This week's edition of What They're Saying is one ticked-off affair. Look, there's no shame in losing to the Redskins, I think it's becoming obvious that they're a very talented football team. I hate losing inside the division, especially at home, but with the talent-level in the NFC East so high, it's going to happen. The reason it's a ticked-off edition is because the Cowboys played stupid football, I don't know how else to explain it. So I'll try to explain it as I go along.

Let's start with the obvious. Did you check out the stat-line for our running game? Abysmal. The number of yards isn't the key piece of information; it's the number of times we ran the ball. How can a team with Marion Barber and Felix Jones end up just abandoning the run in a game where the score was never out-of-hand? 

"The style of defense they were playing was forcing us to do some other things," Garrett said. "We have to execute better in those other areas to be able to get back to some of those things you want to do. You have to aggressively take what the defense gives you."

Uh, how about dictating to a defense what you want to do. We put together an offensive line of road-graders and we didn't use them at all. We have one of the premier power-runners in the game and we didn't let him establish himself at all. We've seen what can happen if we hammer a defense repeatedly, but we didn't see it on Sunday. Jason Garrett is a talented coordinator, let's not lose sight of the fact that our offense has been one of the most explosive in the league under his tutelage, but on this day he lost sight of what works for us. How is play-action passing, one of our signatures on offense, going to work if the defense has no respect for the run game?

"It wasn't hard to run the ball against them," guard Leonard Davis said. "We had a game plan based on the looks they were giving us, and that dictated we stick with the passing game."

Aargh, there's that dictating thing again. We dictate to defenses, not the other way around. If they're crowding the line of scrimmage, how about getting wide on them and forcing them to respect us horizontally. Or how about using a technique that is essentially a run, the screen pass? We have a speedster in the backfield that can change the way a defense plays, but we never saw him play.

"Sometimes the game takes you certain places," Garrett said. "We tried to get [Felix] in on certain things as the game progressed. Yeah, we'd like to get him more opportunities. He's that kind of player. But just as the game went, we weren't able to get him his chances."

You weren't able to get him his chances because you chose not to. As Keyshawn used to say - just give him the damn ball. Are we all of a sudden so scared of defenses that we are going to let them make the calls for us on offense?

"He has a specific role that he plays," head coach Wade Phillips said of Jones, whose only touches came on four kickoff returns, for a total of just 54 yards. "The plays that he works on, they aren't really come-from-behind plays. They are more normal-game situation plays. We will be more and more comfortable with him as he learns more."

Come-from-behind plays? It's not like we were behind by 21 points! Even though the Redskins outplayed us on the day, the score was relatively close throughout the game. The coaching staff really did a lousy job on Sunday. With the talent we have on the offensive side of the ball, we should be doing the dictating. These excuses are terrible. I've also heard that Tony Romo was changing the plays at the line based on the defensive alignment. Well, there's an easy way to solve that, call plays without audibles and tell him not to change the play. Run what is called, and I do mean "run."

Click the link below to keep reading becasue there is plenty more to pick apart from this game, including a certain receiver who needs to re-think his commentary.

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Now I understand that all fans want their teams to be perfect at all times and never show weakness. The truth is that is just not possible. Even the mighty Patriots were imperfect, and they chose the worst possible game to finally come down off the mountain. Now I am never a believer in the saying "that was a good loss", but I would much rather the Cowboys get yesterday's type of game out of their system now and start to put it together in December. There wasn't one part of the game that went well yesterday, yet the Cowboys were still in the game there at the end. They were a Sam Hurd fingertips-grab away from having over a minute to drive for the go-ahead field goal. Not bad for a team that as dominated.

Now, some folks need to calm down just a bit. Hopefully we've all had a night's rest and can now approach things a bit more rationally. Brian Stewart is not going to be fired. Wade Phillips is not going anywhere. Jason Garrett is still a great coordinator. Some of the initial, angry response to yesterday's game is to blame the coaches (rightfully so) and proclaim that the immortal Cowboys of the dynasty years would never have had such a lackluster effort. Well my friends, I have to inject some sensibility into us all. Back in 1992, the Cowboys walked into Philadelphia 3-0 and favored against the home-team Eagles. Jimmy Johnson's Cowboys didn't even seem to show up, getting trounced by Philly 31-7 thanks in part to Troy Aikman's four turnovers. That same Cowboys team went on to beat the Eagles in the playoffs on their way to the Super Bowl.

The point is that even the best teams have bad days. And the Cowboys had a bad day, but the Redskins had a great game. Sometimes the other team just plays  better, and while the Cowboys didn't do things up to par the Redskins were the better team on this day.

Any given Sunday.....

• The ONLY time Tony Romo should throw the ball 47 times is if the final score is 63-60.
• Jason Garrett is an aggressive, attacking, YOUNG offensive coordinator. He's still learning and games like yesterday are tough lessons to learn. That being said, the Cowboys got outfoxed by a first time coordinator and head coach. Ouch.
• I knew the Cowboys were going to abandon the run, I could just see it coming. Marion Barber was getting zero running room up the middle and it seemed as though the Cowboys just got impatient and a little greedy. Romo was trying to take advantage of the Redskins stacking the box by checking out of the run, but the Cowboys were unable to beat one on one coverage. So the Redskins never stopped running that defense, and the Cowboys couldn't run the ball.
• Of course, 11 running plays is still way too low, no matter how much they were jamming us. How about some screens, pitches, or an end around to Felix? Pulling T.O. on the end around is all well and good, but let's get Felix the ball.
• Wade Phillips saying that Felix's plays are not designed as "come from behind" plays is pure baloney. The most the Cowboys were behind all game was ten points, and that was at halftime. I think this Cowboys team as whole needs to take a breath and realize that being down a touchdown is not the end of the world, and you don't have to enter ultimate gunslinging mode to win the game. Give Felix the dang ball.
• The best example of how the Cowboys game was going was our kickoff return game. The team as whole just seemed tired and unemotional and it showed in our return units. No one was blocking, everything was in slow motion and Felix had no where to go. It just seemed like the team as a whole was in slow motion.
• While I don't think Stewart needs to be fired just yet, he does need to start figuring some things out or he's going to have some players turning on him. It's tough as a player to know that your coach is putting you in the wrong scheme against an offense and all you can do is play what he tells you. Two weeks in a row the Cowboys had a poor defensive game plan against a west coast offense. The difference between the Packers game and yesterday's was that the Redskins were able to score from the red zone and the Packers weren't. Other than that, not much was different. Dink and dunk up and down the field, yay!
• It's obvious this Cowboys team has nothing in the tank emotionally against the Redskins, but the same doesn't apply on the other side of the ball. These Cowboys have built a good rivalry with the Eagles and Giants but for the most part just don't care for the Skins. Well, the Redskins players sure do get fired up when playing the Cowboys.
• Next week will be the big test. Can the Cowboys get fired up and dominate a pretty bad Bengals team after a disappointing showing at home?

The Dallas Cowboys were the favorites, but the Washington Redskins were the better team on the field today, winning the game 26 - 24. Washington came into Texas Stadium and pushed the Cowboys around in their own house and out-classed them in every phase of the game. There are no excuses for this one, the Redskins deserved to win and they did.

The Cowboys offensive gameplan was curious to put it nicely. For whatever reason Jason Garrett decided to abandon the run game in all forms. Beyond just giving up on the traditional run, he also never tried a screen and never allowed Felix Jones any touches in the offense to spread out the Redskins defense horizontally. Garrett should shoulder as much blame as anyone, although his players were not blameless. Terence Newman, and to a lesser extent Anthony Henry, could not contain Santana Moss. The Cowboys defense was guilty of poor tackling again but this time their offense wasn't able to rescue them. Tony Romo wasn't sharp with his passes and again threw a bad interception. Across the board, Washington was simply better.

I was as guilty of believing the hype as anybody who roots for Dallas. Now, I see the light. We are not ready to proclaim ourselves as the best until we can defend our home turf within our own division. This was a whipping and should send everybody involved with this team back to the drawing board. It's still a long season so there is no reason to panic. But the effort the team put forth on this day will not get it done. They need to play every game with the mindset that they are the underdogs.

Washington played the game as the underdog but walked away as the big dog.

Post your laments below but keep them clean, losing a game is no reason to lose your composure.

New open thread for the Cowboys/Redskins game.

New open thread for the Cowboys/Redskins game.

Open Thread

Dallas Cowboys vs. Washington Redskins
Sunday, Sept 28th, 2008
4:15 PM EST, TV: Fox
Texas Stadium - Irving, TX

You can see a map of the game broadcast, here. On DirecTV Sunday Ticket, the game is on channel 714.

My prediction: Dallas 27 - Washington 13

Weather Forecast
Sunny
87 degrees
Wind 7 mph

This is an open thread for game chat.

Some of you guys have asked about BTB for your mobile phones. Well, SB Nation has finally created a version of our blogs for mobile phones. So if you want to read BTB on the phone, use http://mobile.bloggingtheboys.com. If you're connecting from a mobile phone we should detect that and automatically send you to the correct version.

Other Saturday leftovers:

I was asked by an author of an upcoming book about the Green Bay Packers if I knew any Cowboys fans who went to the game at Lambeau last week. If you were at the game, send me an email and I'll hook you up with the author who wants to interview you.

I did a couple of Q&A sessions with Redskins blogs this week. One over at Hogs Haven and one at AOL Fanhouse. Some of my answers are duplicates since I was asked the same questions.

BoDog sent me an email with the following odds on which current undefeated team will be the last to lose a game this year.

Dallas - Even
Denver - 3/2
NY Giants - 5/2
Tennessee - 4/1
Buffalo - 15/2
Baltimore - 10/1

Could the Cowboys go undefeated? 

NFL Network has this preview of the Cowboys/Redskins game. 

Larry Brown has his preview, here. 

In yesterday's press conference Wade said that Tank Johnson should be good to go and Anthony Spencer and Sam Hurd are healthy. More on that, here. He also said that Tony Curtis will have the same role as last week.

Jay Ratliff is starting to get some love. The Rat is having a great season so far and people are noticing. Here at BTB, we have long had the love for Jay. Chris Canty sums it up: "Jay is ballin' out there."

Q&A with Tony Romo. 

I've never been a fan of this whole trap game concept. To me, it's more of an excuse for losing to an inferior team than anything else. It's one of those short-hand ways of trying to categorize stuff that is actually much more complex. And I don't see how a game against a team in the NFC East who has been one of our biggest rivals can qualify as a trap game. But Tim Cowlishaw tries to build the case, here.

Anthony Spencer thinks he's finally getting healthy. That would be good, we need to give Ware and Ellis some breaks in a game and last year Spencer showed in spurts that he has the goods to get after a QB.

From the Washington side of things:

Man, I hate Santana Moss.

Jason Campbell is developing quite nicely. 

The philosophy of the Washington defense under their new coordinator. 

Five keys to winning from the Redskins view. 

In anticipation of the rivalry game against the Washington Redskins, I asked Skin Patrol from SB Nation's Redskins blog, Hogs Haven, to answer a few questions. He obliged and the results are below.

Blogging The Boys: Under Joe Gibbs, we knew what to expect from the Redskins offense. How have things changed under Jim Zorn?

Hogs Haven: I think it's still early enough to say that the jury is still deliberating. The run game has not changed substantially, as Zorn (wisely, I think) decided to leave that aspect of our offense the same. The passing game is different in terms of scheme and vocabulary. Some guys appear to have taken to it just fine (Santana Moss) others haven't (Malcolm Kelly, although it's not as if he has to forget the Joe Gibbs scheme, either). This offense lives and dies on Jason Campbell, really. Scheme aside, it doesn't make a difference how good the play is if Campbell is throwing on or near the line of scrimmage on 3rd and distance. We had six 3rd downs fail against the Giants on Jason Campbell short passes that either fell incomplete or were caught by people too many yards in front of the 1st down marker. A nine yard pass on 3rd and 11 is useless. A 4 yard pass on 3rd and 6 is useless. In terms of differences overall, caveating this with the recognition that it is still early, Jim Zorn appears to be much more willing to roll the dice than Coach Gibbs was. Just in the past three games, we've seen a somewhat criticized 2 point conversion, a risky field goal in the last game, and a game-killing play action pass late in the Arizona game. I have to think Coach Gibbs would've just ran it 3 times (probably not for a first down) and punted; Zorn went for the throat, and the gamble paid off.

BTB: How had Jason Taylor been playing? Is it going to hurt the Redskins defense with him out of the game?

HH: He's been ok. His one sack isn't necessarily indicative of the pressure he's gotten, as he also has 4 passes defensed. Taylor has a big wingspan, so he's pretty good at swatting the ball. Teams have been running at him fairly consistently and with effect; I tend to think we might have someone else on the roster better against the run. The reason we're going to hurt without Taylor isn't necessarily because we won't have him (again, he's playing at good -- not great -- level) but because we don't really know who is behind him. Daniels is injured, that's why we traded for Taylor, and behind him it's Demetric Evans, Chris Wilson, Rob Jackson, and Erasmus James. Evans will likely get the start. Chris Wilson really came alive at the end of last season and, although I'd hoped he'd carry that success into 2008, not a peep has been heard from him. We drafted Rob Jackson at the end of last year's draft and Erasmus James was a high potential guy who has fizzled out at the NFL level. So you have all these people competing for that spot behind Taylor with no one yet really distinguishing themselves. Evans is a reliable backup, has been for years, but I worry about him starting against an offense as good as the Cowboys. There will be substantial rotation at that position.

Biggest loser on this is Andre Carter on the other side, as your pass protection can now focus to scheme against him. I doubt Evans will demand any double teams.

Click the link below to read the rest.

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I finished watching the game tape of the Redskins vs. Cardinals from last weekend. Here's my scouting report of Washington based on that game.

Redskins offense

The Washington offense under first-year head coach Jim Zorn has a decidedly West Coast feel to it. So how does Washington run its version and how should the Cowboys defense counter it? As you might expect, the Redskins passing game is all about timing the routes to Jason Campbell's five-step drops. The Redskins are very efficient when Campbell can make his drop and fire the ball to his receivers in rhythm. They are less successful when it comes to improvisation or having to wait for receivers to get open. Conventional wisdom about disrupting a passing offense in the NFL is usually centered around getting pressure on the QB. While I will never dismiss pressure as an effective tool, for this game I think it's more about the coverage schemes.

The key is to make sure Campbell can't hit his receiver when he plants his back foot after his drop. The Cowboys should use more press and man-to-man coverage schemes or zone packages that are have shorter drop zones for the linebackers and cornerbacks. If you're in man-to-man and can latch on to the receivers tightly in the first 5-7 yards of their routes, that will disrupt the timing of the Redskins passing game and force Campbell to hold the ball once he hits the back foot. Then he has to improvise and that is where their scheme is less successful. I would advocate a man-to-man scheme for the up guys with safeties playing an intermediate-to-deep zone to account for the possibilities of Santana Moss breaking long or using double-moves. If you're going to use zone, make sure it's pressed forward and not a soft zone where they can hit receivers quickly underneath.

Pressure is never a bad idea on the QB and I'm not discounting it as a weapon, but disrupting the rhythm between QB and receiver seems to be more important. In terms of creating pressure, blitzes from the middle instead of the edges seemed to be harder for the Redskins to handle. Utilizing Zach Thomas in the blitz package or bringing Anthony Henry on loops to the inside could be the way to go.

The Redskins are also using bubble and slip-screens very effectively so the Cowboys defenders have to be aware of this on the outside and not be over-anxious to attack the middle but keep their discipline outside, especially the outside linebackers. They can run these screens to backs, tight ends or receivers. Washington will also use misdirection pretty effectively, including play-action that results in quick passes in the form of hitches or flat routes, occasional end-arounds and other assorted "get them going one way and come back the other" plays. Dallas needs to be disciplined horizontally.

The running game no longer features the counter-trey but relies on stretch plays to Clinton Portis with the near-side guard pulling. They are not as powerful up the gut as they used to be and want to hit you off-tackle. They are using mostly a straight-ahead blocking scheme with the exception of the pulling guard. Again, the outside linebackers must be disciplined in holding the edges and forcing plays back to the middle.

Click below to read about the Redskins defense.

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