Are the Cowboys the "most talented offense in the league?'' Can they make a statement about their ability to be superior to the Giants with a press of a button? Has the FOX Robot loosened up his hamstrings yet? We start there with BTB Thursday "FISH on FOOTBALL'':
All the good stuff after the jump...
THE MOST TALENTED OFFENSE IN THE LEAGUE': That's Roy Williams' quote, not mine. Let it marinate for a moment. "We're the most talented offense in the league.'' Is that a stretch? I guess we need to see more of the Patriots. Peyton Manning's still in Indy. Arizona's 0-1 but not done. And there is some talent up in Minnesota. The Chargers? Oh, and maybe Roy's TV doesn't pick up Saints highlights. (That's the first season-opening game with a QB tossing six TD passes ever. Roy, check it out!) So. ... anh. It's too early to make such a judgment. But it's a fun opening-week confidence boost, and it's fun for the Cowboys to at least be in the conversation. ... Jay Leno was on the NBC Sunday halftime show with Bob Costas -- and Leno was easily the second-funniest of the two. ... Wade said his coaches made some halftime adjustments in Tampa to upgrade the run defense. (Mr. Fix-It!) D-Ware says it's just a matter of tackling better. (Shades of the Ravens at Texas Stadium?) All I know is that if Tampa's two backs can go for 174 and 6.2 per, hopeful tacklers of Jacobs and Bradshaw had better buckle their chinstraps. ... There is a get-on-a-roll opportunity just waiting for the Cowboys should they handle the Giants. Next on the schedule, Carolina, Denver and KC. Not to get too far ahead of ourselves, but. ... Nonsensical hamstring-stretching robots, lame Burger King cartoons, a prediction segment in which Terry Bradshaw admits he gave his picks zero consideration. Hmm. The FOX pregame show is essentially 87 minutes of breaded stuffing and three minutes of Jay Glazer meat. Maybe the entire FOX pregame show should just run three minutes? ...
TERRY BRADSHAW IS TIRED ... IN WEEK 1?: Weird diatribe from Bradshaw during FOX's pregame show as he rode Brett Favre's ass. "I'm tired of it," Bradshaw said. "I am. My family's tired of it. We're all tired of it. I wish it would go away. I'll be glad when it goes away. . . . I'll be glad when he's retired and moved on because I'm really fed up with him.'' Two things here: 1, Terry you work for FOX and the NFC games are on FOX and if you are sick of Favre BEFORE the first game, the person who may want to retire is YOU. Because you are going to see a lot of Minnesota games this season. 2, Terry's "family is tired of it''? WTF? Terry, you are acting like this is the Bradshaw clan soliciting advice from Cousin Eddie as to why Hamburger Helper doesn't even need meat and is better than Tuna Helper. ... Most mangled sentence you will read in a major-metropolitan newspaper all week: "Who needs T.O. anyway? Seriously, has a team ever missed a petulant 35-year-old receiver with more baggage than Lindsay Lohan less than the Cowboys missed T.O. in their opener against Tampa?'' A jumbled mess, but you know what the biggest problem is? No, not the trite pop-culture reference. And no, not the confusing use of the words "more'' and "less.'' The biggest problem is the insistence on Terrell Owens being billed as THE NO. 1 GAME STORYLINE on the front page of a major-metro newspaper. Let me make you a promise: In this space, I'll spend no more time on Owens' status as an ex-Cowboy than I will on Roger Staubach's status as an ex-Cowboy. In the grand scheme of All Things Cowboys, who matters more? Let it go, media. Let it go. ...
LAUGHING AT THE GIANTS?: Laugh at the Giants receiving corps if you must, but Steve Smith actually has the pedigree to be a legit No. 1 receiver. Hey, they lost Plaxicident Burress to a "thigh pull.'' (He "pulled'' out the gun and shot his "thigh.'' Therefore, "thigh pull.'') And they removed the Toomer and they did it all because of their faith in Smith and company. And doesn't NYG usually make pretty sound personnel decisions? ... Tony Dungy is a gifted man. As a player, he both threw passes and intercepted them. He is a man of football and a man of faith. He is many things to many people, successful, versatile, gifted. But I think we've found the one thing he cannot do: TV analysis. Dungy was so bad it almost made me want more Tom Arnold ... Brandon Jacobs says of Dallas' home-opener at the new joint: "They should've put Detroit in there instead of us.'' I don't think Brandon understands that this isn't a high-school homecoming game in which the AD schedules some 8-man have-not program to bus into town. Of course, the same sort of fake-inspiration worked for the Ravens at the old joint, didn't it?... Raf is dead-on (as usual) as it regards Dallas' two-TE offense. What The 12 Package gets you: Mismatches in personnel and mistakes in coverage. Marty-B was on the field, split wide, on both the Crayton and Williams TD catches -and both of them lined up in the slot. Now Marty-B just needs to be more certain of where the hell he's supposed to line up (Twitter and YouTube don't offer much help in the "playbook department'') and Dallas has itself another unique wrinkle. ...
D-MOVING DeMARCUS: An X-and-O's prediction for the Giants game: Dallas moves D-Ware around more than it did in the Tampa Bay game. Ware is a chess piece who is going to beat somebody - Phillips needs to do a better in-game job of pinpointing that somebody. ... As with Emmitt before him, this is chicken-and-egg stuff for MB3. But for the record, the Cowboys are 27-4 when Barber records 11 carries or more. ... Speaking of Emmitt: I know he wants to stay in the spotlight. But I don't think being the national spokesman for barbecuing pork is the smoothest plan ... Todd Archer notes that the Cowboys have a decision to make, weather-wise, regarding the opening or closing of the roof. My view: Bad weather - rain and such - can be an equalizer that closes the gap between a superior team and an inferior team. In other words, if I think I'm better than you, I want the conditions to be dry, perfect, fluke-free. So if I'm the Cowboys, and rain is in the forecast, I make my claim to superiority by closing the roof. How about you? ... My spies tell me that last Friday, Tony Romo was at a high-school football game, Hebron at Plano. Now why in the world would the Cowboys QB spend his Friday night at a high-sch ... oh, yeah. And then I bet they went home and watched the TiVo'ed Channel 33 sports report, eh? It beats Karaoke contests and Barbie-and-Ken'' theme parties and chubby-chasing at the Wisconsin State Fair, right? All we can really judge Romo's pre-game behavior on is his in-game performance. Which suggests that Romo oughta go to another prep game this and every Friday.