Thoughts on the Cowboys Game

Couple of things I took from last night's game

1. After Brees, Jabari Greer really might be the most valuable player on our team. Damn do we miss him. Having a lockdown corner to take away a team's number one allowed Williams to do so much more schematically as well as allowing Sharper to roam more freely.

2. Not having Ellis is also killing Vilma. Vilma is a great MLB but he isn't a true MLB who takes on blocks, sheds them, and makes the play. He's a smaller MLB who relies on his speed to make plays. Dallas' interior OL were getting on him with ease last night and really pushing him back.

3. Thomas is a great second TE (arguably the best in the league) but he's not in Shockey's league. He was decent last night but he wasn't able to make the big play on crucial situations and defenses also play him differently. People wonder how Colston and Meachem get matched up on safeties so much and it's because teams guard Shockey with a CB most of the time when we split him wide. When we split Thomas wide, they guarded him with an OLB and he still didn't get open.

4. Hated Peyton's gameplan. All we did was run deep crossing routes and slow developing plays. We never adjusted to Dallas who was running nothing but a deep shell to protect against the big play. In addition, we couldn't protect well and we were still running nothing but deep patterns until the final scoring drive. On that drive we ran quick hitters, shallow crosses and other timing routes and made their defense look like swiss cheese.

5. We absolutely have to draft an athletic OLB in the draft. Fujita and Shanle are nice but those two really can't play in space and do nothing but catch blocks instead of taking on blockers. In addition, I still maintain that we should have drafted Vontae Davis or Sean Smith at CB (Miami drafted both and both are starting) over Jenkins. He looks like Stevie Wonder out there trying to guard WRs. I think he can be a good FS but a man-to-man corner I don't think he'll ever be. In actuality, he'd probably be perfect in a Tampa 2 system that'd allow him to be physical with WRs and hide his lack of speed.

6. Did the first guy make the tackle once last night? That was one of the worst tackling exhibits I've ever seen, just atrocious.

7. Many people pointed at this game the minute Jamaal Brown got injured. I must admit that I myself said he was overrated but damn did we miss him last night. There were absolutely some protection breakdowns (WTF was Thomas doing when he left Spencer unblocked twice?) but Bushrod got smoked all day one-on-one.

Now having said all that, we were still down just seven with the ball and a chance to win without our top DT, top CB and top TE against the Cowboys when Romo is playing arguably the best game of his career. This team will be fine come playoffs if everyone returns.