Monday, November 12, 2007

The Beast of the East

Well, Dallas is now on top of the NFC East by 2 games (really 3 games due to the tie breaker Dallas now has over NY) and legitimately has a chance to run the table and go undefeated in the division. I'm not saying it will happen for sure but they stand a solid chance of doing it. Dallas surprised me for the second straight week. Last week, I was shocked at how easily the Cowboys ran over Filthadelphia. And this week, I was shocked that Dallas won, much less by double digits. The Giants needed the game more than the Cowboys but yet when the chips were down, Manning seemed to crumble. Dallas was able to apply enough pressure to get him thinking too much. This was evident in the delay of game penalties he took. How does a QB have 3 delay of game penalties in one game? No excuse for that. NY is a good team but they have some issues to solve it seems if they are going to go anywhere in the playoffs. Manning needs to get a little tougher and not get rattled so much when things break down.

Dallas played very well but even in the midst of playing well, they screwed up a bunch. The Cowboys are one of the most penalized teams in the league and yesterday was no different. The Dallas penalty that drove me absolutely batty was right before half time when Kevin Burnett tackled Brandon Jacobs and taunted him. It wasn't even a great tackle for a loss or anything like that. The off-shoot of that penalty was the Giants getting a field goal and taking back any momentum Dallas had pulled away from NY. My bald spot got bigger because of that penalty. If I were the coach, I would have sat his butt down and played him very sparingly in the 2nd half letting him think about what he did. But, it's lucky that I'm not the coach because it didn't seem to hurt Dallas in the long run.

I do have a thought or two about T.O. Owens. I've heard people say within the past few weeks that he is a changed man. I've heard people say he seems more at home in Dallas than in San Fran or Philly. I've heard people say that maybe a leopard can change it's spots. Well, I say that is all hogwash. Do I like T.O. Owens? No. Will I ever like him? I doubt it very seriously. He is a tremendous talent and I like what he can do for the team. But the man, I don't like...just as I didn't like Deion when he played in Dallas. I cheer for the team whenever Owens makes a great play or scores a TD. I cheer for the Star, not the player (in this sense at least). Owens is on his "best behavior" because Dallas is 8-1 and he has played a sizable role in that. If Dallas were 4-5 and he had only 4 TDs and 400-500 receiving yds, things WOULD be different...make no mistake. I still think he can be a disruptive force and can destroy ANY team (and he has even said as much) so I just hope the Cowboys can keep him happy.

If things collapse in December the way they did last year, then you WILL see the other side of T.O. Owens and it won't be pretty.

2 comments:

Lance Harbor said...

Dallas sucks. The Saints Rule.

Anonymous said...

Prediction:

Even after the Cowboys defeat the Packers in a couple of weeks, the media at large will still refuse to credit the boys. Instead, I predict that the Seahawks will be playing decent football at that time, and the media will hitch their wagon to them. Cuz' hey, they beat the Cowboys in the playoffs last year.