You've had your reasons for failing to address the offensive line in recent drafts. It's always been one excuse or the other. "None of our guys fell to us" or the similar excuse of "We didn't have a high enough pick to get a guy we wanted for the offensive line." Well, guess what. The foundation of the Cowboys has rotten under your watch, and you've failed to make adequate repairs. Yes, it's great to have among the best RB, WR, and even arguably QB depth in the NFL. Yes, it's great to have 3 TEs (when Phillips is healthy) that can all have strong roles in the offense. Yes, it's great to have two strong CBs, bookend OLBs, arguably the best NT in the game, and two solid MLBs. These are all great things. But when the offensive line is aged and struggling, it all amounts to nothing. The Bears had probably the worst OL in the NFL last season. They didn't do much to help in the offseason. Their starting LT went down today. AND THEY LOOKED BETTER THAN US TODAY. How far we have fallen. It's pathetic.

Now don't get my wrong. I LOVE Doug Free. I think he's been awesome since last season, and he looks great to my untrained eye so far this year. He's young, talented, and doesn't make boneheaded penalties. The rest of the line? Not so much. They're old, penalty-prone, and just not what they once were talent-wise. Their run-blocking ability is hit-and-miss and their pass blocking is just not good enough.

When Tony actually has time, he's fantastic. He finds the open guy and doesn't force the ball very often anymore. He had two picks today, but he's still dramatically better from a decision-making perspective. His accuracy is sometimes fantastic and sometimes average, but he's a very good QB who gives us a chance to win each week. The problems come when he's forced to throw 50 times because the running game can't get going.

And let's be clear, Jason Garrett did not abandon the run game. It abandoned him. He ran in many instances where I personally thought he should've passed, simply because the ground game had proven to be so horrible today. And that's not the fault of the RBs. They did their best given what they had to work with. The OL let them down, and it let Tony and the rest of the team down as well.

So yes, Jerry, it's time. It's time to take the plunge, put aside your need for "splash players," and draft TWO OL in the first two rounds of next year's draft. Even with the paltry OL success rate in recent years, you're more likely to get at least one good player if you draft two OL high in the draft. Say you hit 50% on OL success rate (which is optimistic, but just for this example we'll say it's 50%). If you draft two, you're pretty much guaranteed to hit on one of them. And that's better than nothing (which is what you've given us in recent years). Sure, you had to spend two high draft picks on OL to only get one OL out of it. But we need to do whatever we have to to get young and talented OL in here. If I knew we'd manage to get 3 new starters out of the draft if we drafted ALL OL in Rounds 1-7, I'd take it. Sure, you didn't address any other needs, but at least you finally repaired much of the OL.

And don't tell me that "our guy didn't fall to us" again, because with this team, we're probably looking at a Top 10 pick. That's definitely high enough to get a quality lineman. And it's not really an option this year. You can say there were other needs in the past, but this year, it's more than clear that OL is without question our biggest need.

It's time.

Thanks for reading my rant, everybody.

I knew the Supplemental Draft was going on today, but I didn't really expect the Cowboys to pick anyone. Last thing I thought we needed was another fringe/depth guy, and if we needed one anywhere, I would've said OL and not DL. But that said, we have selected this Price-Brent fellow from Illinois in the 7th round of the Supplemental Draft. Here's the lowdown on him from a Shutdown Corner piece quoting Rob Rang:

It's not just the academics - about a year ago, he spent 30 days in jail for a DUI. So, this is one of those guys where there is some off-field stuff as well. Teams will want to do their due diligence to make sure they're not taking too much of a chance. But he is a talented player - measures in at just a shade under 6-foot-2, 318 pounds at the recent private workout he had for clubs. 18 teams were present at the workout, and several sent their directors of player personnel. He has the size to hold up inside, but he doesn't have great strength - he only had 21 reps at the 225-pound bench press at his private workout, and that would have been the worst of any defensive tackle over 295 pounds that was invited to this year's scouting combine.

But you see some athletic ability and some "want-to" on the field. He's a productive player - not a superstar, but a guy who makes you think he's coming around to being something special. He's moving up on a lot of charts, because he's an established player in the Big 10, and a lot of teams are starting to warm up to him. He's probably the safest of the four players.

Then later:

[Being limited as a one-technique specialist] is the concern I have for him. He's not a natural pass-rusher and he doesn't have the lateral quickness to make it as a three-technique tackle. I see him in a 4-3, but not as a true nose tackle. He's a one-gap player; he just doesn't have the strength to be a two-gap guy at this point. He can contribute even as a rookie as a rotational player, but I don't know if he'll ever be a standout.

The author of the Shutdown Corner article, Doug Farrar, says that Rang mentioned to him that he doesn't see Price-Brent projecting as a 3-4 DE. And that's really what has me puzzled. If he's not a NT and he's not a 3-4 DE, then why would we draft him? I guess the only answer is that our scouts disagree with Rob about that.

And hey, at least we didn't use a 1st-rounder in the Supplemental Draft on this guy.

(Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/blog/shutdown_corner/post/Supplemental-Draft-Preview-Joshua-Price-Brent?urn=nfl,256097)

...by moving Robert Brewster from RT to LT. I thought Brewster projected more to Guard from what I heard last year after the draft, but he was originally working at RT until his torn pectoral injury ended his season before it even started. However, I guess it did him some good, because he's reportedly lost weight and gained some quickness, which prompted the move to LT. I'm not sure how this affect's Jerry's desire to add a veteran LT. Would you rather have Brewster or a castoff veteran backing up Doug Free? Tough call for me, honestly.

Josh also points out that a winner-take-all competition is beginning at the backup RT position between Pat McQuistian and Sam Young. Unfortunately, the competition will likely take place in slow-motion, and not because of any camera effects. :(

Hat tip to Josh Ellis for the report: Josh Ellis Blog

Nothing earth-shattering here, but just thought some people might be interested so I'll pass this along to you guys. According to NFLDraftScout, Barker is essentially a RT/G Tweener. His skills (aka lack of athleticism, balance) translate to Guard in the NFL but his height says otherwise (he's 6'7"). Player page here: http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/draft/players/1117407

The reason I even post this as something notable is because this guy is from the cradle of Cowboys UFA prospects in recent years. That's right, Virginia. TE coach John Garrett knows the players from there very well and essentially brought in two guys last year to us. Maybe you've heard of them: WR Kevin Ogletree and TE John Phillips. They turned out to be not-too-shabby, even as rookies. I was excited to see what UFAs we'd bring in this year, and I especially had my eyes out for any from Virginia. I know finding quality UFAs is still a longshot, but given the Cowboys' recent track record with Virginia guys, I'm willing to get a little bit excited about this guy.

He sounds like just as much or more of a project as 6th-Rounder Sam Young, but hey, at least he's another guy who they like who will get a shot to help out our OL. If he plays OL as well as a rookie as Kevin Ogletree played WR or John Phillips played TE as rookies, I'd be pretty happy with that as a start.

In other news, we also have signed our camp arm, QB Matt Nichols from Eastern Washington. Jerry hinted that we could have a massive UFA crop this year, so I'm sure more are coming our way.

For tracking top UFA prospect signings, go here: http://www.nfl.com/draft/story?id=09000d5d817c634a&template=with-video-with-comments&confirm=true

Could we lose any more players to injury? We about were out of offensive line backups at one point.

The team is now extremely beat up:

Colombo (I'd say out for season)
Jenkins (he should recover, but still)
Flozell (he returned, but it's not like he was stonewalling people. His injuries tend to linger, too)
Hamlin (he was actually playing well this game, Watkins not so much, though he wasn't terrible)
Romo (not injured, but just getting hammered back there)
Bradie (he came back, but the sight of Wade calling Bobby to get in the game was scary, to say the least)

What else could've gone wrong? Oh, how about the WORST OFFICIATING I've ever seen:

The PR fumble that was somehow overturned should've not had any chance of being overturned. There was no evidence to show conclusively that McBriar touched him before his knee came back up. Should've been a fumble. Instead, TD Packers.

Romo gets blasted (thanks, Flo) and fumbles, but Felix recovers. Is down, but gets stripped. Refs let play go, and GB gets it eventually (on the 2 yard line). SOMEHOW, this play is not reviewable. WTF? How can you NOT review that? That makes no sense to me. It may be the rule, and that's fine, but it's a dumb rule. Plain and simple. Should've been 3rd and long with a probable punt. Instead, TD Packers.

Mike McCarthy challenges a Patrick Crayton catch, but he's OUT OF CHALLENGES. I'm screaming at the TV, waiting for Wade to charge the idiot ref and beat him over the head with his own challenge flag. Meanwhile, we wait.

And wait.

And wait.

And wait.

And wait.

And FINALLY, we realize that they are in fact out of challenges.

Two things:

One: HOW DO THE REFS NOT KNOW THIS????

Two: Shouldn't that be a penalty of some sort? Delay of game? Charge them a timeout? I mean, they got a free five minutes with no repercussion. That's ridiculous.

So then we score (FINALLY), and it's 7-17. Sorry, but it's only 7-3 in my mind, and we win. Two TDs by referee blunders are b/s in my opinion.

Meanwhile, in reality, we lose the game and a ton of valuable starters. Hopefully Colombo is the only season-ender, but still. This is the kind of loss that can destroy a season. Green Bay has the tiebreaker on us now, which could bite us in the end if we fall from our Division lead. And with these injuries, it's certainly possible.

Everyone's saying the Cowboys "got a big head" and that's why they lost, but really, it's just the fact that after Colombo went down, we couldn't protect Romo AT ALL (and they were without Kampman!!), and the refs totally screwed us over.

I still have some confidence in this team, but now I'm worried about getting in the playoffs again. I thought that if we won this week, we were pretty much in, because we'd have the tiebreakers over both likely 2nd place people in the NFC South and North (and the West doesn't look good enough to get a Wildcard). Now, I'm worried.

GO COWBOYS!

Because Romo won it, and that's obviously impossible.

Here's to 4-2 and a lull in the complaints of fans. Until next time, when we eventually lose to a team that's really good and then we'll hear about how Tony can't win a big game again. In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy what was a fantastic team win and also enjoy the fact that the Giants lost to the Cardinals. What seemed like an impossible Division lead has now become possible for us.

Because he played a LOT like Tony Romo did against Denver tonight against the Falcons. Last second redzone throws fail to try and tie. Hmmm... sound familiar? Inaccuracy throughout much of the night. Hmmm... sound familiar? Yet there's no WAY that they WILL or SHOULD bench Cutler. He gives them their best shot at winning.

How do all of you guys who wanted us to trade Tony for him this offseason feel? Good QBs have bad games. It happens. Get over it. They aren't gonna be benched.

Meanwhile, Atlanta didn't look untouchable tonight. I think it will be a good game when we play them next week and I hope we get the win. I think we can get it but it will take Flozell to not play like Orlando Pace did tonight (Pace played like Flo ironically enough, so pretty much Flo can't play like himself).

The defense, as bad as I've harped on them, have been very good the last two weeks. Would've been nice for Newman to make a pick on that ball that Marshall took for the winning score, but overall, they were awesome today. People keep saying that Keith Brooking seems like an upgrade over Zach Thomas. Let me just say that Keith is a huge upgrade over Thomas. It is not even close.

But, as the title of this thing says, without Felix, we are in trouble. Marion is great and Choice is very good, but without Felix, there's nothing scary about this offense. I've pretty much decided that WR is by far our #1 need heading into next year's draft. We seriously have nothing scary out there.

That said, it would help if Romo could hit anyone in stride. Romo looked very bad with his accuracy today. I thought he played smart for the most part but just didn't have it physically today. That said, there were so many times today when there was just no one open. What's he supposed to do with that? Offense needs help. Romo needs to improve accuracy and WRs need to get open. Felix helps everything though when people know he can take it to the house any play. He needs to work on learning how to take hits though, because this whole injury-prone thing is really getting old.

Overall, I was very disappointed that we lost today. I always have this glimmers of hope that we are something great, but then games like these remind me why I think we're about a .500 team. Next week will be huge.

When I first looked through the schedule, I counted 10 wins for the Cowboys this season. After two weeks, many would say that a 10-win season would probably be an overestimation. That said, I think that where we are right now, we are still on pace for those 10 wins.

I originally said that we SHOULD win 4 of our first 5 games. The optimist in me was SCREAMING for me to think we could beat the Giants, but the realist in me was never sold on that. We lost to the Giants. That said, the realist in me said that we would split with the Giants and Panthers and should also win against the Broncos and Chiefs. The Broncos have been a lot better so far though, so that could be a problem. That said, if we're going to be a real threat this season, we have to beat the Broncos. The Chiefs are a trap game; another big game where you just hope you don't lose and give into the upset.

I think we could be 4-1 heading into our Week 6 bye. After that, the road gets tougher. We're going to need all 4 of those wins I've given us in order to get to 10 this year (I think 10 is the magic number btw). We will lose to the Saints if they continue to play as well as they have been. Washington however is a lot worse than I imagined. If we could sweep them, we could stand to lose an extra game, because I said we'd split with them. Hopefully though, we sweep them and don't lose an extra game. That would put us at 11 and definitely in the Playoffs.

So overall, as much as everyone (myself included) overreacted to the Giants loss, we're actually right where I thought we'd be at this point. If the defense can play up to the level it was last night for the rest of the season, this could really be a special season. Let's see it happen before we crown them, though.

No doinkers on the board tonight! Can everyone chill about the scoreboard now??? PLEASE???? It's really not that big of a deal, I promise! Really! It will be FINE!!!

I thought it was really annoying that we had to watch the ball on every punt tonight, rather than the returner. I like to see where the ball is coming down to before it actually lands. Hopefully this will end after the lack of doinks tonight.

Everyone wanted to point fingers at the run defense against Tampa, but what concerned me the most was that Byron Leftwich looked like a Pro Bowler against our secondary. I feared it would carry over to tonight and what do you know, we get torched all game long by the Giants.

"We have 3 great corners" is the company (and fan) line. I'm sorry, but we do not. Terence Newman is not even close to a great corner and Scandrick got his fair share of lumps tonight. Jenkins doesn't know how to play jam at all and as was pointed out in the telecast, doesn't know when to look for a slant on a critical blitz down. Our secondary on the whole is garbage from what I've seen of them this season. Hamlin is quickly becoming one of those players I just hate to see take the field and Sensabaugh is ok from what I've seen.

DeMarcus Ware was quiet all preseason and everyone said "it's ok, it's Ware we're talking about." Well how about now after two games can we be concerned? 0 sacks from him and what's worse is 0 sacks from the entire team. Wade's crutch that "sacks eliminate some turnover opportunities" is also falling apart since we have 0 turnovers as well. Spencer played the run well I thought tonight (as did Ware) but no one can seem to get to the QB before he can throw it away.

Overall, our defense is just miserable thus-far. I simply knew that the Giants would end up driving down and winning the game because that's just what always happens. Anytime we face a competent offense our games simply come down to which team has the ball last to go ahead and win it (assuming Romo doesn't throw the game away before that).

Speaking of Romo, for all the great things he did Week 1, he did twice as many bad things this week. The Witten ball will be brushed off as not his fault but you know what? He needs to hit Witten in the hands on that pass. That should be an easy throw all night long and he just totally screwed it up. Then he hearkens back to the Ravens game by throwing jump balls into triple coverage. Give me a break. Tony, I love you man, but tonight's performance was unacceptable. Miserably inaccurate throughout and boneheaded decisions make a terrible return.

I thought Jason Garrett did a great job on the playcalling tonight. That said, my one complaint is that he kept relying on Romo for too long. He finally said "time to run the ball" and it was fantastic. If he started that a couple drives sooner we win the game I think. Overall, very strong performance by him I thought. Felix looked bad as a kick returner for the most part, but he showed his usual burst on offense a few times. Good to see but he needs to get more involved in the passing game. MartyB as well.

I'm glad we played the Giants closely, because they are a great team. But I just want to pull my hair out because I know that we could've very easily won this game by multiple scores if Romo plays better and the defense doesn't just look putrid.

Great stadium, great game (entertainment-wise), but unless we fix the problems that popped up, we will not finish better than 8-8 this year. The pass defense is just simply terrible and the pass rush isn't there for some reason. Without either of those, it will be a long season.

BTW No false starts (or holding I believe) on Flo tonight. He played very well and even managed to take Tuck out of the game. I was overall pleased with his performance. Wasn't great, but was solid.

Jerry: Trade Newman and get a real #1 CB. Guy is made of glass and just gets burnt at least once a game nowadays it seems.

Sorry for the rant, but I'm just so upset with how this team played tonight. They played tough, but there were just too many bad things that, if fixed, would've earned us a huge win.

While I feel like this team as it stands now is certainly capable of a 10-6 season and a playoff win, the unfortunate reality is that there will certainly be games where we are not at full-strength. Guys go down every year. It happens. There are a lot of spots on this team I feel good about. There are others I do not feel good about. Here is my own personal look through the roster at which guys will be critical to our team's chances this season.

Continue reading this post »

Anyone tune into ESPN today? If so, you didn't watch for long before something along these lines came up:

Anchor: "The Cowboys opened their new $1.2 billion stadium last night, and while the team made big news on the field, it was the scoreboard that made quite a story by itself when Titans punter *insert name here* hit it with one of his punts during the game. Let's go to *insert talking head name here* to get his thoughts on the scoreboard dilemma."

Talking Head: "Well, as nice as the new stadium is, you have to wonder what Jerry Jones was thinking by putting the scoreboard too low. That's going to have to be changed before the season gets underway."

*cue clip of Jones essentially saying "stuff it, it's staying the way it is. He was trying to hit it."*

This is just another item in a long line of "drama" topics that somehow always surround the team. As a Cowboys fan, I am embarrassed by the fact that Jerry not only tested with our punter to see how high the display should be, but then went against the test results and just did whatever he wanted. It should never be able to be hit, regardless of whether or not "it's being aimed at with straight up kicks." It was really disappointing and sad that on such a monumental night for the team and us fans, the main storyline is "wow, what a nice place, but what idiots made the scoreboard too low? Let's all laugh at the Cowboys' inability to operate like a legitimate franchise." And I'm not saying that to complain about media bias or anything like that; the fact of the matter is that it's a legitimate problem and it's causing deserved bad PR which should've never happened had Jerry taken the proper steps in designing the stadium intricacies. The team played great, the facility looked great, the atmosphere was fantastic, and yet all anyone can talk about is "what's the deal with the scoreboard?" It would be ok if Jerry wasn't being so stubborn about it with his "it's within league regulations so it's not budging" attitude. Just come out and say "you know what guys, we screwed up. We thought it was high enough, but it's not. We'll be sure to have it ready for the regular season opener." That would be the end of the story and life would go on. As it is, the story will endure and the organization will catch more grief until it is fixed.

All of that said, I would like to see a doinker in a regular season game before I put Jerry too far under the bus. Our punter had no problems with it, and I have more than a suspicion that the Titans punter was really trying to hit it on that kick. I don't think that he punts the ball that way in a real game and if he doesn't, we don't have this discussion at all. So in summation, the preseason doinker was a "d'oh" moment for the organization and dampened the excitement of the debut, but until a doinker happens in a real game, I won't be outraged about it.

My prediction is that if it gets hit once a game up until the U2 concert comes to town in October (when the scoreboard will be raised to accommodate their stage), Jerry will move it up. If not, he'll leave it. What do you guys think about the scoreboard dilemma and what will happen?