Cowboys Headlines: Roy Williams Optimistic, Jerry Jones Says 'Yes', Igor's Got Swagger

The Cowboys are going to Lambeau field with the very real chance of coming back with a 1-7 record. Vegas currently has the 5-3 Packers as about -7 favorites. 94% of yahoosports.com readers pick the Packers to win. And 82.6% of 22,791 SportsDayDFW visitors want to fire Cowboys coach Wade Phillips according to the Dallas Morning News. 

You would think that everybody has lost confidence in the Cowboys. Not so. ESPN Dallas reports that Roy Williams says he thinks the Cowboys can win the last nine games. Apparently, Roy Williams is one of the few who's kept his chin up despite a 1-6 record and is confident the Cowboys can recover and run the table the rest of the season.

"We can go nine in a row, if you ask me," Williams said Thursday. "People can call me stupid or whatever, but this football team has the core of players, it has the supporting cast of players to win nine in row. We just got to get it started just for other players to be like, 'All right, we got it now.'"

Jerry Jones is sticking with Wade Phillipsfor the rest of season - Dallas Morning News
Jerry spoke with KRLD-FM on Friday, and when he was asked if Phillips would finish the season as Cowboys coach, his answer was simple: "Yes."

Now I didn't listen to the broadcast, so I don't know what was or wasn't said, but it's interesting how there seem to be a number of different spins on that simple "Yes".

Todd Archer thinks the one-word answer spoke volumes. Matt Mosely thinks it's often difficult to tell exactly what Jones means when he gets to rambling, but this short answer apparently leaves him equally baffled. The Star-Telegram apparently heard a moment of silence following the "Yes". Regardless, Jerry Jones went on to ruminate about midseason coaching changes in general:

"The key is will it do any good? The history of football and in the NFL shows that it rarely can do any good other than a momentary ‘feel good’. The other thing that happens is if you do consider a change and don’t have success, then that ‘feel good’ doesn’t last very long. That’s the reality of it. "The real world is, the one I’m looking at, where we are. I want to see what we can do. ... We’re going to Green Bay and we all know what that challenge is up there and we need to be better."

Igor Olshansky takes it upon himself to talk about the the Run - Star-Telegram
Igor Olshansky raised caused quite a stir when he went on Bradie James' weekly radio show sand shared his thoughts on the offense:

"Don't give the ball away," Olshansky said. "I mean, there's a lot of things that can go wrong when you pass the ball. You can get sacked, the ball can get tipped, you can get an interception. If you run the ball, you can get tackled and get a forced fumble. See, there's a lot more things [that can go wrong on pass plays].... You've got to run the ball."

In a move that may be pure coincidence, Igor's "Swagger Rating" on Madden 11 this week went up from 70 to 82.

The Star-Telegram goes on to quote Leonard Davis, who agrees that  the team should make a bigger commitment to the running game.

"Shoot, I agreed with that way back," Davis said. "Maybe I probably wouldn't have said it all like that, been on the radio saying that, but I guess that's just him. But it's the truth. I agree with him."

Hat Tip to Kegbearer for the Fanpost.

Know Thy Enemy:

The rest of the league has noticed that the Cowboys have a highly suspect secondary - Green Bay Press-Gazette

Their issues are many, but one worth noting is their bottom-of-the-barrel defensive passer rating. That stat has escaped notice because the Cowboys appear to have some defensive ability. They haven’t given up a lot of passing yards (No. 10 ranking) or the most touchdowns, and the completion percentage they’ve allowed is better than some.

But run those numbers through the formula the NFL uses to rank its quarterbacks (completion percentage, average gain per attempt, and touchdown and interception percentages) and out pops a rating only better than that of the winless Bills.

Greenbaypackernation.com is worried, like many other Packers sites, that the Packers might be taking this game too lightly

The lowly Cowboys limp into Green Bay with only cloudy memories of hosting a home Super Bowl, let alone a home playoff game.

It almost seems wrong to rule out an all-around talented team like the Cowboys at only Week 9, even if they sit at 1-6. Despite missing Romo, the Cowboys present playmakers at virtually every other positional group. And this is precisely why the Packers shouldn't sleep on America's team this week. A forceful pass rush and electric return game can create all sorts of problems if taken too lightly.

Our SB Nation friends at the Acme Packing Company have this vote of non-confidence in the Cowboys offense but are worried about the state of the Packers offense.

The state of the Packers offense has me worried, even against a struggling defense. But the Packers still have not been held to under 20 points in any home game this season. Will the Cowboys offense be able to fix all that's gone wrong over the past couple weeks and score some points (other than what they've scored in garbage time)? I'll expect the Packers defense to keep up the intensity, and thereby keep the score down. Packers 20, Cowboys 7.

And finally, straight from Madison, Wisconsin, comes this cautiously optimistic prediction for the Packers via Channel3000.com. While they concede that Green Bay’s offense is a dysfunctional mess, they expect their team to win regardless.

The Cowboys’ struggles have been one of the NFL’s biggest surprises this season, and the Packers could’ve suffered a similar fate. Instead, despite an injury epidemic and continued uneven play from what was supposed to be one of the league’s most potent offenses, they’re one of five NFC teams with five victories. The guess here is they get No. 6. Packers 27, Cowboys 20. (Season record: 5-3.)

We'll see.