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2008-2009 Regular Season: Postgame -
Give It Away, Give It Away, Give It Away Now!
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- December 7, 2008 At
12:38 AM EST
- By
Eric M. Scharf
The Red Hot Chili Peppers should license their hit song “Give it
away” to NFL films for the “2008 Cowboys Season in Review” that we
will all be able to see at the start of training camp for the 2009
season.
Romo could be absolutely brilliant all year long, and all it takes
is one game, against the “statistical” #1 defense, where he
literally gives away three interceptions (a la Troy Aikman in the
1994 NFC Championship Game against the 49ers, but with a little less
drama), and all of the good will or hope he builds up, for himself
and his teammates, just evaporates.
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- No, he will never throw Witten
(his best friend) under the bus, but, at the same time, the play he
ran had him looking to a specific spot, expecting Witten to be
there, and Witten was (according to the TV camera replays) well
within his sights (physically ahead of the areas to which he threw
on both plays; the pick-off and the failed 4th-down conversion).
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- So,
if before he throws the pass, he sees that Witten is not in position
to make a play (and he clearly, according to the replays, was making
no effort to go through his progressions or look off the defenders),
then, the blame should be shared near-equally between the two of
them.
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- More painfully, the Tony Romo we remember from last season
might have made the effort to go through his progressions (woulda', coulda', shoulda'
- hind sight is 20/20), but, at the very least,
he would have rolled away from his offensive line (even if they were
healthy and performing at their best) in an attempt to buy himself
and his receivers more time.
This particular loss, to an extremely lucky Pittsburgh Steelers team
that was outplayed for all but the end of the 4th quarter, just
stings too much. Cowboys’ fans, from every corner of the Earth, had
been railing on our defense for so many games, only to see them
begin to really pick it up over the past four games, and only to see
two of our typically most reliable offensive players hang the entire
defense out to dry, after such a powerful effort to basically shut
the Steelers down all day long.
Did the Cowboys defense (particularly Ken Hamlin) allow the Steelers
to score the go-ahead points on a shortened-by-interception field?
Yes, they certainly did, but that, sadly, is what can happen when
your quarterback (super star or not) gives the ball up so close to
his own end zone (with full acknowledgment that the defense was
eventually going to run out of steam, which must make Romo
clairvoyant).
It is going to take all week to get over such a wasted effort. Yes,
wasted, because, while moral victories were great during Jimmy
Johnson’s inaugural 1-15 season, they are simply no good in the
now-annual "right of self-torture" for the Cowboys in December of
the past few years.
Even if the Cowboys do make the playoffs, the fact that this kind of
performance will be lurking in the background (ready-to-ruin), gives
me very little confidence that I will eventually see the mental recovery
we all so desperately want to see from the Cowboys before the season
ends (rather, before they end their season in familiar fashion). I
am shaking my head so much I am hoping it is just rheumatoid
arthritis, rather than the onset of depression.
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