Anthony Henry gets some love. He deserves it, once he started taking away the slant pass from the Texans, they didn't have an answer. I talk about Henry some on the new DCFanatic Radio show. He's got a nice season going, except for the first game in Jax, where both he and Newman were not in top form.
"He's a ballhawk kind of kid," coach Bill Parcells said. "He gets his hands on balls. That's what I like about him. He studies pretty well. He was on it [Sunday]."
I'm reminded of the way Henry played last year until his groin injury; many Cowboys observers thought he was the defensive MVP in the first half of the season - including me.
JJT answered his mail, and Flozell Adams was the question.
TAYLOR: Nope. It's not that Flozell is overrated. It's that everyone expects him to be great, when he's really just a good player. There's nothing wrong with being good. A lot of teams would like to have a good left tackle. You have to lower your expectations. He has been great once in eight seasons. Clearly, that was an aberration.
True; even though JJT says he's not overrated, then proceeds to describe him as overrated. But the fact is Flo is a good LT but has the undesirable trait of inconsistency. When he's bad, he's really bad. That keeps him from being great. He has the physical tools to be dominant, and he's done in it short stretches, but he can't do it game after game, year after year. Hence, he's a good LT, better than a lot of guys in the NFL, but he'll never be great.
This actually made me laugh.
TAYLOR: I really like Henson as a person, but maybe he can't play. He wouldn't be the first college quarterback to be a bust. He spent so much time playing football and baseball that he failed to master either. But don't shed any tears for him because he's made about $15 million playing pro sports.
I'm not here to dance on Henson's grave. In fact, what made me laugh was the dude has failed at two jobs but yet has raked in $15 million. I'm actually in kind of awe of Henson, way to go buddy, I wish I could pull that off! That's good work if you can get it. Raise a glass to Drew Henson, every failed athlete's hero.
The new DC Fanatic Radio Show is up. It's a post-game Texans show. In my segment, I make the comments that the first pass that Romo threw (caught by Hurd) was a dangerous pass, one he probably shouldn't have made under duress like that. The ball had at least a 50-50 chance of being picked. The Texans' guy is right there but never stops to get the ball. But kudos to Hurd for coming back and getting the ball. Anyway, my point was that if Bledsoe had made that throw, most people would say he got lucky - including me. So did Romo.
I love Romo for the future. Out at camp, he looked like he knew what he was doing. I'm the first to admit he probably was consistently better than Bledsoe for most of camp, Bledsoe started very slowly. In the preseason he looked great, which doesn't always translate to good in the regular season, but you'd rather have players look good in the preseason than not. Before I went to camp, I was very skeptical about Romo, but after camp, I changed my opinion. I think he's got a good shot at being successful post-Bledsoe.
I'll say this, if Bledsoe went down to injury, I think Romo would have a chance to step in and do something good. It's not a crazy notion at all. I'm still with Bledsoe, but he needs to step up against the G-men, and then the three road games after that. This part of the season is huge for us, we finish this year with 5 of 7 at home, so at minimum we have to tread water over the next four games. Better yet, 3-1 would really set things up nicely for us, and we need the win over the Giants. We can't let them go 3-0 in the division and have two of those wins on the road.
Drew Bledsoe needs to show us something over the next four, starting with Monday night. We have to hold serve with our home games in the division. I'm not making any proclamations about the QB position before this game, but afterwards, we'll know a lot. I think Parcells has confidence in Romo, and if things started going badly - not in the game, but afterwards - he'll put Drew on a very short leash.
This team has too many weapons and is doing too many things well to waste. We got a strong running game, talented receivers, great run defense, good secondary, killer punter and a consistent - so far - kicker. You have to do everything you can to take advantage of that this year.
Bottom line for me, we better be at least 5-4 coming out of the road stretch, if not, all bets are off at the QB position.