for his head after one bad game.

I still firmly believe he is one of the best QBs in the game, and his numbers above back it up. And we are extremely fortunate to have him, and would have an extremely difficult time finding someone even close to his talent to replace him. Good QBs are hard enough to find, elite QBs are a rarity indeed. Go look around the league. Our backup QB is better than a lot of the starting QBs in the league.

Now it remains to be seen as the season unfolds, if his season more resembles week 1 or week 2, but it will take a lot more than just one bad game against a very good defense so far in only his third full season as a starter for me to say that Romo is a sell, and shouldn’t be our franchise QB…

Recomended

I tried very unsuccessfully to say the same thing. You made the point beautifully.

The team still looks good to me. Romo had one amazing game and an awful one. Even though Romo played miserably, we still put up 31 points and nearly beat a team that’s supposed to have one of the best defenses in the league. The Giants offense could do no wrong in the second half and we still had the lead with 3 minutes and some change left in the game.

There really is no such thing as a moral victory in the NFL, but there are pieces on this team that look like they could carry us deep into the play offs. Will they? No one knows. But they certainly could, and that’s got me awfully excited…

I agree that there was a lot of positive to be taken from this game. Just replacing the turnovers with punts this would have been a very strong performance by the offense. The defense still seems to be struggling with being able to play decent run defense and pass defense at the same time. But in 07’ they were 8th in total defense and last year despite get destroyed in the last 5 quarters of the season they ended up at 9th. I think the defense will get patched up. The only problem I see with this bullish approach is that it appears there will be inconsistent games by certain units on either offense or defense, this is common. But, the amount of inconsistency we’ve seen leads me to wonder how many games there is going to be too many bad units for the good units to pick up.

going into the season, we tend to focus on the skill positions and how they’re gonna produce, but we always have to come back to the health and good play of the offensive line. that is the key to everything… give Romo some time, give S-D-T some room to run, and this offense can be highly productive.

well after watching our drives from Sunday again, I have to say I’m feeling really good about that part.

It’s funny how losing really changes our perspective and we tentdto focus much more on the negatives, whereas if the Giants had missed that last FG or a number of other plays had gone just slightly differently, we’d tend to be able to focus more on the positive, and there was actually plenty of it, especially where the offensive line was concerned.

Here’s the numbers:

Rushing YPC: 8.7 (!!!)
Sacks given up: 0
QB Hurries given up: 1
TFLs given up: 2
Penalties: 1 for 10 yards (Flo tripping)
First Downs by Rushing: 15
Red zone efficiency: 4/4
Goal to Go efficiency: 4/4

Barbarian highlights
“Barber with a gaping hole…”

And Kosier was apparent on several big plays, especially at the end zone, pulling and leading the runner into the hole and laying devastating blocks. Man it’s good to have him back, and I’ll never under-appreciate him again lol.

And remember, this is against the Giants’ defense, generally considered top 5 if not the best front 7 in the league, and the strength of their team. Yet our line just abused them. That’s right, eight point freaking seven yards per carry.

There’s some things that definitely need improvement on this team to perform up to their potential, but having an offensive line playing like this bodes very well for how high their potential actually is.

Here’s to their health!!!