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Moore: Slow-starting Cowboys look better -- well, less bad, anyway
01:47 AM CDT on Tuesday, October 5, 2010
COLUMN By DAVID MOORE / The Dallas Morning News
dmoore@dallasnews.com
David Moore
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IRVING – A consensus has emerged after a weekend of rest, relaxation and the NFL Sunday Ticket.
The Cowboys aren't bad for a last-place team.
This is not some motivational mumbo-jumbo a coach spews to prop up a team in decline. It's not part of some mass delusion at Valley Ranch. The Cowboys, a team on the brink of despair and irrelevance 10 days ago, come out of their bye week looking as good as any team in the NFC East.
When you get right down to it, does any team in the NFC blow you away four weeks into the season?
Every team has come up short in its search for consistency. It turns out the Cowboys' slow start is just that, a slow start. It doesn't indicate a fatal flaw when compared with the rest of the division and conference.
"I do think it's a break to be 1-2 and still be in the hunt with what we all thought was going to be a strong division," tight end Jason Witten said.
It has, in the words of coach Wade Phillips, been an "up and down" division.
Each team in the NFC East has already lost two games. The NFC West is the only other division without a team over .500.
Washington leads the East based on division wins over the Cowboys and Philadelphia . This is the same Redskins team that failed to score an offensive touchdown against the Cowboys, blew a 17-point lead at home in a loss to Houston and dropped a game to St. Louis.
The New York Giants have lost games by 24 and 19 points.
The Eagles have yet to win at home and juggle two quarterbacks they can't keep healthy.
"We're definitely not in a bad position, but we're not in the greatest, either," right guard Leonard Davis said. "You've definitely got to take that into account.
"We actually started bad and kind of dug ourselves a hole. I think once we string a couple of games together and really get back on track, the picture will definitely change for us.
"But right now we can't worry what's down the road. All we can do is worry about the team in front of us, and that's the Tennessee Titans."
Three of the team's next four games are at Cowboys Stadium. If the Cowboys did right themselves with the win over the Texans, if they did learn that the will to prepare must be as strong as the will to win, it should show over the next four weeks.
The key is not to ignore the flaws that led to consecutive losses to open the season. Witten spoke of the need to keep that critical eye. Linebacker Keith Brooking is thankful the division has backed up to the Cowboys, but knows it means nothing if the Cowboys don't take care of business in their final five division games and beyond.
"I think you're better off looking at yourself right now," Phillips said. "It's nice everybody in our division has lost a couple of games. It puts us in better stead since we've won only one, but ultimately it's what we do from now on."
This is not just an NFC East thing. Super Bowl champion New Orleans hasn't won a game by more than five points and has twice been held to fewer than 20 points. Atlanta's only lead at home against winless San Francisco came in the final two seconds of Sunday's game.
Chicago was the NFC's last unbeaten team but looked dreadful in its 17-3 loss to the Giants. Minnesota owns the same 1-2 record as the Cowboys.
"Green Bay was supposed to be a powerhouse," Phillips noted. "They've done all right, but ..."
But needed a defensive touchdown, three turnovers and 13 penalties by Detroit to win at home against a Lions team that played without its No. 1 quarterback.
The opening to the Cowboys' season may not be as heinous as most thought.
"We're 1-2," Brooking said. "We didn't start out where we wanted to start out, but at the end of the day we still control our own destiny and what we can accomplish with this football team with the games we have left on our schedule.
"That's all that matters."
• • •
01:47 AM CDT on Tuesday, October 5, 2010
COLUMN By DAVID MOORE / The Dallas Morning News
dmoore@dallasnews.com
David Moore
Archive | E-mail
IRVING – A consensus has emerged after a weekend of rest, relaxation and the NFL Sunday Ticket.
The Cowboys aren't bad for a last-place team.
This is not some motivational mumbo-jumbo a coach spews to prop up a team in decline. It's not part of some mass delusion at Valley Ranch. The Cowboys, a team on the brink of despair and irrelevance 10 days ago, come out of their bye week looking as good as any team in the NFC East.
When you get right down to it, does any team in the NFC blow you away four weeks into the season?
Every team has come up short in its search for consistency. It turns out the Cowboys' slow start is just that, a slow start. It doesn't indicate a fatal flaw when compared with the rest of the division and conference.
"I do think it's a break to be 1-2 and still be in the hunt with what we all thought was going to be a strong division," tight end Jason Witten said.
It has, in the words of coach Wade Phillips, been an "up and down" division.
Each team in the NFC East has already lost two games. The NFC West is the only other division without a team over .500.
Washington leads the East based on division wins over the Cowboys and Philadelphia . This is the same Redskins team that failed to score an offensive touchdown against the Cowboys, blew a 17-point lead at home in a loss to Houston and dropped a game to St. Louis.
The New York Giants have lost games by 24 and 19 points.
The Eagles have yet to win at home and juggle two quarterbacks they can't keep healthy.
"We're definitely not in a bad position, but we're not in the greatest, either," right guard Leonard Davis said. "You've definitely got to take that into account.
"We actually started bad and kind of dug ourselves a hole. I think once we string a couple of games together and really get back on track, the picture will definitely change for us.
"But right now we can't worry what's down the road. All we can do is worry about the team in front of us, and that's the Tennessee Titans."
Three of the team's next four games are at Cowboys Stadium. If the Cowboys did right themselves with the win over the Texans, if they did learn that the will to prepare must be as strong as the will to win, it should show over the next four weeks.
The key is not to ignore the flaws that led to consecutive losses to open the season. Witten spoke of the need to keep that critical eye. Linebacker Keith Brooking is thankful the division has backed up to the Cowboys, but knows it means nothing if the Cowboys don't take care of business in their final five division games and beyond.
"I think you're better off looking at yourself right now," Phillips said. "It's nice everybody in our division has lost a couple of games. It puts us in better stead since we've won only one, but ultimately it's what we do from now on."
This is not just an NFC East thing. Super Bowl champion New Orleans hasn't won a game by more than five points and has twice been held to fewer than 20 points. Atlanta's only lead at home against winless San Francisco came in the final two seconds of Sunday's game.
Chicago was the NFC's last unbeaten team but looked dreadful in its 17-3 loss to the Giants. Minnesota owns the same 1-2 record as the Cowboys.
"Green Bay was supposed to be a powerhouse," Phillips noted. "They've done all right, but ..."
But needed a defensive touchdown, three turnovers and 13 penalties by Detroit to win at home against a Lions team that played without its No. 1 quarterback.
The opening to the Cowboys' season may not be as heinous as most thought.
"We're 1-2," Brooking said. "We didn't start out where we wanted to start out, but at the end of the day we still control our own destiny and what we can accomplish with this football team with the games we have left on our schedule.
"That's all that matters."
• • •