Doesn't Wade look creepy in this picture?

Promote Sherman, Hire Irvin

Jason Garrett is now the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys… err interim head coach, something or other.  Anyways, that means that Wade Phillips is out the door, effectively separating the team from their head coach and their defensive coordinator.

Should Wade have been filling two pairs of shoes?  Wade has a big gut, but I don’t think it’s big enough to conceal a second pair of feet.  He clearly is only one man and should have never been asked to take on the role of Head Coach.  Yes, let that sink in.  He should have never been the coach.  Jerry should have went with his gut, and hired Jason Garrett to be his head coach and then got Wade Phillips Dom Capers (thanks dave33) to become his defensive coordinator.  Alright, well we don’t live in the past, but since history has a way of repeating itself I figured that was worth bringing up.  Now let’s tackle the task at hand.

Jason Garrett appears to be changing things right now.  Yeah, it’s one practice in as HC of the DC, but he slapped them in full pads today and, from everything I’ve read and heard, he has made it very clear that these men will be working their tails off for the next eight weeks or they will be shown the door.  We will see how it all pans out, but so far so good. 

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I know I made a post a few weeks ago about this but it looks like it actually happened.  I'm not sure how I feel about it now though.

The Cowboys placed Marion Barber on Thursday’s injury report with a knee injury that limited his practice at Cowboys Stadium.

Barber practiced on Wednesday but apparently had a minor setback. Fortunately for the Cowboys, running back Tashard Choice returned to practice on Thursday after missing the last two days because of symptoms relating to a slight concussion he suffered in the last game.

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I decided to make an easy to read chart for all the possible first round playoff scenarios that the Cowboys might face.  Also, because the three games that matter all seem to be a toss up that either team could win, there is a table showing the percentage of each outcome.  Enjoy!

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Ha!  Made ya look. 

Marion Barber is not injured but honestly, I wish he would stub a toe or something in practice and get ruled out of the game this Saturday.  It's apparent that Jason Garrett will run with Barber as the starter as long as he is on the team.  He's making the money so he gets to play the majority of the running plays whether he is effective or not.  That's cool if you want to make him feel better about struggling this year, I guess, but I am not concerned about his ego. 

I'm concerned about winning games and the way he has been utilized does not give the Cowboys the best chance to win football games.  He is not an every down back.  There is only one back on the roster that is capable of being an every down back and he has shown it time and time again when the injuries start piling up.  If Wade and Garrett would just get tape of this player in all his starts that he has with the orginization, they will find that there is a guy with a reputation for pounding even the toughest of defenses for both rushing and receiving yards.  That guys name is Tashard Choice.

That's my rant.  Spare me any comments about how much you love Barber.  I don't care how much you love him or how you can skew the numbers.  The fact of the matter is this:  Barber is not the back that Garrett is trying to use him as.  Plain and simple.

The top three RB's with the highest yards per attempt (minimum 50 attempts):

Also receiving attention:

I just found it interested that 2 of the 3 RB's in the league averaging over 5.5 yards a run were found on the Cowboys roster.  Also, as a Pro-Choice advocate, I think it shows that they are under utilizing these two backs. 

Go Cowboys!  Pretty excited about seeing the stadium for the first time this weekend.  Hopefully they don't make my first visit there a bad memory!

via prod.static.bengals.clubs.nfl.com

(Quan Cosby returns a punt return 49 yards for a touchdown against the Rams)

Roster Spot For Quan??

Hey guys, I'm from the Cowboys blog.  Saw the highlights of Quan Cosby's punt return TD and wanted to know what you guys think about him?  My wife went to high school with him and we loved watching him play at UT and are hoping that he makes the team. 

Here's a link to the video:

http://www.bengals.com/media-lounge/videos/stl-cin-highlights-quan-cosby-td-82709/22f633aa-2ce3-46a6-9454-4911b188b855

Looks like he showed excellent vision and quite a bit of speed to me, but I will admit this is the first time that I have seen him in a Bengals uniform.  He showed a lot of these same qualities when we watched him last year at UT and it looks like he is making a quick transition to the NFL.

What do you guys think?

We can't wait to see the next game against the the Colts.  

Bengals vs. Boys in the Super Bowl!

Not even sure where to start with this one.  Preseason is really starting to bore me to tears.  Our scrubs look horrible and now they are looking banged up and injured as well.  Hopefully the starters don't get stretched too thin or this is going to be a really short and painful season.

The Good

- The first team offense is still looking very good out there.  The broadcast I watched said that San Francisco has a very good and underrated defense.  I don't know how much truth is in that, but after watching them dismantle the Tennessee Titan's first string defense, this offense looks like it can dominate pretty much any defense as long as they are running on all cylinders. 

- Special teams! Yes, you read that right.  The special teams actually impressed me this game.  There was a touchback and a kickoff stopped at the 20 and the 15.  Matt McBriar had some pretty nice punts.  Patrick Crayton reminded us that he does have some quickness to him on punt returns and Terrance Newman looked great on the return he was in for.  This is what I was hoping Joe D was going to bring to the Big D.

- Kevin Ogletree.  What can I say about this guy?  He has shown consistency throughout the whole preseason and continued that on Saturday.  He has secured a roster spot and I can only see him improving over the next few years.  Miles Austin actually caught a few balls as well.  The wide receivers looked good out there even without Sam Hurd or Roy Williams. 

The Bad

-Tony Romo made a bad decision to save himself from getting banged up.  I only put this under "Bad" because it was a preseason game and I would much rather see him throw an interception than get sacked by a handful of linemen and linebackers in a game that doesn't really matter.  Now in the regular season he needs to just prepare to get pummeled and not throw that risky ball.

- The defensive 2 minute drill.  This defense played outstanding the entire first half and then gave up a touchdown at the end of the 2nd quarter.  Does that seem familiar?  It should since it happened when Tennessee was here as well.  I'm sure Wade Phillips is not very happy about this.

The Ugly

- Courtney Brown, what the hell were you thinking?  The play was all but over and you just want to hit the receiver because you got beat?  The only good thing about that 47 yard pass interference penalty was that Wade got pissed off and showed some emotion.  I think that is the first time I have seen him yell on camera.  Go Wade!

- 2nd string O-line showed us again that Dallas cannot afford to lose a starter on the line.  If they do then Romo will be on his back more than Paris Hilton.

- Mike Singletary.  Great player, and seems like a pretty damn good coach so far, but man that dude is ugly.  Seriously, just look at the dude.

via www.misunderestimation.com

That's all for this week.  I'm sure I missed some stuff but I don't really care.  Not going to write anything next week because I will be in Las Vegas gambling my heart out.  Hopefully the next time I write it will be all sunshine and rainbows about how the Cowboys stomped Tampa Bay into dust.

(Note:  I drink beer and eat pizza when I watch football.  Sometimes I am at a bar and sometimes I am at home.  This is a hungover recollection of the game and all opinions are mine.  If you don't agree with them I do not care.  Just go click the "back" button and read something else.)

Friday I got hammered and played poker in the 2nd half, so I really didn't notice a whole lot during that time.

 1st half play was outstanding... except for Special Teams

- The team looked great for the first game at the new stadium.  Tony Romo looked very good out there against the Tennessee defense that helped lead them to the NFL best regular season record last year.  He ended the game completing 75% of his passes for 192 yards.  Not bad for one half.

- The defense stopped Tennessee's offense completely in the first half.  The unfortunate thing was that even though they held them to under 100 total yards in the first half, they still managed to get 10 points.  This was due mainly to poor special teams which brings me to the next point....

- Special Teams looks just as special as it was last year.  Miles Austin started off the game with an impressive return that was negated due to a holding call.  Now, granted that was an iffy call, it is something that should have been prevented.  They then gave up a large return which set up a Tennessee field goal after their offense moved the ball a total of 4 yards on the drive.

Raise the roof?

- The scoreboard.  Big deal, the punter hit it.  If he doesn't want to make internal enemies he won't make the same mistake twice.  No special teams player wants to run down the field to try and make a tackle just to have the play called back for a do-over.  The league set a regulation of height and the Cowboys followed it and raised it an extra 5 feet.  The sky is not falling and the TV is not going to be raised.  Matt McBriar is not worried about kicking it and he remains one of the best punters in the league.  Most punts are angled towards the sidelines anyways so this should become a non-issue.  Unless of course another team is losing and want to take out their frustration on the scoreboard.

4th and really, really, long...

- Jesse Holley looks like he is going to be getting cut when they slim down the roster and I doubt he even makes the practice squad.  After bobbling the ball when he finally got a pass thrown his way, I doubt he is impressing anyone.  Granted, he did end up with the ball, he should have caught it and secured it.  He looked great on a reality show but at this point we see that he doesn't quite stack up against an actual NFL team.

See the play here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH-2ArxYNOw

It's apparent in the slow-mo replay that it goes through his hands and hits his helmet.  Good job on ending up with the ball and stripping the interception but I'm sure he realizes that he won't have many more chances to impress the coaching staff.  Maybe he makes the practice squad, but it doesn't look too good for him right now.

Number Five is alive...

- Kevin Ogletree is promising as the 5th receiver, and Crayton is secured as the #2.  As far as the third and fourth receivers, it doesn't matter.  Austin has good qualities and so does Hurd and they will both receive a fairly equal amount of playing time.  Hopefully Austin can keep improving and challenge Crayton next year for the #2 but he hasn't shown that he is ready for that just yet. 

That's all I got this week.

(Note:  I drink beer and eat pizza when I watch football.  Sometimes I am at a bar and sometimes I am at home.  This is a hungover recollection of the game and all opinions are mine.  If you don't agree with them I do not care.  Just go click the "back" button and read something else.)

 Newly Discovered Problems for the Cowboys:

- The depth in the secondary isn't nearly what we thought it was.  These guys look great in practice but looked completely lost out there yesterday.  Hopefully we see big improvements for Game 2 or then we might have a real problem.

- John Kitna apparently forgot how to take a snap or handoff the ball.  He almost fumbled like 5 snaps, if not more, and had some memorable mistakes on handing off.

- Miles Austin needs to step it up or he is going to slide to WR#4 because right now he is being outplayed by Sam Hurd.  Hurd is now outshining Austin in both practice and out on the field.

- If Newman and Jenkins go down they will be stuck with that group of defensive starters.

Good points:

- 2nd string O-line looked pretty good, but that was also against Oaklands 2nd string D-line so it might just be a tease.

- Tashard Choice still showed his great vision and even though he didn't have many really impressive runs that I remember, he didn't have any negative plays either.  I will take 3-4 yard runs all day as long as their aren't any negative yardage plays to counter the production.

- Stephen McGee actually looked like he was getting comfortable for a minute there.  He won't unseat Kitna but it looks like he could become a quality back-up a lot sooner than I thought.

- The first team offense looked great on the 2nd drive.  

Note: CBS that was the worst broadcast I have ever seen.  Reminded me of a high school football team or something.   You guys need to step up your game because FOX and NBC kick your ass in sports coverage.