Clarity

let me be the first to say i’m sorry and i guess you were right. i’m a big man and can and will admit when i’m wrong. i didn’t mean anything by it and sorry for being so vicious before. i just didn’t want to believe it, wanted to stay positive. i tip my hat to you sir, you were definitely right on and i was wrong again.

This ain’t wrasslin. I don’t care how cute it is that he can outlift the linemen and outrun some of the DB’s. Can he make a field goal to save his life? I think we know the answer to that one.

and this sucks.

The thing is, I keep thinking “What is different than last year?”, and it’s nothing.

It’s like it is the same thing, but Dallas was getting away with it.

In Romo’s defense, it sucks that it seems like he has to always play on down and distances of 3rd and 12, 3rd and 8, 3rd and forever.

Just sucks.

on one thing: I never saw Romo sulking on the bench. Every time I looked at him, he was looking down at game film. I’ll leave Brandon to answer you on the first half throws in the post he promised, and maybe dunk or someone else who has Romo in perspective will bother to deal with the “choker” label.

I rec’d this, and can’t argue with much of it. I think you might be a bit too harsh on Romo. And, I say that because he’s easily our best QB since Aikman. Any talk of replacement has to be about who we can find that’s an upgrade, and that’s most certainly not an easy task. I don’t want to see another Quincy Carter, Chad Hutchinson or Drew Henson QB-ing our team.

and the offense will be very good.

I trust you won’t mind if I reference this post as we get more information over the season?

If we do lose next season to lockout, just look at the ages we’ll be dealing with come 2012. Romo will be 32. The line (assuming they’re all still here) will be Free:29, Koiser:34, Gurode:33, Davis:34, Columbo:35. Barber will be 29 and most likely done. Is Felix really ready to take over in 2012?

As for the defense, the line will be 30, 31, 29. Ware will be 30, Brooking will be 37 (Will Lee be ready?) Bradie will be 31.

Newman will be 34 and Sensi will be 29.

We have some youth for sure, but this really makes me wonder if this group of Cowboys have missed their window with these first 2 losses. Because the majority of our team is in their prime and if we lose 2011….that’s 2 years older everyone becomes.

We’re gonna really need him next week

The man sucks. The man cannot use his running backs. I will say it all year, he sucks. Look at what Martz was able to do to adjust to the game situation.

 And Romo is good, but he is not great.

And, in fact this team is mentally weak. Try saying that after the Vikes game last year and how many people flame you for it? I remember reading one front page writer saying this team deserves to be cocky. Ha! This team deserves a slap in the face and a kick in the arse.

We had them by the throats early, but they adjusted.
So we adjust back, right? Apparently not.

The Onside Kick was an insult to them as an NFL team-“We’re dominating you so badly we’ll take a chance”- and fired them up.

5Blings, nothing you said here really should be new to anyone, but it is apparently….
The one point that doesn’t get mentioned enough is the lack of physicality. I’m really only talking of the D, because I think Witten, Barber, and Austiin bring some attitude to the O.
But who cares about that? It’s a team’s Defense that needs to have that aggressiveness, and it’s been missing ever since Roy Williams I went soft on us. How I’d love to have a hard-hitting safety (who could cover some too).
I don’t think Alan Ball is striking fear into anyone.

Is there really any difference between the Cowboys now and the team from the late ‘90s and early 2000’s?

Except for the fact that now the team has 1 QB instead of 5 or 6?

Couldn’t be more wrong actually. The drive that should have won us the game last week should tell you all you need to know about Romo.

Also, I wouldn’t be too confident that Romo will have a new OC next year, if Jerry does fire Wade after this season, Garrett will be his first choice to succeed him…just watch.

Really?

We’re back to this again?

I am sorry to say it, but this isn’t surprising.

We knew who Wade was when we hired him. I fear his days are now numbered.

Who’s next? Gruden? Cowher? If Mangini gets fired, he could be our DC.

On the list of reasons we lost this game – he’s about #10. On the list of reason we have any chance in any game – he’s about 1 through 5. And I’m appropriately critical when he plays poorly or has a brain cramp.

This team plays tight, especially on O. It’s almost as if they are waiting for the next thing to go wrong, which is why they handle adversity so poorly. The painful fact, is so much of their adversity is self-inflicted, it really shouldn’t come as a surprise anymore.

This team over the last few years has done all the big things pretty well. We have generated yards, kept offenses out of the endzone better than most, and been pretty proficient at beating teams with losing records. The thing that is continuously holding us back though, and has done it again in these last two games, is the fact that we do the small things very poorly. We consistently lose the penalty battle, the field position battle, and of course the turnover battle. And honestly, its unfortunate but these problems don’t have simple answers. Our players are who they are at this point. They continue to rack up penalties at a higher rate than just about any other team in the NFL and have created such a reputation for flags that at this point the refs have to be looking for us to make stupid penalties (which in turn only gives us more penalties). By the same token, our coaches are who they are as well. We continue to play a bend but don’t break style of defense that keeps the plays in front of us (unless your name is Johnny Knox) and refuses to play as aggressively as they should. And as great as it can be as far as keeping games close (especially against more explosive offenses like NO), it absolutely kills us in the field position battle as teams usually pick up a good chunk of yardage before being forced to punt it back to our offense (which could certainly do with some nicer field position). This style also really hurts our turnover production as our vanilla, keep-them-in-front-of-us coverages allows their QB to beat our blitzes with quick passes that completely kill our pass rushers’ chances to make plays and our CBs’ chances to jump routes. Ultimately I think Wade is a pretty good DC, but I would argue that it is him who is failing to use all his weapons more so than Garrett. We very rarely bring any real blitz and usually just rely on a pretty vanilla two OLB rush which the offense counters with simply keeping a RB and/or a TE in to block. And with the fact that Igor and Spears can’t be counted on to get any real pass rush I just don’t think these simple OLB rushes are enough to keep an offense on its heels. It especially isn’t enough if Newman, Jenkins, and Scandrick aren’t going to be allowed to play close to the line.

Ultimately, this season can still be turned around. Dallas can still look in the mirror and commit themselves to playing smarter and executing better. Wade can still decide to bring more heat and do it while playing a little more exotically to keep the other offense on its heels. So I agree with you Blings that we can’t give up yet. If it is going to get turned around though this team better start soon since our schedule certainly doesn’t get any easier from here.

And still only a game back. This division is all hype, no teams are looking good. We can still take this, and ya never know what can happen if you catch fire at the right time (see the ’07 Giants)

“Like I said, I don’t know if you heard me, but I think that things [in practice] kind of got let go [by the players] in practice,” Newman said. “It’s things that … it’s not our coaches. They don’t really know some of the things that were going on.”

Seriously?

THEY DON’T REALLY KNOW SOME OF THE THINGS THAT WERE GOING ON?!?!?!?

If that isn’t an indictment of the coaches, I don’t know what is.

On this LINK, he echoes my sentiments about how to open it up more for Romo.

At least this week, he is brilliant.

:-)