There is about as much BLAME as there were FANS....

Spilling out of the Cowboys-Giants Inaugural Game at the new Cowboys Stadium, 2 themes came out of this historic game where 105,121 fans attended.

1. Romo is a bust…..
2. This team will underachieve for yet another season.
   

Since I spent ½ of the game too tipsy to even stand up. I spent a couple hours watching the game and putting my thoughts on this blog on my day off last Friday. I noted down every offensive and defensive series and chronicled what I thought went right or went wrong and who I felt was responsible.

Here are some of the common themes for the Cowboys Offense:

• WR’s can’t get open
• Good downfield blocking by WR’s
• Giants D adjusted to Cowboys play at the line of scrimmage to force turnovers
• Offense look good in the red zone
• Penalties kill drives
• Poor execution of all aspects of a play can lead to turnovers
• Jason Garret tends to panic when the Cowboys get behind
• Seems like Giants picked up on some tendencies on Garret’s play-calling or the formations we are running
• The Lead Draw is the "money" play
• Offensive line dominated huge running lanes, no sacks on Romo!

Here are some of the common themes for the Cowboys Defense:

• No pass rush
• Defense did a good job stopping run
• Manningham abused Scandrick (I mean like criminally)
• Jenkins actually played pretty well when he was in (I think this switching starters every week is over after this week)
• Lot of blitzing out of nickel which was very ineffective
• Giants WR’s making some circus catches
• Poor tackling
• If you heard the all of the talk about Demarcus Ware and did not know his #, you would think it was #90 (Jay Ratliff is a B-E-A-S-T)
• Penalties killing a lot of good defensive stops
• Safeties out of place a lot completely biting on play action
• If this was a hockey game they would pull Scandrick out of respect for his manhood (I think Steve Smith just went AI and broke his ankles and left him laying on the ground)
• Safeties still unable to cover TE’s
• We are playing the PREVENT defense with 4 minutes left and a 1 pt lead?
• Eli Manning appears to have mastered the 2 min offense.

As you can see despite Romo’s turnovers the offense put up 31 points and was actually pretty dominant. Definitely had Romo not turned over the ball the Cowboys may have won, but they actually could have won in spite of the turnovers had the defense just stepped up for one more drive.

So let’s evaluate the popular themes vs. what actually happened.

Romo is a bust!

Romo played awful, but he didn’t play “he is a bust” awful, he just had another awful game and the excuses a-r-e running out but you have to love that even when he plays awful the Cowboys still often find themselves in a position to win because he never gives up (excluding the Eagles game last season).

I think Garrett actually called a pretty good game, but a few things concerned me which I casually mentioned in my notes above. He panicked when we got down. Everyone cites the drive Romo threw the ball downfield as bad play calling by Garret, but I actually think this was a good call. The running game was dominant, conventional wisdom would be to ram the ball down their throat, but he wanted to catch them off-guard and burn them over the top with a pass downfield. The problem here is that the FS for the Giants was lined up 30 yards off the ball, and Sam Hurd was triple-covered on the play.

So the Giants evidently picked up that going deep on an obvious running down was a tendency for Garrett and they were ready for it. In addition, Romo did an absolutely awful fake to Barber to set up the pass.

This played out on an earlier play as well, the Cowboys lined up on the ball and the Giants were in man-to-man defense. The Giants LB Antonio Pierce saw the formation and audibled the defense into a zone and the DB was sitting in the perfect spot for an INT that turned into a TD for the Giants. It’s as if they knew exactly what the Cowboys were going to run out of that formation in that situation.

So back to Garret panicking… After the final Romo INT, the Giants scored and took the lead. Garrett sends the offense out and throws 3 straight downfield passes. You would have thought we were down by 20 points with 3 minutes left to play, when we were actually only down 6 with 11 minutes to play?? He should have been MUCH more patient and not panicked but stuck with what had been working the entire game. You change your game plan when it is not working, if it is working keep going to the well it won’t come up dry.

The other issue is the WR’s. I mentioned the offensive line play was dominant. Granted the Giants were down a couple of guys, but I watched them the week before just unload relentlessly on the Redskins and I truly felt Romo might not finish the game because he would get sacked so many times. That never happened, the offense rushed for over 250 yards and Romo never got sacked and rarely got pressured. So it makes you say why did we have 3 INT’s and only 127 yards passing if the offensive line was dominant?

The WR’s could never get open. The fault for this falls squarely on the management. There is just no excuse for the play we are getting at WR. We have been talking about this being a problem for years, even when TO was here, but this year to have a #1 WR that has been inconsistent throughout his entire career, and a group of guys that would make great 4th and 5th WR’s on most rosters is just unacceptable. yes, they can geenrate 300 yards of passing against bad teams, but at some point you need guys that play good against god teams....We are paying TO $9M and he is playing in Buffalo, and every week I have to watch WR’s drafted in the 3rd and 4th rounds going for 100 yards in a game. We have not drafted a top WR in over a decade. Even with additions of TO and Roy Williams you have to make an effort to find and develop young talent.

I see guys like Smith and Mannnigham for the Giants that were drafted in the 3rd and 4th rounds. I see players like Dwayne Bowe and Desean Jackson who are 1st rounders that we passed on who all indications are they will be top 10 WR’s. You don’t even have to leave the NFC East and see how every team has built a core of young WR’s that are paying huge dividends. While the Cowboys are still trotting out guys that we have been hoping would breakthrough for over 3 years…..

I saved my break down of the defense for another blog post. So let’s look at the other theme:

This team will underachieve for yet another season…..

What we really saw in this game is the better team won. When the Giants got the ball with 3 minutes left and only down by 1 point everyone in the stadium and watching on TV had a strong sensation the Cowboys were about to lose this game. Best case the Giants would score quickly and give the Cowboys offense a last second chance to come back. I couldn’t help but recall the week earlier watching the Ravens defense close out the Chargers in a similar situation. Thinking that is what good teams do, in crunch time whether it’s the defense or the offense on the field they close it out for the win. Although I could not appreciate it until the morning after this was a great game and when I review my picks for this season this is a game I felt the Cowboys would lose.

I am not sure what the expectation really should have been, you have a team that went 9-7 last season decide that they would actually get better by having less talent!!! This may actually work for team that goes 12-4 and loses in the Conference Championship, but this logic never works for teams that miss the playoffs. If the Cowboys can go 9-7 this season I think they will have actually OVER-ACHIEVED!!!!