Brad Sham slams the idea of taking Romo out of last week’s game. He uses Troy Aikman as his prime exhibit.
T.O. talks! From Calvin Watkins on the DMN blog:
We saw T.O. carrying a salad, looked like Ranch dressing, and I asked, "What's Up?"
"The sky," Owens said as he walked away.
That T.O., he’s a funny guy.
What may not be so funny is the percentage of passes caught that are thrown to T.O. The DMN blog references FootballOutsiders.com stats and finds that T.O. has only caught 45% of passes thrown to him. Of course, that’s not all on T.O., some passes were off-target or very tricky catches. But compare that with Witten (66%) and Crayton (63%). Tim MacMahon broke down all the passes thrown to T.O. last week and the results. He also mentions this bit at the end, something I should have included in my film review.
Two things popped out to me after doing this little study: 1) T.O. didn't move around nearly as much as in previous games, lining up as an outside receiver on almost every play and rarely going in motion; 2) He wasn't thrown a single crossing route, plays that often put him in position to display his tremendous run-after-catch ability. Expect those two things to be addressed before Sunday.
The DMN has a breakdown on the way the Cowboys and the Patriots built their offensive rosters. Interesting stuff.