Like many of you, I was really impressed by the game called by Jason Garrett on Sunday.  In my mind, he was one of the causes for our disasterous outing last year.  It just seemed like he lacked the creativity to use all of the weapons he had.

I was reading this article by Bob Sturm, of Dallas area sports radio fame, and I now have a new appreciation for Red Jesus.  I know it's only the first game of the season, but from what I saw and apparently what shows on the tape that Sturm watched, Garrett has made a ton of progress this off season.  The innovations and schemes called by Garrett are pretty astounding.

A couple of interesting tidbits from the article:

How crazy is 52 plays for 462 yards? 8.9 yards per play. You may never see that again, so save the tape.

• I was impressed with the offense, but didn't realize that we were that good.

The other thing that I have learned in these last few years of my psychotic studying of Garrett’s trends is that he never falls into a pattern. He substitutes EVERY play (other than the 2 minute drill). Trust me, he does not have the same personnel Group on the field for 2 straight plays except on rare occasions. On Sunday, it took 45 plays for the Cowboys to run consecutive plays in their base offense with the same look. And, you could easily say that by that point of the game (late 4th Quarter) the Cowboys had iced away the contest and were merely trying to kill the clock.

• This explains why it looked why we were having problems getting lined up early in the game.  With so many substitutions, it's to be expected that we would have growing pains in the 1st game of the season.

He also talks a lot about the "12" offense and two tight end sets and reinforces a lot of what Rafael had to say about how much an impact Martellus Bennet had that didn't show up in his game day stats.

Another interesting bit of the article is the pass distribution list, which shows that Romo distributed the ball almost equally to Witten, Williams, and Crayton.  This is how we will make up for the loss of TO. 

Check out the article as there is all kinds of interesting facts in there.  Sturm does a good job of breaking down the film and the anatomy of plays and provides great insight.  It's kind of refreshing to have someone in the media that actually does their research.

I was checking my usual morning blog stops today when I came across an article written by Bob Sturm who is a local radio personality here in Dallas on 1310 The Ticket.  The article is one of the most succinct, well written articles on the great Romo debate.  I encourage everyone to check it out as it provides some telling stats and makes a clear argument on why Romo is one of the top 6-7 QB's in the league, though admitting that 2009 is a pivotal season in Romo's carrer as our QB.

Here's an excerpt from the article:

He is no longer a kid. They made adjustments to fit him. It is now a year for make-or-break. If he falls on his face in 2009, the Cowboys would be foolish to consider QB a position of strength.

But, it appears many in the public - yes, even Dallas fans - already have ruled him “not the guy”. He won’t ever win the big one, right? You don’t know he won’t anymore than I know he will.

I realize I have put my eggs in the Romo basket, and yes, I cringe when he appears to be a bit too “Hollywood” for my taste. But, I would like to say that I believe Tony Romo is the real deal, and while he may be a far cry from Mr. Staubach and Mr. Aikman, I would also say he is a far cry in the other direction from Quincy, Bledsoe, Vinny, Hutchinson, Henson, etc.

So I was reading this article by Mosley on his blog, and came across this gem:

Let me add this opinion on Manning to "freshen" things up a bit: I think he's hands down the best quarterback in the NFC East -- and perhaps the entire NFC.

Seriously?  Is Mosley high or does he really believe this?  I think maybe, maybe, the argument for NFC East can be made since he's the only one in the division with a ring.  But trying to set my rose colored glasses aside, I still think he is #3 in the division.  Now, you may argue that my Cowboys bias has something to do with that, but even ignoring the NFC east, I don't know that he's even in the top 5 in the conference. 

I guess Mosley just doesn't want to piss off a quarter of the readers of his blog.  What do you guys think?  What QB's in the NFC would you rank ahead of Manning?

I know this was expected, but here's the official story.  First TO and now Roy.  While I don't necessarily disagree with either move, this off season feels like we are saying forget this year, we're building for the future.  I hope neither of these decisions hurts us in the long run.  Seems like we should be looking for some help in FA otherwise we're going to be relying on a few rookies to play big roles.