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Alright, Jerry Jones has made some genius offseason moves in signing Terrell Owens in 2006, and then in 2007 he signed Jason Garrett before a head coach was even hired. Now comes another defining moment in Cowboys lore. The latest news on Garrett has him leaving Atlanta without a contract signed, so that makes two stops: Baltimore and Atlanta, and no contract. This bodes well for Cowboys Nation. We want Garrett back, Jerry knows exactly what is at stake here.

Jerry will have his chance to meet with Garrett in a serious one-to-one meeting in which Jerry will make Garrett the highest paid Offensive Coordinator in NFL history, that I’m sure about. In addition, he’ll get the Assistant Head Coach title. Garrett is a very smart guy and this should be the right decision for him. Show consistency with a high powered offense, build upon this past season and improve its prowess even more. Signing Garrett will also surely guarantee Barber will be signed next. Garrett is going to have some more say so on offensive personnel and having his “Emmitt” will be a premium.
Jerry, you’re on the clock, make it happen sir! Git’r done.

I know we haven’t played the most explosive football in recent weeks, but we have been winning games. We still need to come out as the aggressor, the homefield needs to be rocking, none of that wimpy non-existent cheering we’ve seen in other “big” games this year. You guys better show up for our boys.

One thing that I keep coming back to in this game is that we own Eli Manning, we have his number. We know it, and he knows it. He will come in the clutch and choke it up. I envision a return of our offense from the middle of the season; that of, pure explosion in the 2nd half. T.O. will play, Crayton is pumped, Witten is ready to take his All-pro game to the next level, and Romo wants this game more than anyone.

Romo has set goals to make up for the big let down last post-season, and he’s come full circle to this first game. The job is incomplete and he’s going to take us to the big game.

Get pumped! Go Cowboys!

Another so-so performance from the offense as far as points go, but a win is a win. This is not the type of performances we should be having this late in the season, and its definitely a concern. Romo looked to be back on track and the thumb did not seem to be a big factor, Marion Barber was back in form, and Witten continues to be clutch. The defense was shaky in the beginning, but they were able to ratchet down and shutdown the Panthers.

So, the Cowboys win and improve to 13-2, but they are still in a dogfight for homefield advantage with the surging Packers. The Cowboys will be on the road to close out the regular season against the much hated Redskins, who could also be battling for a wild card game, so this is going to be a huge game for both teams.

Historically, the Redskins have played the Cowboys tough, and this game will be no different. The Cowboys could be missing T.O. and this will be a big blow, I don’t care how other people may try to be optimistic, but get real. Without T.O. on the road, at Washington, a slowing offense…I don’t like those odds at all. I’m hoping for an upset from the Bears tomorrow so we can rest everyone against the Redskins and get that monkey off our back.

Players of the game (offense): Romo, Barber, and Witten

Players of the game (defense): Ware and Canty

The Packers are a soft 10-1 with the weak division they play in. On the other spectrum you have our Dallas Cowboys who have been battle tested each and every game, grizzled and foaming at the mouth with our game against the Pack.

We’ll win this game in a devastating fashion, and after the last whistle it’s going to be clear that the NFC Championship game is coming through Dallas. This is a Statement game for the rest of the league. We’re clicking on all cylinders and we’re taking names, Brett Favre & Co. will be the next victim.

Expect the same play from our ‘Boys as we’ve had all year. This game may be in reach in the first half, but the afterburners will kick-in and the beatdown will ensue. The torch will be passed from Favre to Romo in this game.

Maddencast: Cowboys 20 Packers 17

My Prediction: Cowboys 41 Packers 27

In a must win game for the Eagles the Cowboys came into the Linc and crushed them from the first play of the game until the end. The Quadruplets, Romo, Witten, Barber, and Owens delivered the knockout punch and never looked back. Fresh off his newly signed contract Romo threw 3 TDs/1INT for 324 yards. Jason Witten is money all day long, tough as nails, and when Romo is in doubt he’ll throw it to Witten. Marion Barber continues to show his skills, and has now entrenched himself as an elite back in this league, MB3=Production. Owens had a breakout game, and had his way with the Eagles secondary all game long.

Besides the Quads, The Defense continued to be disruptive, and they were all over McNabb all night long. Forced fumbles, sacks, and INTs all led to the Eagles further spiral down into the NFC East cellar. Good bye Eagles.

The Cowboys will have their hands full against the much improved Giants next week, but we should be able to set them in their place. The East is going through Dallas, we know it, they know it, and the rest of the East knows it. Tank Johnson will make his debut as well, so that’ll be a welcome addition to the NT rotation. We will show up and take care of business in our own division. Should be a good game.

BOXSCORE 

Rest of the East: Redskins defeat Jets, improve to 5-3. Giants on Bye Week.

The postgame for this game will be all about Romo, let’s put that out there right now. If we win the game, he gets headlines praising his new contract extension; however, if the Cowboys lose against the Eagles fresh off his new contract the media will turn it into some stupid blabber. Ignore it. We have our man, besides that, we are going to win this game against the Eagles. Jason Garrett has had two weeks to prepare the offense against the Eagles and it’s going to be a show, with Romo, Witten, Barber, and T.O as the featured headliners.

Keys to Victory

Penalties have plagued the Cowboys this season, and if the Cowboys plan on winning against the Eagles then the penalties must be minimal. Game management and opening drive defense needs to improve, I’m hoping to see Jason Hatcher in the opening drives.

Slow Down Westbrook and the Screen

The Eagles have a bad receiving corp, and knowing this, the Eagles will try to open up the receiving game by feeding the ball to Westbrook. They will try to execute some draw plays and the screen pass. The Eagles are one of the best teams when it comes to the screen pass. So, if we slow down Westbrook, we shutdown their entire offense, he’s their main cog in their talent depleted offense.

Beat Up McNabb

McNabb has not been the same since his last two major injuries, but he’s still effective. He’s definitely not as mobile, so if we get some pressure on him we should see some errant throws and if Ware should have a field day going against Winston Justice. We need to apply ample pressure on McNabb, if we do, we win this game for sure.

Cowboys @ Eagles
Lincoln Financial Field - Grass
NBC 7:15 PM CST
Analysts: John Madden and Al Michaels
NFL.com Gamecenter

The Rest of the NFC East:
Redskins @ Jets 12:00 CST
Giants on Bye Week

Browns Watch:
Seahawks @ Browns 3:05 CST
Join us for LIVE GAMEDAY discussion on the message boards!

Madden Forecast: Cowboys 13 Eagles 34
My Prediction: Cowboys 44 Eagles 27

Its a boring week with the Cowboys on their Bye Week. Thankfully though, we have some bye week news to keep our minds busy. The latest rumor hitting the net is Chad Johnson. Its believed Chad Johnson will NOT be with the Bengals next season. The Bengals will probably move the receiver in a trade or release him. There will be a market for Chad’s services, and look no further than Dallas for a potential landing ground.

Jerry Jones is seeing what the Patriots are doing on offense, and you can bet that Jerry wants the same, and adding Johnson would make our offense even more devastating than the Cheatriots. The thing about this scenario is money and the cap. We have ALOT of contracts that need to be attending to this offseason, core players like, Marion Barber and Tony Romo to name a few. Then you have players like Patrick Crayton and Keith Davis that play important roles, but could be seeking greener pastures. There’s going to be alot of money being spent this offseason.

The Greg Ellis Effect

The DMN Blog has this to say about the re-emergence of DeMarcus Ware:

Another pressure player emerging — The concern was whether another pass-rusher would emerge to take pressure off DeMarcus Ware. Rookie Anthony Spencer was solid, and Greg Ellis looks almost as good as ever. Ware was quiet the first two weeks, but he’s been a beast since then.

Anthony Spencer will develop this season, he’s shown flashes and still brings the pressure, but its clear that Greg Ellis is a boss at OLB, he’s back, he’s the real deal and has always been solid with the pass rush. DeMarcus Ware can thank his latest successes on the return of dominance, Greg Ellis. We saw it last year, and this year just proves that with Ellis in the lineup, Ware gets more pressure. Ellis is a great asset.

Start Hatcher

That’s all that needs to be said. How much longer is Phillips going to keep Jason Hatcher from starting? Hatcher is clearly the player we need at DE. We need to stop teams on their opening drives, we need more pressure, and that means Hatcher. Hatcher is a playmaker on defense, he brings the heat, and has a high motor. Seriously, start Hatcher already. I’m gonna take a twist from T.O.’s “Getcha popcorn ready” and give Hatcher his one liner he can use in locker room interviews: Getcha gurnies ready

The Rest of the East

While the Cowboys are off this weekend, the rest of the East will be on the road and they will have their hands full. I look forward to watching these losers lose in their games this weekend.

Giants @ Dolphins: The Giants should win this game, but the Dolphins will play them hard, and they will not let them win easily. Should be a decent game. Go ‘Fins!

Eagles @ Vikings: The Eagles have fallen on hard times this year, and will probably play spoiler towards the end of the season, as they are on pace to having a losing season, they could knock out someone in the NFC East race down the line. The Vikings probably win this game at home. They have a good defense, and Peterson should be able to run over the Eagles. After another Eagle’s loss the “start Kevin Kolb” drums will beat louder. I love it.

Redskins @ Patriots: The Patriots are going to destroy the Redskins, we’ll be taking notes, and when we play the Redskins we will destroy them as well. The Redskins don’t have a chance in this game. I hoping both teams get beat up though. I can’t stand the Patriots and Belicheat, and I really hate the Redskins even more.

Let me preface this by apologizing to my avid fans, its been busy at work and home, so the blog has not been updated as much as I had hoped this past week. We’ll back to the normal article load this week. Now, back to the state of Cowboys Nation… The fans showed up against the Vikings this week, so that’s a positive. The Cowboys defeated the Vikings, but it was not a very convincing or dominating win, and this brings me to the big controversial question:

Are We Overrated?

Yes, I’m asking it, I did not studder. I’m posing the question. If you want to throw down your two cents post your response in our fanpacked message board. For now, I will take a look at our recent “body of works” and you can be the judge.

Personally, I would not say we’re overrated per se; however, I don’t think we’re as good as our record (6-1) would indicate. This version of the Cowboys has a supercharged offensive scheme with Garrett at the controls, and the defense has improved somewhat since week 1. If you look at ALL of our games, we have faced some sort of adversity, mainly penalties. Penalties have throttled down our scoring potential immensely, and its going to catch up to us sooner or later.

We have been a 2nd half team all year long and we’ve kept teams in the game up all year. The Patriots played well, but we clearly beat ourselves, so this is somewhat encouraging. Meaning, if we didn’t commit so many dumb penalties, we could have won this game, it didn’t happen, and the end result was a large helping of rancid Clam Chowder.

The Buffalo game, was just a miraculous game, but we played horrible. A mix bag of penalties and tons of turnovers. With some luck, and bad defense by the Bills, we pulled out the win, but we looked bad.

Same thing with the Rams. We did not win the game until the second half. For a brief time, I thought we were going to get upset. I felt it, you felt it too, but we won the game.

The game at Chicago and at Miami was close until the 3rd Quarter.

Point is, we’re not the completely dominating team that our record indicates. When you think 6-1 you think we’re just kicking people’s ass all game long, you think we have a dominating defense and dominating offense. We have a really good offense, but the defense is still catching up.

Then this game against the Vikings was good, but not dominating. Yes, I know we cannot dominate every team and I know we cannot win all the games; however, when you think about our Super Bowl teams in the past, we won in dominating fashion. The Colts and Patriots are winning in dominating fashion. We’re winning right now, but its not very convincing to me. Call me spoiled, call me a pessimist, but I’m being honest. We roll into these games, and let all these teams in the game. The Bills exploited both sides of the ball, the Patriots did the same thing, the Vikings stayed in the game despite having a crap passing game. The Rams, Dolphins, Buffalo, and Vikings are bad teams, these are teams we should have destroyed early in the first half. We failed to do that. Fix that stuff!

Penalties and lack of discipline are keeping this team from being a completely dominating team. Right now, we’re the cream of the crop in the NFC, but the rest of the East is hot on our tails. There is no room for error, and no room for floundering down the stretch. We have a stretch of games that will test our innerself. Two straight games on the road with divisional rivals - the Giants and Eagles. But we do have some help with three straight home games as we host the Redskins, who always play us hard. Then we host the Jets in a “trap game” Then a possible preview to the NFC Championship game against the Packers. The rest of the season is not any easier: @Detroit, Philly, @Carolina, @Washington which could have major playoff positioning implications.

We are very capable of winning all these games. I don’t see any of these teams slowing down our offense, but the penalties need to be cut down if we’re going to get to the big game. If we keep playing the way we’re playing, teams will use our slow, sloppy starts and beat us up. Championship teams get into the postseason with convincing fashion and they peak when the time is right. Will we be that team? The second half of the Cowboys season is coming, get ready!
Enjoy the bye week, we have ALOT of work ahead.

The Cowboys must make a statement at home, and they must attend to some unfinished business on the field - slow starts. The marquee matchup will be Peterson versus our defense. The Vikings passing game is a joke, they have really bad receivers that can’t catch. We should be able to destroy the Vikings at ease.

Keys to Victory

Penalties have plagued the Cowboys this season, and if the Cowboys plan on winning against the Vikings and beyond, then the penalties must disappear. Concentrate and keep the drives going

Slow Down Peterson

Slowing down Adrian Peterson should be a deal sealer, and give the Cowboys a win; however, if Peterson runs all over the defense, then the Vikings will be in the game. Stop Peterson, Win the game

Concentration

The Cowboys need to do a better job on the offensive side of the ball. There’s been way too many stupid penalties from every position on that side of the ball. Illegal shifts, illegal motion, false starts from the line and receivers. Concentrate, please.

Vikings @ Cowboys
Texas Stadium - Artificial Grass
FOX 3:15 PM CST
Analysts: Kenny Albert, Troy Aikman, and Pam Oliver
NFL.com Gamecenter

The Rest of the NFC East:
Cardinals @ Redskins 12:00 CST
49ers @ Giants 12:00 CST
Bears @ Eagles 3:15 CST

Browns Watch:
On Bye

Join us for LIVE GAMEDAY discussion on the message boards!

Madden Forecast: Cowboys 24 Vikings 28
My Prediction: Cowboys 34 Vikings 20

The Patriots are who we thought they were and we let them off the hook. We beat ourselves with the penalties, plain and simple. We fall to 5-1, but remain atop the NFC. Let’s regroup and look forward to the Vikings.

Barber looked good, the defense was ok, but just gave up at the end. Sloppy tackling reared its ugly head, and with a team like the Patriots, you will lose that battle everytime.

We need Terry Glenn back to give us the deep threat. That would have helped out in this game. Terry, help us!!

Overall, I’m very disappointed in our lack of concentration. We should have won this game, but we can’t win them all, can we?

BOXSCORE