I remember back at training camp watching Matt Moore takes his turns under center. I remember vaguely thinking he looks OK, he was definitely green and the NFL game was a little faster than what he was used to, but he did look like he had potential. He was particularly good at taking whatever the defense gave him and not forcing things. Unlike Richard Bartel, who wanted to go deep every time. The Cowboys liked what they saw and wanted to keep him, but they gambled and lost when they tried to sneak him on the practice squad. Wade Phillips on the issue:
"We toyed back and forth with keeping three quarterbacks and may have made a mistake there."
Who would have thought that all these months later Moore would be starting a game against us? So naturally, he was the guy on the conference call to the media.
"This is definitely unexpected," Moore said in a conference call Wednesday. "No way, eight months ago if you had asked me what I thought, could I have given you this kind of story.... I've kind of had to pick up things on the run and just try and get better as fast as I can. That's been the biggest surprise of my time in the NFL so far is how quickly things can change. You've always got to be ready, and when your number is called, you've got to go in there and try and do your best."
Not to shabby for the kid to get his first start and win all on the same day over a playoff team like the Seahawks.
A smiling Moore said he didn't know if Romo would bring Jessica Simpson to Dallas' game at Carolina on Saturday night.
"I don't know who it'll be," he said, the smile widening. "I stay out of that; I talk football with Tony; that's about it."
Smart.
Here’s a transcript of Wade Phillips and Jason Witten on conference calls with the Carolina media.
To read up on the Panthers, go check out Action Jaxon at Cat Scratch Reader. What an awesome name for a blog.
Hopefully, I’ll have my scouting report up on the Panthers later today. Also, I’ll be exchanging 5 Questions with Jaxon for publication on Friday.
The real Jessica Simpson curse? Not that she distracted Tony on Sunday, that’s a debate I’m staying out of. But, that people can’t stop talking about her – and yes, I’m fully aware of the hypocritical nature of saying that while I’m talking about her. That's my point, it’s a curse. So T.O. had to clarify his statements about her last night.
"I tried to get [Romo] to call her so I can explain to her that she doesn't really know me and that I can be funny," Owens said. "And that everything I say, the media will take it and run with it. It's not a big deal. I will try to rectify the situation between her and I."
[snip]
"No, I'm not trying to be a distraction," he said. "I understand how everybody is looking at Jessica Simpson as a distraction and that's definitely not how I saw it. That's how the media saw it. If anybody wants to look at it as a negative, they can do that. But for me, she was there to support Tony.
"He had a bad game. I don't think she had anything to do with it. We lost as a team."