Remember where our team was headed before Tony got rolling vs. Carolina in 2006? Remember where our team was headed before Austin got rolling in Kansas City in 2009? The parallels are eerie, and there are reasons for optimism that the success will be sustained.

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For anyone who thinks Wade is an adequate HC, I ask you: even if Wade were 7 years younger, would any NFL team now hire him as a head coach if he were on the open market? Obviously no. I’m not even sure Wade is a good coordinator in the absence of a HC who creates a disciplined organizational culture. I don’t hate on Wade for the aesthetic reasons that some do (Tony Sparano and Rex Ryan are also fat, and I’d much prefer them as coaches.) And I even think Wade’s firing might (marginally) improve our chances this season. So why in the hell am I rooting for him to finish the season? Read on…

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I know a lot of fans feel like yesterday's loss was a stomach punch. For me, it wasn't. All of the elements of the game (particularly Romo's performance) were predictable. In fact, last week I predicted on these forums that we'd lose a close, low-scoring game in which our offensive line was dominated and Romo was erratic. The sheer inevitability of the loss, and the lack of hope for improvement, are why I'm done. A few more observations:

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I've been doing this every week, so without further ado...

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There will be an orgy of overreaction to this loss. Still, I'm going to try and maintain objectivity...

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Anyone who hasn't watched the Romo video needs to go, and needs to go now. It's highly entertaining, but also highly instructive about what happened during the game. Five thoughts...

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Let me start with a little stat: Tony Romo is 23-4(!) in non-December starts. Two of those losses (at Arizona in ’08, at Washington in ’06) were lost on special teams debacles, as Romo was good in both of them. The other two losses (home to Skins in ’08, home to Pats in ’07), we just flat got beat by teams that outplayed us that day. But if you take these things together, it stands for this proposition: if Tony Romo is healthy, we will be between 8-3 and 10-1 headed into December. That said, here five observations about our team based on game 1: 

 

1)       The Slimmed Down Roy Williams is much better at getting releases against press coverage than 2008 TO was, and much better at catching marginal or contested passes than 2008 TO was. Prediction: Roy will be a better player in 2009 than the 2006, 2008, and 2009 versions of TO.

2)       Our pass defense is more of a long term worry than our run defense. It’s a long term problem that a) Mike Jenkins makes one major mental error a game in zone coverage and b) We continue to be unable to defend that “stack” pass formation. If Leftwich has more touch on that throw to Bryant, and if Winslow doesn’t drop that 4th down pass, it’s a much different game. Better teams will execute in those situations.

3)        This game showed how 85% of the training camp CW is ridiculous. Remember, the big stories of training camp were the “dink and dunk offense” and “Sam Hurd and Kevin Ogletree break out!,” and (in non-Cowboys news) “Aaron Rodgers is the MVP!” Really, except with players in year one or two, individual players usually don’t make quantum improvements in the off season. It’s much more likely that a player will rapidly decline (cough, T.O.) due to age or injury than vastly improve.

4)       Garrett had a very good day, using route combos to get receivers wide open, but Wade had a terrible day. In the “Wade calls the defense” era, this was Wade’s worst game, by far. Run blitzes getting gashed, the D coming out with less intensity than the Bucs’ offense, and pass blitzes not sacking an immobile QB. The Bucs actually have underrated offensive personnel now that Cadillac looks back, but our vaunted halftime “adjustments” seemed to involve hanging on for dear life hoping the Bucs made a mistake—they obliged a few times. We actually don’t have great defensive personnel (only two “blue chip” players and no “nearly blue chip” players according to the National Football Post), but we need a Top Ten D to make a deep run and Wade needs to step it up.

5)       I actually like seeing Tash as our Third Down Back. He’s clearly a better blocker than Felix, and he’s adequate as a safety valve and draw running option. Plus, I like the energy he plays with…he’s supplying some of the energy Barber used to before he became the starter.

There’s more than a little Tiki Barber in Emmitt’s comments (the surest way to get a headline is to bash the QB and coach of your old team). That said, there are a few grains of truth mixed in with some silly assumptions in his comments.

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The (mostly stupid) national media has us missing the playoffs, and smarter but still myopic Football Outsiders has us (as usual) at 8-8. Their rationale is that from 2005-2007 Dallas has had really good "injury luck," but we struggled when we had a league average games lost by starters in 2008. The problem is that "games missed by starters" is an imprecise stat. We have about 6 indispensable players (Newman, Romo, Ware, Flozell, Witten, now Ratliff) where the dropoff to backups is huge. Newman missed 8 games and was hobbled in others, Romo missed 3 games but his hand affected his accuracy in others, and Flozell played hurt 1/2 the year.

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I'm sure a lot of the 'Boys' DC fans will be there...but where is "there"? I'm ready to meet some other fans in the DC area. And I'm ready for a victory that turns our season around

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