America's Team

So, the first of many of my entries will focus on one of the many surprises that has occurred in the NFL this season... the downward spiral of the Dallas Cowboy's, a.k.a "America's Team". Sure, they've had Brad Johnson as their starting QB for the last few weeks and Romo is most definatly a pivotal part of the offense, however, I would like to suggest that the downfall started before Romo's injury. Setting aside the fact the Terrell Owens wasn't happy with the way that Romo was distributing the ball before Romo went down with a pinky injury I saw a lot of things that were just waiting to go wrong; Namely the defense. The latest game against the Giants for example was a ridiculous display of a defensive effort. Has the defense been this deeply affected by the loss of Tony Romo? The only thing that has changed since Romo's pinky injury for the defense is the suspension of Pacman Jones, and quite frankly Pacman isn't the defender he was in Tennessee. I found it comical that Brandon Jacob's hardest fought yards were actually caused by a net behind the end zone while throwing the ball to fans after scoring a touchdown.

The offense actually does have an excuse to be performing at level they are, although with all the weapons on that side of the ball it really shouldn't be this bad. It was mentioned that watching the Cowboys Giants game was like watching a horrific train wreck very slowly getting worse and worse. I think that was a fair description. When a QB in Dallas starts playing poorly Terrell Owens shuts down, when T.O. shuts down, the whole Dallas franchise follows suit. One more observation, the offensive coordinator Jeff Garrett, was the league’s next popular pick for a head coaching job. I hope that people are starting to realize that maybe he’s not all he was cracked up to be, I mean come on, besides Tony Romo there’s still a handful of pro-bowlers on that side of the ball.

To end, what happened on Sunday was basically this, when the cowboys weren't turning the ball over on offense, they were letting Eli Manning drive the ball up and down the field using Brandon Jacobs as his bulldozer to clear the path. As nice as it will be to have Tony Romo back I don’t think that he is going to solve all of the problems the Cowboys are having right now. Unfortunately, coming in to this season the Cowboys basically anointed themselves the next super bowl champions, now though, I’m not so sure they will even make the playoffs.