dbair1967
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I'm not really sure what we saw. It started out as a completely ho-hum another trip down curb-stomping Dallas lane. We saw about everything bad you could possibly see. Painfully stupid decision to go for it from mid field on the opening drive, and then promptly give up an easy TD drive. Painfully stupid decision to not challenge a tipped punt, giving the ball back to Philly and yielding another easy TD drive. Then we fumble (due to painfully stupid play call for Turpin) and pronto, Eagles score easily again. 21-0, and we have hardly broken a sweat. Then we get the ball back, drive the length of the field and throw an endzone pick. At that point (5:07 left in half), Philly had a 96+% chance of winning the game. It looked like a beatdown for the ages was upon us.
And then something happened. Philly wouldn't score the rest of the game. We forced 5 punts and forced two turnovers. They missed a FG, but never really threatened to score otherwise. We completely stuffed Squon Barkley the entire day. While we only got 1 sack, we did bother Hurts enough to force a number of poor throws and consistently get off the field on 3rd down. Even if only for a brief period, the team saved their season. The playoffs are still an extreme longshot, but the window is at least partly open whereas a loss yesterday would have essentially ended the season.
1) Prescott wasn't perfect. He had one awful endzone pick and had a couple others that prob should have been picked (another one was, but fortunately there was a penalty). But he hung in there, his pass protection was not perfect and he took some pretty good shots, but he found a way to make plays downfield. I don't think Philly's D is as good as last yr but they are still pretty good, and we had just short of 500 yards total offense and a number of chunk plays on them. The Cowboys as a team had an almost unheard of 15.4 yds per RECEPTION. Prescott and Pickens are in a zone right now and are one of the elite combos in the league. For Prescott, he got the ball back with 1:35 to go and needing to move from fairly deep in our territory to win the game, and delivered. He didn't choke, which a lot of folks (incl most of us) probably sat there and somewhat expected. He is NOT the league MVP, but he is having a damn good yr even though some of his teammates have let him down far too much (Lamb, Ferg from time to time, Turpin)
2) George Pickens is him. Has been one of the best trade acquisitions that the Cowboys have ever done and is a primary reason this team has not had a complete disaster of a season. Nobody has been able to cover him and stop him, all season. He has definitely usurped Lamb as the focal point of the offense. He's totaled 18 catches for 290 yds and 2 tds in the last two games. They need to keep him long term.
3) Similarly, RB Javonte Williams has been a huge plus for us. Runs with violence and a ton of determination. Almost never gets stopped at or behind the LOS (even when the blocking wasn't great). He got beat on one blitz pickup yesterday but when the game was on the line, delivered a textbook stone job of the Eagles LB to allow Prescott to drill a huge completion to Pickens on the game's final drive. He's a complete back. Hopefully he doesn't wear completely down, he's up to 180 carries already and 217 is his career high. We need him.
4) Quinnen Williams is just a beast. To think we got him and Pickens via trades in the same season is borderline miracle. Getting EITHER was great, getting both is a coup. Dominated again yesterday with 8 QB pressures and has clearly had a huge impact on Odiggy and Clark, who both look like different players with QW next to them. Odiggy is almost unblockable 1 on 1 and had his 2nd straight game dominating with interior pass rush. Had numerous pressures, a sack and 4 QB knockdowns.
5) Plenty of bad to clean up. I think Schottenheimer had his worst game as a HC and decision maker yesterday and it started on the opening series and continued to the end. It seemed like they were this <> close to botching the end of the game FG attempt because of whatever it was they were trying to do. Had they fucked up and got a false start or something on that last play it would have carried a 10 second run off, and the game would have went to OT. Too many stupid play calls and way too many pass attempts inside the 2 yard line (with yet another one resulting in an endzone interception. This run game with Williams (and even Davis) is too fucking good to be trying so many 1 and 2 yd passes down there. The try Lamb/Turpin as a true RB is a massive flop and nearly cost us another game. Mind numbingly stupid decision to not try and challenge the roughing the punter call even with two of his own guys saying the ball was definitely tipped. Schotty really needs to show improvement in the coming weeks.
6) I need someone to explain to me why the Eagles OL is allowed to be moving around at the snap on virtually every play. The RG did it countless number of times, maybe as many as 20 or so different snaps. The LG did it some as well. On many plays they were moving at the snap or at a minimum were CLEARLY not set for a full second before the snap. It was not flagged one time. This has ALWAYS been a penalty in the past, what changed?
7) We got dinged up pretty good yesterday. Guyton and Caron both left with injuries and didn't return. Guyton had one super untimely false start but his blocking has been good the last several games. Carson was arguably our best CB these last 3 games. Pickens got dinged at the end of the game but hopefully he's ok. Still, it's a short week so that could have an impact.
8) Tony Romo has got a lot of heat over the past few years for apparently being severely buzzed or maybe even wasted during some broadcasts, but yesterday it seemed to me like Tom Brady was getting into some of Jerry's JWB or something. He was slurring words or mispronouncing stuff more and more as the game wore on.
9) The Cee Dee stuff is definitely troubling as he is too good to be dropping all these easy ones. It's now 7 in the two Eagles games alone, and to me this is a little suspicious. He's dropped two gimmee tds in the last two games, and just by coincidence BOTH had an impact on Vegas over/under outcomes and happened LATE in both games. If you go back to the season opener, he had the 4 bad drops and as it turns out, that game ended up UNDER as well. Baseball and basketball have both recently been busted for gambling related charges. Football makes more money than both these and the league has been very open and welcoming to online gambling and everything Vegas/sports betting related. I strongly suspect that referees and players alike are involved. The NFL will be the next domino that falls, and it will definitely be the greatest sports conspiracy in the history of all major league sports. I'm not claiming Cee Dee is part of this, but these drops are really inexplicable and a couple of the ones yesterday almost looked intentional. The part that would be hard to understand if he WERE involved is why exactly. He already makes tons of money. How much $$$ could he be getting to take part in this?
Obviously the season is essentially on the line again Thursday (as it will for the remainder of the schedule). The Chiefs can certainly be beaten and are nowhere near as good as recent seasons, but this will be a good barometer for exactly how good a coach and staff we have I think. They are coming off a really emotional, hard fought win v their most hated division rival, and now have to bounce back on a short week vs a desperate Patrick Mahomes led team. If they can come out and play a solid 60 mins and win, maybe we are on to something.
And then something happened. Philly wouldn't score the rest of the game. We forced 5 punts and forced two turnovers. They missed a FG, but never really threatened to score otherwise. We completely stuffed Squon Barkley the entire day. While we only got 1 sack, we did bother Hurts enough to force a number of poor throws and consistently get off the field on 3rd down. Even if only for a brief period, the team saved their season. The playoffs are still an extreme longshot, but the window is at least partly open whereas a loss yesterday would have essentially ended the season.
1) Prescott wasn't perfect. He had one awful endzone pick and had a couple others that prob should have been picked (another one was, but fortunately there was a penalty). But he hung in there, his pass protection was not perfect and he took some pretty good shots, but he found a way to make plays downfield. I don't think Philly's D is as good as last yr but they are still pretty good, and we had just short of 500 yards total offense and a number of chunk plays on them. The Cowboys as a team had an almost unheard of 15.4 yds per RECEPTION. Prescott and Pickens are in a zone right now and are one of the elite combos in the league. For Prescott, he got the ball back with 1:35 to go and needing to move from fairly deep in our territory to win the game, and delivered. He didn't choke, which a lot of folks (incl most of us) probably sat there and somewhat expected. He is NOT the league MVP, but he is having a damn good yr even though some of his teammates have let him down far too much (Lamb, Ferg from time to time, Turpin)
2) George Pickens is him. Has been one of the best trade acquisitions that the Cowboys have ever done and is a primary reason this team has not had a complete disaster of a season. Nobody has been able to cover him and stop him, all season. He has definitely usurped Lamb as the focal point of the offense. He's totaled 18 catches for 290 yds and 2 tds in the last two games. They need to keep him long term.
3) Similarly, RB Javonte Williams has been a huge plus for us. Runs with violence and a ton of determination. Almost never gets stopped at or behind the LOS (even when the blocking wasn't great). He got beat on one blitz pickup yesterday but when the game was on the line, delivered a textbook stone job of the Eagles LB to allow Prescott to drill a huge completion to Pickens on the game's final drive. He's a complete back. Hopefully he doesn't wear completely down, he's up to 180 carries already and 217 is his career high. We need him.
4) Quinnen Williams is just a beast. To think we got him and Pickens via trades in the same season is borderline miracle. Getting EITHER was great, getting both is a coup. Dominated again yesterday with 8 QB pressures and has clearly had a huge impact on Odiggy and Clark, who both look like different players with QW next to them. Odiggy is almost unblockable 1 on 1 and had his 2nd straight game dominating with interior pass rush. Had numerous pressures, a sack and 4 QB knockdowns.
5) Plenty of bad to clean up. I think Schottenheimer had his worst game as a HC and decision maker yesterday and it started on the opening series and continued to the end. It seemed like they were this <> close to botching the end of the game FG attempt because of whatever it was they were trying to do. Had they fucked up and got a false start or something on that last play it would have carried a 10 second run off, and the game would have went to OT. Too many stupid play calls and way too many pass attempts inside the 2 yard line (with yet another one resulting in an endzone interception. This run game with Williams (and even Davis) is too fucking good to be trying so many 1 and 2 yd passes down there. The try Lamb/Turpin as a true RB is a massive flop and nearly cost us another game. Mind numbingly stupid decision to not try and challenge the roughing the punter call even with two of his own guys saying the ball was definitely tipped. Schotty really needs to show improvement in the coming weeks.
6) I need someone to explain to me why the Eagles OL is allowed to be moving around at the snap on virtually every play. The RG did it countless number of times, maybe as many as 20 or so different snaps. The LG did it some as well. On many plays they were moving at the snap or at a minimum were CLEARLY not set for a full second before the snap. It was not flagged one time. This has ALWAYS been a penalty in the past, what changed?
7) We got dinged up pretty good yesterday. Guyton and Caron both left with injuries and didn't return. Guyton had one super untimely false start but his blocking has been good the last several games. Carson was arguably our best CB these last 3 games. Pickens got dinged at the end of the game but hopefully he's ok. Still, it's a short week so that could have an impact.
8) Tony Romo has got a lot of heat over the past few years for apparently being severely buzzed or maybe even wasted during some broadcasts, but yesterday it seemed to me like Tom Brady was getting into some of Jerry's JWB or something. He was slurring words or mispronouncing stuff more and more as the game wore on.
9) The Cee Dee stuff is definitely troubling as he is too good to be dropping all these easy ones. It's now 7 in the two Eagles games alone, and to me this is a little suspicious. He's dropped two gimmee tds in the last two games, and just by coincidence BOTH had an impact on Vegas over/under outcomes and happened LATE in both games. If you go back to the season opener, he had the 4 bad drops and as it turns out, that game ended up UNDER as well. Baseball and basketball have both recently been busted for gambling related charges. Football makes more money than both these and the league has been very open and welcoming to online gambling and everything Vegas/sports betting related. I strongly suspect that referees and players alike are involved. The NFL will be the next domino that falls, and it will definitely be the greatest sports conspiracy in the history of all major league sports. I'm not claiming Cee Dee is part of this, but these drops are really inexplicable and a couple of the ones yesterday almost looked intentional. The part that would be hard to understand if he WERE involved is why exactly. He already makes tons of money. How much $$$ could he be getting to take part in this?
Obviously the season is essentially on the line again Thursday (as it will for the remainder of the schedule). The Chiefs can certainly be beaten and are nowhere near as good as recent seasons, but this will be a good barometer for exactly how good a coach and staff we have I think. They are coming off a really emotional, hard fought win v their most hated division rival, and now have to bounce back on a short week vs a desperate Patrick Mahomes led team. If they can come out and play a solid 60 mins and win, maybe we are on to something.
