Week 6 Analysis: 5-1

First, my apologies for not posting on last weeks game. I'll just sum up last week's game by saying this, Romo threw 5 picks, is defense bailed him out consistently, we just barely squeeked by with a win.

Now on to the Duel in Dallas that happened yesterday...

I knew the Patriots were the better team. Their 5-0 was more impressive than our 5-0. There were so many different duels going on that it often got hard to keep up with. Romo vs. Brady (Brady won), The player vs. R. Moss (pretty much a tie), Cowboys D vs. Patriots D. (Patriots won). Let's break it down...

Offense:
Once again, Dallas waited until the 2nd quarter to show up offensively. I kind of want to send Wade Phillips a letter requesting for his team to play a quarter of football before the game technically starts. That might solve a lot of problems.

Romo passed for just under 200 yards (as in, 199 yards). He had 2 TDs and 1 INT, which is quite an improvement from last week and against an even tougher defense. The biggest difference I saw is that Jason Witten was actually covered. Most teams playing defense against Dallas try to focus on taming the player, but New England focused more on Jason Witten than they did the player, and it was quite effective. Witten was constantly doubled and the New England coverage got tighter and tighter as Witten fought for space. They did a great job covering Witten. The receiving leader was The Player with 6 catches for 66 yards and a TD.

Julius Jones was the rushing leader for Dallas, carrying the rock for 51 yards in 6 attempts. MB3 was just behind him with 48 yards in 8 carries. I love that duo. They are 2 very different backs (one power, one speed) that the defense has to concentrate on. I could care less which one is #1 and which is #2.

Penalties killed us during this game, especially on the offensive game. This marks the 3rd game where Dallas had almost 100 yards of penalties. This is something Wade Phillips must address, we will not be a Super Bowl team if we continue giving away yardage like that. It eventually will catch up with us. We had illegal motions, illegal formations, not to mention the typical holdings and false starts. If I'm Wade Phillips, I'd give special attention to Flozell Adams. Mr. Adams is a penalty machine. He is the false start champion of the NFL and as far as I'm concerned he is more of a liability than an asset, I don't care how good of a blocker he is. He either needs to harness his penalties or someone else needs to see some of his snaps. Flozell's play has been extremely sloppy.

Defense:
Analyzing our defense yesterday is tough. It's tough because we didn't really play bad...but at the same time we couldn't stop them either. I can only think of 1-2 times where we had blown coverage or a big missed tackle. It's just that Brady is that good. He was placing the ball exactly where it needed to be. He squeezed it between two defenders and into the hands of a receiver flawlessly. I'm not exactly sure if Tom Brady cares if his receivers are double teamed. He can still place it where the two defenders can't get it but the receiver can. It's simultaneously amazing and confusing.

I hate blaming stuff on injuries, but this defense really misses A. Glenn. I wonder how different this season would be if we had our 1-2 cornerbacks on the field at the same time for more than 5 quarters this season. Yet that is exactly what it has been. Glenn and Newman have played together for a total of 5 quarters this season. Any other quarter it's been one without the other.

Besides coverage, the Cowboys were good at their run defense. Nobody had bigger than a 9 yard gain on the ground for the patriots. The Patriots averaged 2.5 yards/carry in their rushing attack, which was held to 75 yard total. It was a very solid rush defense but it didn't really matter because by the time they were consistently running the ball the game was already decided.

Closing comments:
Was this a Superbowl preview? I don't think I could give you two better candidates as of right now. This was a closer game than the score indicated. Several times it was a one possesion game and Dallas was winning at one point in the 3rd quarter. As a person who grew up playing organized sports, I know that good things happen when your team is humbled.

Other than horrible penalties and taking awhile for the offense to get going, Dallas didn't really play that bad. But New England is just that good. I take pride in the fact that Big D can play a good, close game with New England. Not many teams can.

Overall, I don't think this loss will hurt the Cowboys that much. They won't drop too much in the power rankings (at least, they shouldn't). The standings will have evened out in two weeks anyways, because big D has a bye week 8, during which the Redskins will have their crack at New England.

Next Week the Cowboys have the Vikings, who aren't the best at pass defense. We'll see if Big D. can rebound from a hard fought battle to pull out a win against the Vikes.