Well the bottom quickly fell off the good ship Cowboys this past week. I'm still coming to grips with the fact that the season is over and all I have to look forward to now is asking "what if" and analyzing stats of obscure players for the upcoming draft.
For some reason the Cowboys have been plagued with a couple of criticle weaknesses these past few years. These weaknesses have not been covered up by the superior atheletes on the team. They were present under the highly controlled and strict Parcells regime and they were also evident under the laid back leadership of Wade Phillips. In my humble opinion, the Cowboys won't be able to step into the football Pantheon that the Patriots are currently hanging out in until these are corrected.
1) Penalties- In the two biggest loses of the year (Patriots and Giants) the Boys had multiple drives killed by penalities, particularly holding or offsides. This forced the Cowboys into 3rd and long situations that limited play calling. We have a very powerful line but we need to play as a complete unit. Hats off to the Patriots because they do.
2) Discipline- This one stems from the coach I believe. This is the other sucky edge of the sword that gave Phillips and the Boys their early success. They were loose and won during the early going. But come December and playoff time they didn't have the discipline to ratchet up the intensity. As a result we had costly penalties (think Davis mauling Ominura during Giants game) There aren't enough strong personalities in the locker room to keep players in check and keep them from being complacent. Once again the Patriots are successful largely because they are the most disciplined bunch of the lot.
3) Distraction- Holywood starlets, stupid comments by players, etc....These things distract players and create posterboard materials for the opposition. Take a lot at the damn Patriots. Their benign and politically correct statements give nothing to their opponents to use. Everything is kept in house and you never hear discussion about the Brazilian bombshells that Brady is dating.
4) Defensive Secondary- This one is more on the schemes employed. The Cowboys high pressure pass rush dictates that CB's play in tight man to man or bump coverage. This prevents the QB from dropping the ball off to his hot receiver. But for some reason the Cowboys played with a big enough cushion that would make the princess and the pea jealous. We were too worried about giving up the deep ball that we let teams nickel and dime us with the short pass. This is a huge concern and it needs to be addressed in the draft.
All in all we are so close. It will be difficult to replicate a 13-3 season but we have the talent to pull it off. We need to take care of the intangibles. These are the things that seperate the champions from the chumps. These are the reasons why the Patriots are what they are.
One more mystery. Why didn't the Cowboys get TO involved in the 2nd Half? The Giants secondary was completely depleted and ripe for the picking.
1 comment:
Well, the Cowboys have a lot of the tools. They will be good next year but I don't see that fire and discipline that is needed for a championship. I honestly don't think Romo brings any sense of urgency into that locker room. He doens't seem to care that much about football. He sees it as a nice way to make a living. He would prefer to win but if he loses he's like, "eh, that's ok, it's only football."
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