The problem with a short week is you have to get over a victory like the one we just pulled off to get cracking on next week's opponent. Sure, we'll get to that, but I can't let go of the Philly game just yet.
Some random notes/observations:
- T.O. now has 132 TD catches and is second all time to Jerry Rice. There's no other way around it, T.O. is a total stud. Owens moved past Cris Carter but Randy Moss is only 7 TD's behind at 125. The problem for Moss? His QB is Matt Cassel, T.O. has Romo.
- The refs were horrible in the game, and it just wasn't one-sided horrible. On the Cowboys side of the ledger, of course we're barking about the DeSean Jackson play where the refs apparently made no effort to actually watch Jackson and see if he crossed the goal line, signaling TD and rendering anything else moot. But they also missed a clear hold on Mike Jenkins when Westbrook scored on the short screen and they also missed Chris Gocong whack Romo right in the head on a screen pass. Plus, there was the ridiculous pass interference call on Anthony Henry when it was clear the Eagles receiver was the guy with a fistful of jersey. It also looked like they missed a horse-collar. I didn't keep as much track on the Philly side of things, but the two blatant facemasks they missed by the Cowboys was pitiful. They weren't even discreet; it was blatant jerking of the facemask.
- Speaking of facemasks, they are just symptoms of a disease, that being tacklephobia - the fear of actually tackling the opposing player. The Cowboys defense has a lot of good qualities to it, but so far they have not been the surest tacklers.
- The really bad thing is that for all the penalties the refs missed or got wrong, Dallas still managed to rack up a large amount of penalties that were justified. They have to get that under control.
- If there was any question about whether Felix Jones should be returning kicks, I think it's settled now. Are you serious? 247 yards in kick returns and one of them a 98-yard TD? El Gato is one bad vato.
- Jason Witten is simply the man. It's hard for anybody to argue that he's not the best TE in football right now.
- We're still a little rusty in the secondary. Adam Jones gave DeSean Jackson a free-run into the secondary and only belatedly tried to catch up. Terence Newman was by Wade's own words rusty and only played OK. We need those two guys to get back to top form quickly.
- Our special teams coverage units aren't nearly as bad as we thought they might be, Nick Folk is banging the kicks through the uprights and our return unit on kickoffs is lethal. I made mention of this in preseason that if we could get our coverage units squared away, we'd have a chance to be superior on special teams.
In case you didn't read the Wade Phillips press conference article today, the news is that Pat Watkins will be the starting SS and Ken Hamlin will stay at FS. Wade and the Cowboys think that FS is Hamlin's natural position and they also think Watkins is more natural as a SS than a FS.
This guy thinks the Cowboys offense is freakin' scary.
When the Cowboys are on TV, everybody watches.
ESPN's Dallas Cowboys-Philadelphia Eagles game Monday night drew 18.6 million viewers, a new record for a basic cable telecast.
A preview of the Green Bay game from the Packers website.
I hate to get snippy with my coffee-drinking buddy Peter King, but did anybody bother to tell him that the Cowboys played in that game on Monday night and won?