Week 1 Analysis: 1-0

Before I begin, thanks to everyone who made my birthday special. It was a truly wonderful and relaxing day. Thanks!

Now, onto last night's game. I'm glad we won, but that was not the Dallas Cowboys I was expecting. Here is the analysis:

Defense
After an entire offseason of hearing how Wade Phillips is going to bring this new specialized rush defense over from the Chargers, all I saw was hype and talk. Way too many tackles were being made by our defensive backs. The other Manning had way too much time to throw almost the entire game. It seemed as if there were entire drives where we didn't but a bit of pressure on Eli. This is something that cannot continue, it was our weakness last year and now it looks as if we have gotten worse. I'm not sure how much of this is the fault of the defensive play calling/lack of blitzing and how much of it is the players. Of course, I have to mention that T. Newman was out...which doesn't necessarily justify giving up so many passing yards, but it is worth mentioning nonetheless.

I was actually very impressed with our team's defense vs. the run. I know Derrick Ward was able to round up 89 rushing yards against us, but half of those were on one play. Other than that, the Giants were only able to get two here, three there on occasion with their rush game and weren't going anywhere. I don't want to look too deep into this, because the Giants aren't the hardest team in the league to stop on the ground since they don't have Tiki torch anymore.

Offense
Completely opposite of the Defense, the Offense was a lot better than I suspected, especially considering the Absence of Terry Glenn. Tony Romo is currently the NFL's leader in Passing yards and tied with TDs passes. When you're missing somebody like Terry Glenn, one person can't pick up the slack. It has to be everyone who picks it up! That is exactly what happened, especially Patrick Crayton who had 3 catches for 51 yards. Sam Hurd only had one catch, but he made it count, going for a 51 yard TD. "The Player" had 3 catches for 87 yards, 2 TDs. But how about Jason Witten! Tight-ends tend to get the shaft, constantly being overshadowed by Wide Receivers. We tend to think that Romo is looking "The player, then Glenn, then Witten". I'll say this though, If I'm Romo, Jason Witten would be more of my go to guy than the player or Glenn. Dat white boy got skill. Witten Caught 6 passes for 116 yards.

The Run game was as expected. As a team we rushed for 142 yards. Jones had 66 and Barber had 65 plus he got the TD. I've really become a fan of the double running back attack, that some teams are starting to integrate into their systems.

Next week we are on the road against the Miami Dolphins. Hopefully our defense can improve it's pass defense against the aging Trent Green.