Cowboys Week 11

Well, I figured this game to be one of the biggest hurdles. I was afraid my stat of the week was going to be that, between Washington and Dallas, the team with a worse record at the end of the year actually has a 9-7 record against the "better" team each of the last 8 years. Even in Jimmy Johnson's 1-15 season, that one win was against the Skins. The NFC East is just a big rivalry that I see as the best in the NFL followed by the AFC West. So far, we are 4-0 in the East with only 2 more games to go, so that's saying a lot.

The biggest thing I've seen is our poise when we are behind and finding a way to win. It starts with all three bad snaps turning into no loss plays. That is where Romo is a real threat. He can turn nothing into something. I would trust him to replay that bad snap play again, if for no other reason than I know that Folk, unlike Gramatica, would slow down the guy that tackled him enough for him to get in the end zone.

We are still on pace for a home field deciding matchup a week from Thursday with Romo's idol Brett Favre and the Packers. Both the Packers and the Cowboys play on Thanksgiving (@ DET and v. NYJ, respectively) and then a week later in Dallas. Yes, I do believe with the experience and domination they are showing, injuries or strange things must happen for the Patriots to get beat in the Super Bowl. But, maybe Belichick's ego of playing Brady and the others enough to break Peyton's TD record and going undefeated will catch up with him and get someone hurt.

I know this sounds repetitious, but as each area of the team gets better, the glaring weakness continues to be Roy Williams covering tight ends as we gave up 89 yds and a TD to TE Chris Cooley. Williams continues to lead the team in tackles (8 this week) because they continue to go his way with the ball.

Talking about injuries, we have got to stay healthy. Our secondary is getting better (in spite of the 348 passing yds they gave up yesterday) as they get healthier. Hopefully Flozell is okay with just a 4-day rest before the Thanksgiving game. We have the Jets who come off an upset of the Pittsburgh Steelers, so we can't just look ahead to the Packers, but this should be a game to get past fairly easy.



Terrell Owens blew up again. He took credit for it by blaming his past coaches for not using him properly, but did give Garrett credit...not for being a good coach, but for giving him the ball...lol. And Romo continues to give TO the credit. That's just what I've been calling for and I love that Garrett and Romo embrace TO like that! TO had 8 catches for 173 yds and 4...count them, 4...TDs. That moved him to 3rd all time and quickly approaching Cris Carter in second. Romo needs just 3 TDs to pass Danny White for the season TD record for a Cowboy. He also needs 1 Super Bowl Victory to make sure he isn't labeled as another Danny White who got the stats but not a Championship like QBs below him on the stat records named Aikman and Staubach.

Stat of the Week: other than TOs obvious big game, 1 TURNOVER (1 INT, 0 FUMBLES)...gotta keep this low because it's hard to recover from them in the playoffs and big games!