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2009-2010 Regular Season: Postgame -
Fighting, Scratching, And Clawing To Victory
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- October 1, 2009 At 10:24 PM CST
- By
Eric M. Scharf
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- This game was a tale of two teams who were equally desperate for a
victory and for similar reasons.
The NFC East has continued its resurgence as an ultra-competitive
division, and the NFC South is struggling outside of the Saints and
Falcons. Beyond that sole difference, the Cowboys and Panthers both
needed a win to keep up and to display any sense of consistency and
mistake-free execution on offense, defense, and special teams.
The Cowboys had to fight, scratch, and claw until deep into the
fourth quarter to secure a victory against their opponent. If you
only saw the fourth quarter and knew nothing of how both teams
labored to finish the way they did, you would have thought it was an
exciting, well-played game by the Cowboys.
The truth is that this game seemed almost uninspired at times until
the fourth quarter. The defense was determined to turn in a
full-blooded effort equally and successfully defending the run and
the pass. Romo was determined to play mistake-free, leaving any
miscues to his increasingly maddening left tackle, Flozell Adams
who seems to be spending more time practicing Taekwondo on defenders
than he does defending his QBs blind side. Otherwise, the rest of
his teammates appeared to execute pretty well.
While it is always great to see my team win, this particular victory
was a bit mechanical rather than a natural progression based on
talent and execution. Romo seemed so focused on not making any
mistakes that he quite literally became more of a bus driver than
his former head coach Parcells ever wanted to see from him.
I have no desire to sound like a hypocrite after all of the times I
have hammered on Romo for making bone-headed decisions at the worst
possible moments, but he must be aware that over the course of two
games he went from one extreme of mistake-prone play to the other
of taking almost no chances at all.
Objectively Romo will do neither himself nor his teammates any
favors if he decides to wear a half-Nelson straightjacket for the
rest of his life. He like his defensive teammates must finally
be able to string together a series of games in which he guards
against horrible mistakes and also feels comfortable taking a few
calculated and adlib risks. The defense pulled off one complete
game against the Panthers and, now, they must repeat that
performance to prove they are for real one game at a time, for the
rest of the season. Romo, of course, has the same opportunity.
Let it not be said, however, that I ignored the chicken or the egg
perspective on the Cowboys performance. Either Romo was wisely
conservative and avoided his typical mistakes, or the Panthers
defensive secondary was completely clueless. Either the Cowboys
defenders played a solid, well-rounded scheme against the Panthers
offense, or Jake Delhomme made another handful of horrible turnovers
with untimely assistance from his star wide receiver, as well.
Depending upon which fan you ask, you get a different but determined
response.
Nonetheless, Felix Jones starting in place of the injured Barber
performed wonderfully, as expected. He held his own between the
tackles and tortured Panther defenders by repeatedly beating them to
the edges with his great speed. He was regularly finishing off his
pursuers with several longs runs, the last of which pre-maturely
ended his evening with a left knee injury later diagnosed as a
sprained posterior cruciate ligament. He could be out of action for
up to three weeks one of which is the Cowboys bye week. It is a
concern that Jones has suffered two other major injuries hamstring
and toe on the same side of his body in the past year, and if I am
worried about Felixs injury history, then, you can just imagine how
the Cowboys must potentially feel.
Before I get to any super intense hand-wringing, the third option of
the Cowboys thus-far impressive running attack is Tashard The
Peoples Choice who, once again, more than held his own with
almost 90 yards and 1 touchdown on just under 20 carries. While everyone should
expect Barber to return for the next game, Choice will obviously be
the starter. Choice should also continue to perform admirably in
both the passing and running game, unless the offensive line decides
to follow Flozell into his regressive pattern.
Speaking of the next game, the Cowboys are headed to Denver with the
hopes of taming the suddenly 3-0 bucking Broncos. We shall learn a
few more things upon the conclusion of the Mile High Mission. Are
the Broncos who endured a miserable off-season for real as one
of the unbeaten teams remaining in the NFL? Are the Cowboys capable
of turning in another efficient execution, limited risk performance
playing to their strengths and protecting against their
weaknesses?
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- We shall see. We always do.
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