All About Next Week

by iCowboy on Oct 12, 2010 1:37 PM CDT

It is. Not to sound like I'm panicking (although I am flustered) but this season does hang on this Sunday's game at Minnesota. It seems strange to me that the Cowboys season hangs in the balance and the team we have to beat is the team that obliterated us last year in the playoffs. We have to play at the same place we got stomped. Not only that, but Minnesota's season could very well hang in the balance of this game as well. I thought this would be a big game but nothing too meaningful when the schedule came out. Now, it feels like a playoff game, a win or go home. This is the biggest game Dallas will play since we played the same team in the same place in the divisional round. Minnesota looked good in the second half last night, right up until Favre had his usual head-scratching toss. This will be a hell of a game, i expect a dogfight because whoever loses has almost zero shot (historically) at making the playoffs.

I don't care if Dallas can still win the division. I don't care if we are the most talented, most undisciplined, most mistake prone, or most explosive team in the east or NFC. The only thing I care about is going to sleep Sunday night knowing Dallas is 2-3 and Minnesota is 1-4; even if we win 3-0 I'll be satisfied.

If Dallas is going to win:

1) Dallas has to start fast

in recent years we have had trouble starting fast on offense and defense. In recent games as is Jason garret's specialty we start painfully slow, against Tennessee the defensive came out flat . Minnesota has started slow this year as well but if we both do that it is anybody's game. From the flip of the coin, Dallas needs to be mentally ready because Minnesota will be. Leaders on this team have to step up and get the team ready, maybe Wade Phillips could try leading this week.

2) Have to make field goals

who would have thought that our FG game would be inconsistent and cost us games again this year?...everybody. Well, if you watched the game last night you'l know Minnesota at 1-3 has a tremendous defense, and they buckle down inside the redzone. Our boy Folk drilled 5 fg's last night and NYJ needed every single one. Buehler will have to make kicks. When he misses it seems to deflate our team, and it turns the tide of each game. If we have any chance to win this game, he has to makes kicks.

3) Secondary has to be better.

Moss will have an extra week to prep, Guarantee he will be in on most of the snaps and def. the 2 minute offense, Ball and Sense need to show up big and contain the huge plays. Harvin came alive with moss over the top and the thought of Scandrick playing him in the slot is terrifying. Jenkins needs to play better than last week and regain his form. also the nickel has to contain the check-downs and we'll see how that goes.

4) Win the penalty battle

I cannot fathom how a team is penalized so consistently year after year, and how nothing is ever done about it. ONE GAME! ONE GAME! I would like to see 5 or less penalties. But, I don't even know if that is possible. I can tell you that Minnesota gets penalized as well, but if we lose the penalty battle big, this season could be a waste, and Jerry can look forward to watching 2 teams he doesn't own playing on his field in February.

5) Finish

I'm so sick of Dallas passing the ball all over the field, and gaining 450-500 yards of total offense and pissing away games. Maybe they can finish one, maybe they can turn those yards into points and jump out to and early lead and never look back (maybe too much to ask?) The defense has to finish, and I mean get a damn turnover and put the offense in good field position, Favre will give the defense chances, we have to finish and make the plays.

I don't know how i feel about Sunday, Dallas has shown me nothing thus far that makes me believe they can do any of the above. But, I'm a fan and I can hope. I know what I see on Sundays when talent and potential flashes all over the field but i also know when I see an undisciplined team that does not know what it takes to win. I know when I see Wade pissed and frustrated, but I also know I haven't seen him do too much about it. I know all these things, but until Sunday I will know NOTHING about this Dallas team, and nothing about this season. It's all about Sunday.

Go 'Boys.

Another user-created commentary provided by a BTB reader.

Tweet Comment 5 comments | 1 recs |

Do you like this story?

Comments

Could not agree with you more, great post

as i see it we have 5 glaring problems that we week after week kill us.

number 5- our peniltes. enough said

number 4- our running game. we need to pick one back (like we did againts titans) and stick with him. our running is a fatal flaw. if we cant run the ball like the first 3 games than we wont be able to throw the ball. you need to run to be able to throw. if we fix the running game than are passing will explode.

number 3- our safties. plain and simple they just cant make plays and that puts too much pressure on m jenkins and t newman. we NEED to fix it and draft a good saftie.

Number 2- our O-line. with a bad o line our offense cant get the ball rolling. we cant runn because of no hole. and we cant pass because romo cant do it all. this will be tough to fix but we need to start now

number 1- Coaches. and i dont mean our coaches or the teams coaches. because this is still parcells team. thats why we are still slowly getting worse and worse because thats another week longer sense he left. our coaching problem is all on jj. they are the cause for our peniltes the running game, and partly O-line and safties. phillips just is not a leader. we need a leader.

if we can fix these things we will be slowly rebuild and we can fix the majority of these things. the first thing we have to do is get rid of the coaching staff. and get a coach/leader that will not a allow penitles, know how and when to run the ball, draft postions that we need, and fix the most glaring problem that we have. the oline

by Misterginger on Oct 12, 2010 4:50 PM CDT reply actions

you can bet the vikings will

exploit all the holes in the cowboy defense such as the middle of the field in their passing game (i haven’t seen a safety anywhere near a pass yet) and if AP gets on a roll
JG is going to try and chunk the ball all over the field not realizing romo won’t have enough time to even attempt that (here comes all the holding penalties again)
instead of at least try to run the ball consistently (but then again the OL can’t block at all) so this game maybe so brutal i’m afraid to watch…i’m not so sure the cowboys could beat the lions right now

by 0k on Oct 12, 2010 5:31 PM CDT reply actions

it looked like an effort to get the Felix the ball but its really unbalanced

it almost makes you wonder how good this team could be if the pass/run ratio was 60/40 earlier in the game. i know some of the 1 run ro every 3 pass ratio is off bc of the 2 min offense & constantly tryng to battle back but would we even be in those situations if there was more balance to start the game.
it almost seems like Garrett wants to get in a shoot out & doesn’t understand its ok to punt sometimes. also w/ the size & age of this OL it looks like it would benefit them to run it. asking these bigs to pass protect against smaller & faster DLs that have plenty of power is asking for trouble.
play to the strengths of the offense in all areas

by DCNation73 on Oct 13, 2010 1:47 PM CDT reply actions

Good post

and I especially agree with getting off to a good start. Last time we played the Vikings we squandered two early opportunities and when our defense started to fall apart it put us in a huge hole. We can’t afford that again.

When you think about it though, we haven’t gotten off to a good start in any game this year. Even the Texans game was looking not so great until the end of the second quarter. We just can’t continue to dig holes for us to try to climb out of. It isn’t sustainable and is not a trait of good teams. We need to jump on the Vikings and find our mojo to do that in this next three game stretch that is about as vital as any three game stretch can be this early on in the year.

Formerly Cowboyfan729
If I had a nickel for every time the Eagles won the Super Bowl, I would have zero nickels

by Creasy729 on Oct 13, 2010 6:47 PM CDT reply actions

Vikings fan here. Nice write up. Almost feels like looking in a mirror.

Here’s another way to look at things as you summarized in your last paragraph:

I don’t know how i feel about Sunday, Dallas has shown me nothing thus far that makes me believe they can do any of the above. But, I’m a fan and I can hope. I know what I see on Sundays when talent and potential flashes all over the field but i also know when I see an undisciplined team that does not know what it takes to win.

Sunday may not actually be decided by a team “turns it on,” “plays a complete game,” “realizes potential & knows what it takes to win,” etc. It may be that both teams stay true to form, and come out of the gate unable to do that again. Sunday may be decided by which team is on, but which team is off more. And/or which defense can make lucky breaks for themselves, and hand the ball to their offense with feidl position that they can at least score a FG from. The one thing we have going for us is that our D is actually playing pretty well to this point.

by puddnhead on Oct 15, 2010 1:09 PM CDT reply actions