Dallas Cowboys

News, Notes Injuries …

October 16th, 2008

Craig

Were heading into the grind, the half way point of the season. Were starting to see who the contenders are and who the pretenders are. Injuries are starting to pile up for teams and there depth will be tested. The trading deadline is over, the rosters are set and it is time to make a run for the playoffs. There are some major questions surrounding big market teams and questions will need to be answered in the next few weeks about the rest of the season. Lets get ready to find out which teams are ready to make there runs and prove they are Super Bowl contenders.

Dallas Cowboys - What is going on in Big D, injuries, trades and suspensions have dominated the headlines this week. First off “Pacman” Jones has been suspended indefinitely by the league, and is anyone surprised. Jones knew when he got reinstated prior to this season that any screw up know matter how small would get him suspended again. He got into a fight and know he may not play for the rest of the year. If this guy wants to play football ever again, he needs to figure this stuff out and stop it. Losing “Pacman” is a big loss, but nothing compared to the injury status of QB Tony Romo. Romo has a broken pinky and will be out as the starter for up to 4 weeks. We have already heard rumblings from there all pro wide out Terrell Owens about not getting the ball enough and now 40 year old Brad Johnson will be the starter in Dallas. As if all this wasn’t weird enough the Cowboys went out and traded for highly talented, yet under achieving wide receiver Roy Williams. I makes no sense to me you have Owens complaining because he isn’t getting the ball, so you go out and get another wide receiver who will want the ball as well. Not to mention the fact that the Cowboys best chance to win might be by running the ball with Barber. I don’t know how this is all going to play out, we all remember what Owens can do when he isn’t happy with an organization. Maybe this will work out perfect, maybe Owens is happy to lose catches to Williams, maybe Johnston plays like he’s 28 again and maybe even “Pacman” gets back on the field. All I know is there is going to be a lot of question marks that need answering in Dallas over the next few weeks, it should be entertaining to watch.

AFC East - This division has been owned by the New England Patriots for a long time, but we might be seeing a changing of the guard. The Buffalo Bills have gotten off to a 4 -1 start and the Dolphins and Jets are playing better then a lot expected. All these teams have soft schedules and may have better records then they should. In week 7 a big game between the Chargers and Bills to see whether or not the Bills are for real and can take charge of this division. On Sunday it looks like Bills QB Trent Edwards will play, giving them a much better chance of competing with the Chargers. I think this might be the best division to watch coming down the stretch this year, no one is out of it and if they all play well they all might have a chance at the division crown.

Shaun Alexander signs a one year deal with the Washington Redskins
Willie Parker (Pit), Joseph Addai (Ind), Felix Jones (Dal) are all injured running backs
Carson Palmer (Cin), Matt Hasselbeck (Sea) are both out as QB’s this week

Most Valuable Player - It’s a little early, but lets take a look at who have been the best players and front runners for the MVP this year. Lets start a QB and take a look at Drew Brees. Brees leads the league in throwing yards, with 12 TD passes so far this year. Drew has a QB rating of 105 and is probably the front runner so far, if the award was given out today he would win. Other QB’s Jay Cutler and Kurt Warner are also off to great starts and if they keep it up will be in the MVP discussion at seasons end. If you want to look at running backs, you need to start with the Redskins Clinton Portis. Portis is averaging almost 5 yards a carry and has amassed 640 yards and 6 TD’s so far this year. If you had to pick an MVP right now it would be between Portis and Brees, both guys have led there teams thus far. If you want to look at wide outs Greg Jennings (GB), Roddy White (Atl) and Larry Fitzgerald (Arz) are leading the league at this point.

Playoff Predictions - There are still a lot of question marks, but lets make some early season playoff predictions. In the AFC I think Pittsburgh and Tennessee will win there divisions pretty easily. The other two divisions aren’t that easy, but I like the Bills to hang on in the East and the Chargers to start playing better and win the West. The two wild card spots will be grabbed up by the Colts and Patriots. The NFC division winners will be the Packers, Panthers, Cardinals and Giants. There is going to be some very disappointed teams here, but I think the wildcard teams will be the Cowboys and Saints. Potential Super Bowl match up Pittsburgh Steelers vs New Orleans Saints ??

Predictions are what they are, fun to examine, but ultimately only time will tell. I think we should see a lot of great battles over the next few weeks and after that I will take a look and re-evaluate my MVP and playoff predictions. The biggest story over th next couple of weeks will be the Cowboys, they have a lot of talent and if they some how can manage to use all of it they will be great.

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October 15th, 2008

Craig

Well, that was quite the week of games in the National Football League. The underdogs came to play and they came to win. The season to this point is an unpredictable one, and week 6 was a hard one to figure out. Some teams won, that most people would have given no chance. Teams that were on a role hit road blocks and some teams playoff hopes are starting to look bleak.

Cleveland Browns 35 – New York Giants 14
On Monday night the under achieving Browns beat the undefeated Giants. This was a sloppy game for both teams, lots on penalties and bad defense. The Browns haven’t shown life all year and up until this week the Giants have looked close to perfect. It was a close game until the fourth quarter, but Cleveland put up 15 unanswered points to steal the victory from the Giants. The highly touted Browns offense finally woke up, QB Derek Anderson threw for 310 yards and Braylon Edwards had 154 yards and a touchdown threw the air. Eli Manning for New York had by far his worst game of the year throwing for 3 interceptions and throwing for less then 200 yards. The key to the Browns victory was there 3rd down conversions, converting 9 of 13 for 69%, a lot of which were long yardage situations. Everyone in Cleveland hopes this game will catapult the Browns, they are talented and should be this good. No doubt the Giants fans are worried, but I think they are fine, every team has a bad game some times.

St Louis Rams 19 – Washington Redskins 17
This one is hard to explain, the Rams have been brutal and the Skins were on a roll. If you look at the box scores, before the outcome you could have easily assumed Washington won this game, but they didn’t. The Rams didn’t score an offensive touchdown, but they did get a fumble recovery TD by the defense. Neither team played overly well, both were bad at 3rd down conversions, there were 11 punts and 17 penalties in the game. The player of the game was easily Josh Brown, the kicker from St Louis, he went 4 for 4 on field goals. Brown hit a 49 yard field goal with no time left on the clock to give the Rams there 1st victory of the season. Basically the Rams stole this game, they only had 200 yards of offense, Steven Jackson had less then 80 yards on the ground and were 0 % in the Red Zone. Those aren’t winning numbers, but they did take advantage of Campbell’s one mistake when the recovered his fumble and returned it for a touchdown. Basically I think this was one of those games, Washington may have been caught looking past St Louis and the Rams took advantage. The Rams fans should be happy, they got a win, and the for Washington fans hopefully your team learned a lesson that they will use for the rest of the season.

Arizona Cardinals 30 – Dallas Cowboys 24
This was the game of the week, and the underdog Cards pulled it out in over time. This game ended as dramatic as a football game can end, Cowboys Kicker Nick Folk hit a 52 yard field goal with no time remaining in regulation to force overtime. In overtime the Cardinals block a punt and scored a touchdown to beat the heavily favored Cowboys. If you like to watch passing offenses I hope you watched this game, combined the teams had 520 plus yards threw the air. Dallas is the best team on paper in the NFL, but they haven’t looked very good for 3 straight weeks now. Owens had less then 40 receiving yards and they only rushed for 73 yards as a team. The Cards on the other hand are playing great football and look like they might be surprise competitors in the NFC this season. Dallas lost this game on the defense and offensive lines and will need to fix that if they want to win a Super Bowl this year. That is not going to get any easier with QB Tony Romo being hurt and the suspension of “Pacman” Jones. The Cardinals need to keep working hard, they play in a weak division and look like they are the favorites to get into the playoffs.

San Diego Chargers 30 – New England Patriots 10
Not a big surprise that the Chargers won this game, but I was surprised at how easy it was. San Diego jumped out to a 27 – 3 lead and controlled the entire game. The Chargers scored with relative ease and the Patriots had no answer. For the Patriots it might be time to consider that they might struggle all year with Matt Cassel at QB. He can’t seem to get the ball to Randy Moss and on top of that the Patriot run game is almost non existent. For San Diego Rivers is playing great at QB and as Tomlinson gets healthier they will start to take control of the AFC. I never thought I would say this, but the Patriots will have to figure out a way to move the ball and play some defense or they will miss the playoffs. The Chargers started slow last year as well and I think this win will help them become the best team in the AFC for the rest of the year. New England is going to have to battle every week and if they don’t they might be in big trouble.

Week 6 was a perfect example of anything can happen in the NFL. Undefeated teams can lose and the underdogs can win. I should mention that the Detroit Lions almost made this list after they gave the Vikings a run, but came up short in the end. This was a great week of football and I can’t wait for week 7.

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October 10th, 2008

Alston

Some guys just don’t get it, or have any common sense. You can add Adam “Pacman” Jones to that list. Either he doesn’t care or he is just one of the dumbest individuals ever to play professional football. Jones got into an altercation with one of his bodyguards. Are you kidding me? With his bodyguard? One of the bodyguards that the team and owner Jerry Jones assigned to him.

Either Adam Jones was drunk out of his mind during the altercation or the former “Make it Rain” in the gentlemen club guy was just being himself. Adam Jones knew coming into this season that he was going to have to be on his best behavior all day every day. Per the NFL commissioner Roger Goodell – due to Adam Jones past behavioral problems with his former college and pro teams the West Virginia Mountaineers and the Tennessee Titans. Commissioner Goodell is not a guy to play around with, as Adam Jones already knows via his year long suspension from the league last year. The other Dallas Cowboy teammates are now having to answer questions about Adam Jones behavior; instead of questions about their upcoming opponent – the Arizona Cardinals. Well owner Jerry Jones said that the Cowboys won’t do anything as far as punishment so Adam Jones is going to lineup against the Cardinals. I wonder if Adam Jones is going to get a couple of questions from Larry Fitzgerald or whoever Adam Jones has to cover to try to get inside of his head to throw off his game. Well I’m sure that the Arizona Cardinals fans will have some pretty nasty things to say to Adam Jones while he is on the sideline. I can’t wait to see all of the interesting signs that the fans will have made for the pleasure of Mr. Adam Jones. There might be – Starring Kevin Costner and Adam Jones in ‘The Bodyguard’ or ‘Who needs enemies when you have a Bodyguard’.

Everyone heard all summer how much Adam Jones was a changed man; from former Cowboy star – now NFL network employee Deon Sanders to Dallas Cowboys head ball coach Wade Phillips. Just seems like it was what a lot of people were hoping for – the best, maybe wishing upon a star. Seems like it is more of the same for Adam Jones. Doesn’t matter if he changed his name or not. If Adam Jones doesn’t change his character it won’t matter. Adam Jones needs to realize that he doesn’t want to be talked about being a wasted talent who couldn’t stay out of trouble and ruined his NFL career – like former potential NFL star Lawrence Phillips who was just sentenced in Los Angeles to 10 years in prison after being convicted of assault with a deadly weapon. Adam Jones might not be on this horrible of a path but it is possible. After getting a couple million dollars a year most athletes don’t know what to do with themselves after the NFL. Unfortunately that sometimes lead to trouble.

Whatever signs or harassment that Adam Jones will experience this Sunday, he better stop for a second and take it all in. This could be the last game that Adam Jones plays in the NFL for awhile.

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October 1st, 2008

Alston

Okay everyone in the world is going to pick the Dallas Cowboys to win over the Cincinnati Bengals. The Cowboys have looked like the best team in the NFL the first three games of the season; until they looked human against the Washington Redskins this past Sunday. The Cincinnati Bengals are winless, and they might not have Carson Palmer as their starting quarterback due to injury. Yet, for some strange reason, this game is getting a lot of energy. For one reason or the other, it seems like this game could be the upset special of the weekend in the NFL. Or it could be the biggest blow out of the weekend. Doesn’t seem like there is a lot of gray area for this game. I don’t think to many gamblers will be putting money on this game.

Cedric Benson who was cut by the Chicago Bears and was the Bears number one draft pick in 2005 – was recently picked up by the Bengals to play against the Cowboys in his home state where he was a star at the University of Texas as a running back. That could pay huge dividends for the offensive struggling Bengals. The biggest X factor is wide receiver Chris Henry. His four game NFL suspension is over and Henry is eligible to play this weekend for the Cowboys. Henry has a tremendous amount of talent and size as a receiver. That has never been a problem for coach Marvin Lewis and the Bengals organization. The problem has been what is between Henry’s hears. Or the lack of what is between his ears. Since this will be the first game that Henry has played in this season, expect him to be ready to contribute in a big way. And at this point the Cincinati Bengals and coach Lewis have nothing to lose at this point. That is one of the reasons that this Bengal team is dangerous.

The closer that the Bengals stay in this game, the more the pressure will mount on the Dallas Cowboys. The more pressure in a close game, the more likely Terrell Owens will get frustrated with the number of plays he is involved in. The more frustrated Terrell Owens get with the lack of what he perceives of plays involved with him, the more Tony Romo will get an ear lashing. The situation in Dallas could get ugly with T.O. Just ask quarterback Donovan McNabb of the Philadelphia Eagles. Okay, you could ask any random NFL fan. A loss to hated rival Washington Redskins was bad enough for Jerry Jones. But if the the Dallas Cowboys lost to the the lowly, winless Cincinnati Bengals — well just say the locker room of the Cowboys would be interesting to say the least. It would pay big time to be a fly on the wall in that locker room after the game.

That is why this game could be an upset — all the pressure in the world for Dallas, while there isn’t any one outside of Cincy who believes they can win.

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September 28th, 2008

Alston

You knew that sooner or later it would happen. Terrell Owens eventually was going to stop being Mr. Nice guy and politically correct in his statements to the press. “It’s no secret, when I get involved, we move the chains. When I don’t, we were more stagnant on offense,” T.O. said. You knew that he was frustrated with the number of footballs thrown his way this year. He didn’t have any room to say to much about it because his Dallas Cowboy team kept winning. T.O.’s Cowboy team was not just winning, but winning big. A lot of the football experts and sportscasters were already crowning this year’s Cowboy team the Super Bowl champions.

This years Cowboys team was forecasted to be the team to challenge the 1972 Miami Dolphins undefeated team. Not so fast my friend. You know that today’s loss to the hated rivals Washington Redskins hurt, especially with it being the last game that they will play the Redskins in Texas stadium. The Redskins are looked at the fourth best team in the NFC East division behind the Cowboys, New York Giants, and the Philadelphia Eagles. The way the that the Eagles and Giants are playing this year makes this NFC East division the toughest division in the NFL by far. It’s like the SEC conference with Florida, LSU, Alabama, and Georgia of the NFL. Whatever two teams makes it out of this division to the playoffs this year will definitely be battle tested. T.O. understands this like the rest of the Cowboys team, which is why he is frustrated even more. T.O. and the Cowboys didn’t expect to lose to the Redskins, especially not at home. Owner Jerry Jones has spent championship money on this Cowboys team this year. This is the year that everyone not only expects its first playoff win in many years, but the Cowboys expect a Super Bowl. They will tell you about it. This team is confident and cocky, maybe a reflection of T.O. Adam Jones called the loss a “reality check”. It seems like some of the players forgot that in the NFL you have to strap it on and get ready play every game. Any team in the NFL can be defeated on any given Sunday. We’ll maybe not the St. Louis Rams beating a team, but every other NFL team can if the other doesn’t bring its “A” game. We all know that T.O. loves getting his attention from the media. He hasn’t gotten his usual love because the wealth is being spread around the whole offensive by Offensive Coordinator Jason Garrett; who will eventually become head coach when owner Jerry Jones deem him to be ready to take over for head coach Wade Phillips. What the Dallas Cowboys have done is put a tremendous amount of pressure on themselves with the “Super Bowl win or bust” theme that has been going around in Dallas. Its the type of pressure that kept mounting for the New England Patriots last year with each and every win in the regular season and playoffs.

Similar to what Adam Jones said about the loss, this could actually have a positive affect on the team. The loss takes the pressure off of having an undefeated season for Dallas. A couple of more losses and the T.O. that we all know will be back. We saw a glimpse of him tonight.

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September 16th, 2008

Neal

The Dallas Cowboys are one the most successful football franchises in the history of the NFL. The Cowboys have been to eight Super Bowls (more then any other team) winning five of them (tied with the Pittsburgh Steelers all-time). Unlike many other National Football League franchises the Dallas Cowboys have a brief history, but a very rich one. With their creation in 1960, the Dallas Cowboys have a winning traditional and have become know as the “Americas Team”. The blue star on their helmet represents success, pride, and honor to be a Dallas Cowboy. The Cowboys were the team of the 1990′s winning three Super Bowls out of four years and obtaining the most wins in the decade.

The Cowboys were in Texas but had the image of a Hollywood star, no pun intended. Being a Cowboy was a glamorous one at that with the entire football world focused on the players, even more if they were winning. The Cowboys are not just another NFL team but a high profile institution. The saying is, “Everything is bigger in Texas.” They sure live up to that saying by promoting their players as much as they can but also maintain the basic principal of winning. They were always looking to enhance their image to bigger and better lengths. Being a quarterback on the Cowboys wasn’t just another position on the team, it meant you were given the national spotlight and had to live up to the reputation set by previous Cowboy greats. Even cheerleading for the Dallas Cowboys is considered to be a prestigious honor above all other NFL teams.

There have been countless Hall of Fame players who wore the star such as Roger Staubach, Tony Dorsett, Emmitt Smith, Troy Aikman, Michael Irvin, Coach Tom Landry. Tom Landry has the third most all-time wins among NFL coaches with 270. There are currently ten Hall of Fame players who dawned the Cowboy name which included, Troy Aikman, Tont Dorsett, Tom Landry, Mel Renfro, Tex Schramn, Bob Lily, Roger Staubach, Michael Irvin, Randy White, and Rayfield Write. Emmitt Smith who played with the Cowboys from 1990-2002 winning three Super Bowls with fellow teammates Troy Aikman and Michael Irvin, is the all-time leading rusher in NFL history with 18,355 rushing yards. He also leads all running backs with 175 total touchdowns and is a member of the 1990′s All Decade Team.

The Dallas Cowboys don’t retire numbers but place the names and number in the Ring of Honor to commemorate the players and honor them for their contributions.

While the Cowboys a tradition of winning, their last playoff win came in 1996 when they defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XXX 27-17. Despite not having won a playoff game in over a decade the Cowboys are one of the most valuable franchises in all of sports being estimated at over $1.6 billion. When the Dallas Cowboys are successful the rest of the NFL becomes even more successful. They are the team fans either love or hate and rarely is there a middle ground. With very competitive rivals in the NFC East who include the New York Giants, Philadelphia Eagles and the Washington Redskins, the Cowboys are frequently in the eyes of many NFL teams as the team to beat especially within the division.

The blue star is one of the most famous symbols in American sports and when the Cowboys are winning, that blue star shines even brighter.

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NFL

National Football League, Playoffs, Teams, Games, Articles, News and Match Analysis

News, Notes Injuries …

Week 6 Surprise, Surprise

Adam Jones still is Pacman

Can the Bengals upset Big D?

Terrell Owens shows frustration

NFL Team Profile – Dallas Cowboys

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