From the Inbox: Cowboys vs. Panthers Edition

Like I mentioned in the article, it’s just a collection of facts and figures I get in my email inbox during the week. Since I found some of them interesting, thought I’d collect them and post them.

and they pretty much shut down our passing game.

That being said, that was the Giants and this is Carolina. Our O line held it’s own against what is supposed to be the best front 7 in the NFL, so it certainly does not bode well for the Panthers.

Maybe Delhomme can toss us a handful of picks? that’d be fantastic. Big confidence booster for our D, which is honestly the only thing I’m remotely concerned about regarding our team after the first two games.

…Seattle signed ex-Cowboys DB Pete Hunter off the street just before their playoff game against us in the 2006 season.

And we still lost (the infamous Romo botched FG hold) with a depleted Seahawks secondary (in which I’ll never forgive Big Bill to this day for not exploiting that).

Romo has GOT to bounce back in a big way.

And Wade has GOT to unleash da hounds and blitz the hay-yuhl out of ’em!!!

That’s what I’m saying. One loss to a good team and we’re throwing in the towel? HELL NO! The only things that loss meant to me are 1) Secondary needs to wake up and 2) I’m more scared of the Saints now, knowing we couldn’t stop Eli’s passing game.

But all is not lost!
Bring on the cats!

The real question us can Romo? The guy cracks under pressure.

How many times last year did the Cowboys indignantly tell us that a close win was still a win and that they didn’t have much to improve? How many times did you hear a player talk about how bad they played and how it will never happen again?

Last year the answers to those questions were a lot and not enough. This year, I get a different sense. I hear the team saying after TB that it wasn’t near what they can do and that the run defense was so terrible that Bradie James and the defense vowed to fix it. This week, I hear from Witten how disappointed the team is and how they are going to work harder. I hear from Scandrick and Newman how disgusted they were with their play and how it won’t happen again. I hear Tony saying that the loss and the turnovers were on him and not on anyone else. To me, it is these things that signify some change in culture with this team. Call me naive, tell me I have rose-colored glasses, but at the end of the day, this team just feels different from last year. And judging how we played down the stretch last year, that is a very good thing.

we have spent most of our picks the last several years. Name the number ones on defense compared to the number ones on offense. That is why I’m mad about the suckitude factor for our defense. Outside of Roy Williams name another number one draft pick on offense.

and they beat us on a last second field goal despite getting four turnovers, I hardly see how you think this team is doomed.

The grass isn’t always greener.

Not saying Tony is great he’s far from it, and Till he wins a SB no one will look at him that way. But I would take him over alot of OB’s in the league for you whiners out there how would u feel if we had a Jason Campbell or JaMarcus Russel on our team. One bad game Doesn’t ruin the season should get there(his) mind back on track and get it going.

I am a big Romo supporter. So I understand your point, and like many others are doing right now, I have many times in the past taken to these boards to try to calm people after a bad Romo game, or to inject sanity when the chants of “Get rid of Tony!” get fired up.

However, I think your post misses the point. No one would argue that, ON AVERAGE, Tony Romo is not a very good QB. He clearly is. The numbers that you cited are just one example of the many ways we can show what a truly high-level QB Tony has been, on average, in his NFL career.

I think the concern that a lot of people have is not that he puts up bad games all the time, because he clearly doesn’t. Instead, the concern is that he submits bad games SOME of the time, and in the NFL that is enough to really hurt you in some seasons. No one would argue that 3 INT games are the norm for Romo. The worry, though, is that so far they have certainly shown themselves to be in the realm of possibility for Romo, and with a bit more frequency than we would like.

I get the point of your stats, but at the moment (and this is the problem I had with ScarletO’s stock market analogy), I’m more focused on his outlier performances on the low end and how frequent they are, rather than his overall average.

Because that is when he crumbles. And that is when it counts.

If it were as easy as starting a blog site and just rolling out content everyone would do it. Please step up and lead the way!

I think this is the best site available and provides great coverage & content. How quickly we forget the training camp posts & all the off season information.

hdc
   Can you give any detail on what you feel is missing? I am trying to bang my two brain cells together and come up with something that has not been provided and I can not think of anything???

To your fundamental question of – Do you care?: I think I’ve proven I care. You don’t dedicate your life to something for 4 years with minimal financial compensation if you don’t care. Self-evident to me.

As to the specific features that are now absent – thorough, in-depth analysis of film, player’s performance, etc. and transcripts of press conferences and other comments by coaches and players. There is some truth in those, some of the things I used to do I don’t do anymore for different reasons. I don’t do my film reviews anymore, that is now Raf’s area so I think it’s in solid hands. Transcripts of the press conference I don’t do for two reasons, it was very time-consuming for me on a regular basis and I hear Cowboys fans say all the time they don’t care about Wade’s press conferences becasue he never says anything of value. So I thought it maybe wasn’t my best use of time. In terms of the comments by coaches and players, I did use to do a column where I collected those up for people, but I gauged blog reaction to those as luke-warm and stopped.

So if people on this blog want those features to return, then I would look at what could be done. There’s a finite number of hours in the day, and I could no longer dedicate most of my working day to BTB and still survive financially. Not that I really need to share that, but it’s the truth.

Everybody has opinions on what they like and don’t like here. I’ve learned in blogging that you can’t please all the people all the time. But I’m at least pleasing enough people that the audience at BTB continues to grow and the community continues to be active. I guess we’re doing OK.

If someone wants to start a new Cowboys blog, more power to them. I’m never been a woe is me guy, but until you’ve sat on this end of the keyboard and 365 days a year come up with content for the blog, because in the end I’m ultimately responsible for having fresh content up daily, then you don’t know the challenge. Further, satisfying enough people with that content to keep a thriving blog going is a huge task. So if someone wants to take it on, more power to them. I hope they succeed.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, this is the kind of thing I’d rather have gotten by email instead of hijacking a thread, but that’s OK. Gave me a good opportunity to respond.

I don’t see anyone holding a gun to your head making you stay! Go to BSPN, they are very thought provoking.

where the heck was the WR’s in the second half, but i realized that was more Romo missing everything he threw at rather than the WRs getting open. If Austin and Hurd don’t step up in the coming weeks I would like to see Ogletree get some playing time.

Was he hurt? Did I miss something?

I’m flying down for the Atlanta game.

Those were some kind words. I’m working on getting more time to write regualrly on the blog again. Frankly, I probably need a break anyway, it’s hard to be so hard-core like I was for years, it can wear you down. Plus, even though I try to not let it bother me, it’s tough when I, and the BTB writers, work so hard to make this a compelling blog, but then have to slog through a raft of complaints. People have the right to complain, so I get it, but it can still get to a person. Like the $2 app we put up, we really just thought it would be no biggie, if you wanted it get it, if not ignore it. Some asked legitimate questions, but we got booed by some of the home crowd just for trying soemthing different and charging 2 bucks. It’s also soul-numbing when you have to monitor the comments and hide/warn people all the time when they can check their emotions or just won’t follow the community guidelines. I mean, this isn’t a playpen for personal disputes and name-calling. Sigh.

Anyway, thanks for the encouragement, enough of my pity party, and back to football.

I have Shockey and Celek now. I just put way too much faith in him after paying attention to the preseason. I figured he’d get targeted 5-8X a game. Boy was I wrong.