The thing you know about Crayton, is that he's definitely not taking it to the house. It's basically impossible. He's not quick or fast enough.

Are you talking about the one early? I thought Sensabaugh got that one.

The first punt... Dallas got a couple of unsportman-like's tonight.

$1.2 billion and an unsigned rookie punter manages to hit the scoreboard. epic fail JJ.

Rookie OLB Brandon Williams out for year with torn ACL.

The Cowboys have now lost 2 rookies for the year, sigh. Not that they were going to contribute much this year, but this really hurts their ability to help next year.

I wonder if we'll go find someone to help now.

imo not so much.

Obviously they tested it with McBriar, and he never hit it, so it would seem to play into the Cowboys favor given that other punters are going to be thinking about hitting it when they line up to punt. McBriar is an Aussie rules football player, so he has a different approach than most other punters. I don't know the mechanics of that approach, but apparently the jumbo-tron doesn't affect it.

I think JJ is a little smarter (and perhaps more devious) than people give him credit for.

I'm not sure whether I give JJ THIS much credit, but I can tell you two things from being at the stadium.

None of McBriars punts even got close to the TV. Including the one he really launched that he had to rekick.

The punt that DID hit the jumbotron was EXTREMELY short and straight up in the air. It wouldn't surprise me at all if the guy tried to do it on purpose, or if Jeff Fisher told him to try and do it to see what would happen/if it could be hit.

I guess my point is, I don't think this is going to be as big of an issue as everyone is making it out to be. But I've been wrong before.

ogletree should be ahead of stanbeck. i think his ceiling is higher then patrick crayton for sure. when you said that did you mean his future ceiling or this year because i think he has a great upside. i watched all of his games at virginia and i think he is going to be a very good receiver and may even help the team this year.

How about addressing the real question that plagues this preseason for the Cowboys... Will 4th and goal show winner Jesse Holley make the team?

wow you got leveled hard

btw we are winning the superbowl


Felix Jones > everyone but our very own Barber, AD, and capn jack

Jesse Holley has a 0% chance of making the team, and a ......01% chance of making the practice squad. He never had a shot to make the team. Huge waste of time, imo.

I'd like to be as hopeful as you, but I don't really think talking about his days at Virginia are going to win any arguments, since he didn't even impress a single team enough to draft him.

So what is the word on Roy Williams?

Essentially a bruised shoulder, week to week.

He'll probably play week one, and just be ineffective.

If Roy Williams has a bruise you may as well put him on IR.

Yeah, I'm pretty excited about the RW11 era obviously.

Coming into TB, I feel really good. TB is ****ing awful, and we should sack Leftwich about 10 times. If we lose this game, the season is over pretty much.

No injuries, one time.

24 hours to gametime!

GO ROMO!!!! GOGOGOGOGO

1-0! Romo started slow but found a rhythm towards the end of the first half. Very impressed with Austin's moves on his long TD. Defense was garbage, the Bucs O-line dominated us.

Yeah, not really sure how I feel about that performance.

I think the defense will come around though, as long as we stay healthy.

Just saw on Monday Night Countdown that Jerry Jones is expecting 104,000 for the Sunday Night game next week against the Giants.

Holy shat.

Yeah, they sold 30K+ party pass tickets. It may take that many people to make it loud though.

I'm going to the game super super early. Parking is going to be absolutely insane.

I can only imagine. Last Cowboys game I went to was the Texas Stadium finale against the Ravens. We had to park all the way down the road at the college (U of Dallas I think??), and walk about 2 miles or so. And that was the old stadium's capacity, so I can only imagine what Sunday night will be like. Still.. I'm uber jealous of you

Obv its not the point of this thread, but seriously it should just be locked until December and then reopened. Since we've seen this exact same hot start and fizzle from the Wade Phillips' Cowboys before.

Some thoughts now that this game has sunk in....

- Romo has been very inconsistent thus far this season. It was masked a bit in Tampa by finding receivers that were wide wide open, but he was erratic. Tonight there were some passes and decisions that were miserable at best. That said, I made the mistake of reading the comments over at the DMN blog, where there are idiots already calling for Kitna. Good god no.

- I really scratch my head at Garrett's play design and calling in the same way I do Charlie Weis's for Notre Dame. Though Weis does it out of arrogance IMO. Garrett seems to have play designs that are needlessly complicated, and wind up with multiple receivers in the same area too frequently. He is in love with the draw play as well. Maybe I'm too old school, but I don't mind a bit of smashmouth football, and its something the offense needs a bit more of. It was successful against a decent, though banged up, defense tonight.

- The Defense is atrocious. 0 sacks, 0 turnovers through 2 games is inexcusable versus anyone, let alone playing Leftwich and Eli. The run defense clearly improved between games, but the secondary is lost. To call Scandrick toast tonight would be a compliment. Far too many missed tackles by the whole squad. I'm disappointed in this the most, particularly since Wade now has the DC hat on as well as HC. Playing Carolina next week is a great opportunity to start to turn things around and force turnovers.

That said, you still can't give a decent team like NYG 4 turnovers and expect to win. The offense showed it had the firepower to hang in there despite this, which is encouraging. I hope Barber is ok going forward. Long season, not as dead as the commenters on some of the Dallas blogs believe, but there needs to be improvement quickly, particularly on D, to be considered serious contenders for anything.

From the NFC East Thread...

Comments from Dallas game in no particular order.

#1. Why the **** can't the Cowboys force turnovers? We led the league in sacks last year, and had 8 total interceptions. We have no sacks, and no INT's through two games this year. What the hell? Terrance Newman is at least a mediocre corner, Jenkins is a first round talent, and lots of people think Scandrick is the steal of last years draft. Plus we got rid of our run stopping safety for a guy who plays like a Corner almost(Sensabaugh).

It's not even like we get deflections. We get nothing. I see Romo sliding passes into crowded places all the time, everytime I see a WR for an opposing team catch a ball against us, he's just...open. The corner may make a quick tackle, but he's open. It just...baffles me.

#2. Why did we keep trying to throw the ball? We have 3 backs we're comfortable using, we should have run it down their god damn throats in the second half. Not just that, but TWICE on 2nd and goal from the 2, we spread out into a 4 or 5 wide Shotgun formation. WE HAVE MARION FREAKING BARBER. One of the best goalline backs in the league, in a game where we're running the ball EXTREMELY well, and our QB looks completely lost. WTF is that ****? First and goal inside the 5 should be extremely basic for us, but we constantly make it hard on ourselves.

#3. I'm a huge Romo apologist, but this might have been the worst game he's ever played for us. He repeatedly either miscommunicated with receivers or just threw the ball 5-10 yards off of where they were. It was kind of weird. After Tampa, I was kind of excited because it seemed like he took the turnover issue seriously, but today was just awful.

#4. The new stadium rocked. But when they decided to open the roof/end zones, they turned off the AC. It was 80 outside, and probably 85 inside. It was pretty miserable. Pretty terrible decision, imo. I'm anxious to watch some of the game on DVR to see how loud it was, because it sure seemed loud to me.

EDIT:

#5. We simply have to get the ball to Felix Jones more. I don't care if he needs screen passes, or more carries, or what...but he needs to be touching the ball.

Yes! This!

I commented above on the issues I had with the goaline calling tonight, and I feel the same way you do. If we're saving Barber by using Jones/Choice, then let him knock some people in the mouth late in games!

I also think the play calling for RW11 is really weird. RW plays a lot like Irvin did. He's at his best when he can use his size/strength/smarts to catch the ball. This includes a lot of quick patterns where you can hit him in stride, and patters where he makes one cut and looks for the ball. Why are we not throwing little 5 yard slants to him?