So I lost my voice screaming for joy, only to be heartbroken by the flag that ended the game. I was livid, and almost immediately proceeded to rant about how Barron cost us the game and should be cut immediately

Then I realized that it was week 1, and that a great deal of teams who are most likely going to be good this season had a miserable week 1. Minnesota looked awful. Indy lost to Houston(say what you will about Houston, but c'mon...it's Indy vs. Houston. As long as Manning is at the helm, we had Indy over Houston carved in stone). Week 1 rarely tells the story of the whole season, win or lose.

Even though it's a heartbreaking loss and gives us less room for error, there are some good things to take from the whole thing. Dez showed potential, and Romo showed he's not afraid to throw to him often. Roy Williams didn't ruin the game for us(technically, he played well for a 3rd or 4th option, and was a holding penalty away from being the hero of the game). The running game, though maybe under utilized, looked promising. Romo was badass, all things considered. The D was solid, for the most part. And most importantly to me(and my fantasy football team...), Miles Austin looked hellbent to prove he's worth every penny, and looks to be well on his way to proving just that. Add to all that the fact that we should be getting some reinforcements in the way of 2 starting O linemen that should help immensely.

Week 1 rarely tells us everything we need to know. The season can go one of many ways from here. Hopefully we can put some wins together in the next couple of weeks and be going the direction we need to be headed before the bye. Until we're 0-3 or 0-4 before then, I'm not going to panic.

Oh, this is only my 3rd or 4th fanpost, and I'm not really certain I know exactly what I'm doing. I really hope this isn't one of those gaudy fanposts that make browsing fanposts on your phone miserable. I hate those...

Do we really know anything after week 2? Is there anything to take away from the game after it's all said and done other than we need to improve?

After the loss,  I immediately started racing to conclusions, looking to blame somebody. Yeah, Romo played terribly. Yeah, our defense looked pretty bad. Yeah, the receivers were mediocre. There are a lot of things that went wrong in the game, but we hung in there.

I'm not trying to soften the blow, but I'm just wondering if the "Oh, they really DO miss T.O.!" and "Wade Phillips can't get it done" comments are coming a tad bit too soon. We don't really know much about our Boys with only two games to evaluate.

It's only week 2. We won't know much more than we do now next week, either. We can look at how we viewed our team LAST season after weeks 2 and 3 and see how differently we see the '08 team now, as opposed to then, however. Last year, we beat the Eagles in a shootout in week 2. We though we'd just watched the two best teams in the NFC go at it, and we saw our guys come out on top. Then we went into Green Bay and beat them when everybody thought that would be a preview of the NFC Championship game. Literally everybody on planet Earth said Dallas was the best team in football. Clearly, that was not the case. But now, EVERYBODY is going to be saying Dallas really misses T.O., Romo is still the same ol' pick throwing choke artist, Roy isn't a real #1 receiver, Dallas's D sucks(heard that last year, too), turmoil is sure to ensue, blah blah blah blah blah.

They could be right. But they certainly weren't at this point in time last year. It's just a little something to think about before we get TOO down on our 'Boys.

Sure, T.O. is gone. Does that really mean it's doom and gloom for '09 and on? Are our 'Boys really destined for mediocrity simply because we got rid of our aging playmaker?

Just curious to see if it's even possible we could actually look at this move more analytically, as opposed to emotionally. The Cowboys could still have a good '09 campaign without TO. There are so many talented players on the offensive side of the ball. A three headed running attack to rival the Giants. A young, unproven stable of receivers who show a ton of potential. A big, physical offensive line. A pair of tight ends that are immensely talented, one being arguably the best in football. Top it off with a QB with the potential for greatness, and the offense, to me at least, still looks pretty spectacular.

We have a defense that has a few holes, but can easily be dominant, should they find some help in a few key arieas, stay healthy, and improve on what they did well last season. We have a special teams unit that literally has nowhere to go but up.

Instead of turning bitter because a player some of us grew attatched to was apparently given the boot, maybe we should at least try to stay positive and see the areas this team could excel at.

BTW, first fanpost. Be gentle?