Final Notice - We've Moved - Come to the new site at:
http://www.bloggingtheboys.com/
There will be no new postings at this location. Please come visit us at the new home. I will leave this site up for archive purposes, but all the news and content you've come to expect from Blogging The Boys is now at our new location. Plus we've got new community features for more reader interaction. If you love the Dallas Cowboys, bookmark our new location.
Yup, Dallas won. And you can read all about it over at the new site. Still looking for memer, LRogue, CCBoy, Pete, Steve, Jesse, jbratch, dwightk over at the new place.
Change your bookmarks or your RSS feeds so they reflect the new address. The new address is easy to remember because it's the name of the blog.
http://www.bloggingtheboys.com
We have permanently moved, use the above link to come to the new home of Blogging The Boys.
Go to the new site. All posting is going on over there now.
Where are you memer, LRogue, Parl, burningstarIV, CCBoy, Pete, Steve, Jesse, jbratch, dwightk?
Get over to the new site and get your predictions up!
We're Moving!
It's been in the works for a couple of weeks but I can now tell you that Blogging The Boys is moving to a new home. I've been asked to be the new blogger for the Dallas Cowboys on the SportsBlogs network and they've provided us a new home, so everybody pack up and come over to the new location.
I will be cross-posting both here and at the new location for the next few days but sometime soon after the Chiefs game on Sunday, I will only be posting on the new site. Change your bookmarks or your RSS feeds so they reflect the new address. The new address will be easy to remember because it's the name of the blog. The new address:
http://www.bloggingtheboys.com
I think you guys are really going to like this because you are going to have a greater input into the blog. It's now a community blog where you guys can write up "Diaries" and post them. To write diaries and to leave comments you have to sign up for a free account so don't wait around and go do it today. You can read the blog without an account but it won't be nearly as fun as being part of the blog and adding content.
The SportsBlogs network is a collection of team blogs that already has many of the professional teams covered on their roster. Now they've added the Dallas Cowboys and they've chosen this blog to cover the Boys. Over on the new location I have a welcome/thank you post up. Go over there, read up on how it works and sign up for your free account.
It's been a fun season so far, and now we have a new home and hopefully will have a victory over the Chiefs to celebrate as a housewarming party. Thank you guys, let's keep it going and Go Cowboys!
Reminder: Blogging The Boys is moving (see the previous post). Posting on this site will stop over the next day or so and all new content will be on the new site. Change your bookmarks and RSS feeds using the new address.
http://www.bloggingtheboys.com/
NFL football in December, two teams desperate for a victory, both clinging to playoff dreams, this is what the Football Gods were thinking about when they invented the game. Tomorrow’s game is the reason we watch, year after year, hoping our team makes the tournament, hoping a win turns us into contenders. Man, I love the NFL, and the Dallas/Kansas City matchup sure fits the bill for a great December game, so I love this game, too.
Kansas City has all the momentum coming in, after a dud up in Buffalo they are now on a three game win streak. Last week they put away Denver at home, something Dallas couldn’t do on Thanksgiving. RB Larry Johnson has been a revelation this season, rendering the loss of Priest Holmes to a footnote. At 8-4, they would be looking good in the NFC, but in the AFC it means you’re on the same level as the 7-5 Cowboys, and that’s squarely on the bubble.
Dallas has a defense that could win a championship, and an offense that could miss the playoffs. Mix them together and you’re one step from the dream and one step from the abyss. It’s impossible to predict how Dallas will play, week to week they range from marvelous to maddening. To root for them this year is to court heart disease and mental illness, simultaneously.
Click the link below to read the offense vs. defense breakdown and the score prediction.
Over at the Chiefs official site they have an interview up with Trent Green. Some of the choice excerpts below:
Q: Why is the Dallas pass defense so good?
GREEN: “They have these young guys that can really pressure the passer. I think CB Terence (Newman) is playing really well right now. He had high expectations coming out of college and I think he is living up to those expectations now. On the other side they have some injuries to both corners that are playing that spot and we are not sure which guy we are going to see. With the play of their safeties and the pressure they are putting on their quarterback, I actually just read something in Sports Illustrated an interview or quote with Newman had said that because of the pass pressure the secondary all of a sudden looks a lot better and I think that is very evident. When you can generate a pass rush with your down four or a combination of stunts with your linebackers that helps your secondary and I think right now they are able to create that pressure without having to over analyze or commit to many guys to the pass rush. When you can drop guys in coverage and be able to still get pressure that will cause problems for any team.”
Q: What about the (Chiefs) defense? Have you ever been a part of the Chiefs where you felt this strongly about your defense?
GREEN: “I think our defense is playing better than have played the entire time I have been here. I think it has been a growing process with a lot of young guys who have stepped up and played extremely well. Obviously DE Jared (Allen) and LB Kawika (Mitchell), those two guys are the ones that really jumped up on the guys. They have really developed over the last couple of seasons and really played well. We have good veteran leadership over there with DE Eric (Hicks) and CB (Sammy Knight), CB (Patrick Surtain) and S Greg (Wesley). There are a lot of veteran guys that are playing really well and I think they just have a lot of confidence right now. I think they feel good about what they are doing. They feel good about way Gunther (Cunningham) is approaching the game and giving them opportunity to have success. When you get that confidence you think you are going to go out every time and make plays no matter where the team has the ball whether it be a special teams or turnover on the offense where all of a sudden you are on a short field. When you have that confidence it’s just more fun to play and it seems like they are having a lot more fun. In years past it was almost like ‘let’s go out and do as best we can and hopefully nothing goes wrong.’ Now it’s like when they take the field it seems like let’s go out here and make something happen and obviously from an offensive standpoint and from a fan standpoint it’s just a lot more fun to see them go out with that type of attitude.”
Q: You guys have the deep ball because it has seemed the last couple of weeks you have thrown the deep ball more than you have?
GREEN: “We have an opportunity to throw it where we have some match-up situations that worked in our favor. Last week Denver had two rookies that were playing at that left corner and so we were able to utilize that a couple of times. The week before New England had a rookie on one side and sometimes you can find those match-ups that give you a distinct advantage. Having Willie in there gives us the ability to do that and anytime we can stretch the field the secondary can’t sit on the underneath passes we are able to stretch things as it opens up the middle passing game as well as the running game. That has been a big part of our game the last couple of weeks.”
Parcells held his customary short press conference on Friday mornings, here's what he had to say.
Aaron Glenn is going to attempt to practice today.
(Chiefs RB) Larry Johnson had to make an adjustment in the NFL, sitting behind Priest Holmes may have slowed him. Now that he's getting the opportunities, he's a big back, runs inside the tackles and catches the ball, he's taking advantage.
The 3-4 defensive front provides less schemes for the offense to use, it forces the offense to block one-on-one and if you can hold your own there, you have a chance to be a good defense. Terence Newman, Roy Williams, Bradie James, Scott Shanle have all improved and are helping the defense.
Once again he talked about the danger Dante Hall represents on special teams, and noted that they are getting much better production on offense now that LT Willie Roaf is back.
The Cowboys have done a lot of work and studied all the shifting and motion that KC does on offense, in the end you have to recognize their final formation and then use discipline to stop them.
After a reporter asked if Barber was better at being his own blocker than Julius (reference yesterday's press conference) Parcells got a little perturbed and chided the reporter about his questions then eventually asked the reporter "if he wanted the coach's job". When the reporter said "if I get the paycheck" Parcells replied "I'm not up here for paychecks, I'm here to win". Then a reporter asked if he was having fun like Vermeil is having fun. At this point, Parcells said "I'm not getting into all this psychological junk" about whose happy, whose a better player and cut-off the press conference by stating he had to go to practice.
The reporters are beginning to irritate Parcells this week, which I take as a good sign. It means Parcells has a short fuse lately and Parcells seems to do better when he is mad.
Bill Parcells often discusses his friendship with Kansas City coach Dick Vermeil in press conferences, sometimes unprompted. So when it comes to evaluating the Cowboys and Coach Parcells' mood going into the game Sunday, maybe Vermeil has the goods. Let's go to the tape.
Vermeil thinks he knows how Parcells will react to that sudden loss of momentum after a three-game winning streak. "I know it doesn't make Bill happy, and if it doesn't make Bill happy, it won't make that team happy," Vermeil said.
Ha, I could've told you that. But Vermeil gives us further insight.
"When a (Parcells) team's not happy, they play harder," Vermeil said of Sunday's opponent at Texas Stadium. "Bill has a great way of applying pressure from a leadership standpoint. Believe me, I know a lot of players who play for Bill feel that pressure, and then they play better. That's his style. He's a great leader."
Hmm, sounds good to me, but then again, I'm looking for any good news nowadays. Let's check in with Drew Bledsoe.
"... he's made it abundantly clear to everyone that what we've done in the past two weeks isn't nearly close to our expectation level, which is still up there. There was a lot of intensity on the practice field today, both from him and the coaching staff, to correct the mistakes that have set us back the last two weeks."
Will a mad Tuna equal victory? Will the Cowboys make Vermeil cry? Don't answer that, puppy dogs and greeting cards make Vermeil cry. This post has taken a weird turn, let's get back to football.
There's a lot of tight end talk this week with All-World Tony Gonzalez playing against All-Potential-World Jason Witten. Here's one writer's list of All-World tight ends.
Gonzalez belongs on a list that includes Kellen Winslow, Todd Christensen, Ozzie Newsome, Jackie Smith, Shannon Sharpe and Wesley Walls. And you can go ahead and throw in Jerry Smith and Ben Coates.
That's a good list. But like Parcells said yesterday in the press conference, it's a tight end revival in the NFL these days. Along with Gonzalez and Witten, you got Antonio Gates, Alge Crumpler, Jeremy Shockey, and some others with potential like Chris Cooley, Todd Heap, L.J. Smith and the rookie Heath Miller.
Of course, a couple of my favorite tight ends are Jay Novacek and Billy Joe DuPree.
Recap of the press conference this afternoon. There was a lot of back and forth between Parcells and the reporters today. They were irritating him at some points and he joked with them at others, it was an interesting press conference. The reporters were much more aggressive today than I have heard them all year.
Press Conference Summary
Coach says Anthony Henry is fine and will play this weekend but isn't sure if he will start. Aaron Glenn worked on the side today but is making progress, and Parcells is pretty confident he will play.
On offense, Parcells believes we can get the passing game going again this week.
Parcells discussed the fact that the KC team is a very veteran team and that in a couple of years age might be a problem for them. Because of that, they are trying to get it done now.
Talked about Jason Witten and Tony Gonzales, he wouldn't compare them but he talked about how TE's are coming back into vogue in the NFL. They are much more talented nowadays. Said Gonzales is used more as an H-back instead of an inline TE. Dunn is the TE they use in the traditional role, but they move Gonzales around with motion and lining him up in different spots. Witten is kind of like that but not as refined.
Said we need to score some points to beat this team, they are too good to hold their offense down for the whole game, our offense has to score points.
Told the reporters that everyone wants him to open up the offense but that there are risks in doing that and that is what he explains to his players and how they should use it to prepare for the game. Said at the end of the year he would explain this in more detail.
Said he talked to Julius Jones today, told him there are times in your career when the running games stalls and the blocking is not there, and you just have to be your own blocker and rip off a big run, that's what the great ones do. If you do this it can fire up the team and get things moving. Said Julius understands this and he knows that Julius can do it.
Thought that last week was Scott Fujita's best game. Said it took him time to get the system down but now he is more aggressive against the runs and more deliberate in re-routing receivers. Parcells was very happy with Fujita's performance last week.
Hopes to get Mike Barrow into the game this week.
Thinks the defense is doing a good job cutting down on points scored, they are more technically sound this year and that Mike Zimmer is doing a good job coordinating the defense.
Bradie James has made a big difference on the defense.
OK, that headline was a little sensational. The KC defense hasn't actually talked trash, but the subtext of their comments is, "Drew Bledsoe is a sitting duck". You can't really blame them, they've seen the same thing on film that we've been talking about for a couple of weeks, mainly that our offensive line stinks at the moment. Check out what their saying.
"This is a good chance for our defensive line to go out and add up on the sack category and get some good hits on the guy," Chiefs cornerback Eric Warfield said. "It's all a matter of how well their offensive line protects."
"They're doing what they can to keep him healthy and keep him protected and get the ball down the field at the same time," Chiefs coach Dick Vermeil said.
"Drew doesn't have the feet," Warfield said. "He's not a big concern when he's rolling out of the pocket. He's taken a lot of hits during his career. That's what he's known for. He's going to take some sacks, and yet he's a playmaker. He makes big plays with his arm."
In other words, the guy plays with cement shoes so we're going to try and decapitate him on Sunday. Expect a healthy dose of blitzes from KC, and pray that we give Drew enough time to burn them for big plays.
"We always expect with Drew being at quarterback that people will try to get at us some," Parcells said.
Parcells, the master of stating the obvious.
Jean-Jacques Taylor over at the Dallas Morning News has this article up in the pay section of their football coverage. His basic premise is that Dallas needs to do something to spark the offense and suggests Terence Newman's speed on punt returns could be a key factor in getting field position or even scoring TD's himself. This is an interesting debate.
While everything was going good on offense, there's no way I wanted one of our star cornerbacks taking a chance of getting injured on punt returns. But now, it may be time to pull out all the stops and take advantage of every weapon we have at our disposal. On the flip side, all could be doomed if Newman goes down and Anthony Henry remains gimpy. Here's how Jean-Jacques leads off his article.
The time has come to let cornerback Terence Newman become a full-time punt returner.
The offense is stagnant and Tyson Thompson hasn’t been a factor on kickoff returns in more than a month. The way to improve field position and help the offense is to let Newman be a punt returner. After all, he was one of the best in the nation as a senior at Kansas State, and he has shown the ability to do it well on this level in limited opportunities.
Newman has definitely been taking more of the punt returns recently, is it time for him to do it full-time, at least for a few games in hopes we get things turned around?
Opinions please in the comments section.
From the latest Jaime Aron article.
Bill Parcells said the Dallas Cowboys went through a practice Wednesday that was structured differently from all the other midweek workouts they've had this season. And, he volunteered, things are going to be different on Thursday, too.
"I wanted to try to do a little something that I thought would help us in dealing with Kansas City's offense and defense," he said. "That's all. No big deal. Nothing major."
I don't care what they did as long as they are trying something. We've been saying it all week, something needs to happen to snap this bunch out of their offensive funk.
From a Doug Tucker article on the Kansas City beat.
Perhaps just as importantly, good health has returned to a team that a month ago was hobbled at key spots. Left tackle Willie Roaf, who missed much of the season with a hamstring injury, has not only returned, he's regained the dominating form that took him to 10 Pro Bowls. Right guard Will Shields also has shrugged off back problems and is playing the way he did while earning 10 Pro Bowl trips himself.
Why, of why, can't they be saying stuff like that about our line. Imagine the above paragraph read this way:
Perhaps just as importantly, good health has returned to a team that a month ago was hobbled at key spots. Left tackle Flozell Adams, who missed much of the season with a knee injury, has not only returned, he's regained his Pro Bowl form. Right guard Marco Rivera also has shrugged off back problems and is playing the way he did while earning Pro Bowl trips himself.
How sweet would that be right around now?
Quick rundown of the Parcells press conference. It's been a busy afternoon personally so the recap will be rather short.
Both Arron Glenn and Anthony Henry are listed as questionable. Henry returned to practice today and if he holds up as well the next few days he will likely play.
If we fill the open roster spot it won't be until Friday. There are no plans to play Marc Colombo or Marcus Price at tackle, we will be going with Tucker and Petitti. Both Al Johnson and Andre Gurode will play this week. The line needs to block better but so do the TE's, WR's and RB's. Everyone on offense must contribute.
Dallas needs to win 3 of the last 4 to have a shot at the playoffs.
Bledsoe doesn't need more time than the average QB, we are just not executing well in this area.
Lousaka Polite will probably be involved in the game plan this week.
Talked to Fujita, Pile and Caver (ex-Chiefs) about the capabilities of players on the Kansas City team. Didn't talk about schemes but about players.
Peerless Price is not happy about being unceremoniously dumped by the Cowboys last week. John Clayton over at ESPN writes about it and also discusses the Eddie George and Anthony Thomas dismissals. You can read it here, if you have an Insiders subscription. Here is the relevant information about Peerless Price.
Peerless Price is so bitter about his release from the Cowboys that he has no interest in playing the final four weeks of the season. He's going to prepare for next year and get ready for free agency. Price, released by the Falcons this summer, thought he found a great situation with the Cowboys and signed a one-year, $1.8 million contract. Unfortunately, coach Bill Parcells wasn't as excited about the signing as Jerry Jones. Parcells wouldn't play Price. He said publicly he didn't know what to do with him.
I don't blame Parcells for dumping guys like Price, George and Thomas. It's better to get rid of players who, for whatever reasons, don't fit into what you're trying to accomplish on the field. That's life in the NFL. Peerless will find a job next year in free agency, he just won't be making the kind of money he is used to getting.
Two Dallas Cowboys lead the Pro-Bowl voting at their respective positions thus far. Drew Bledsoe leads the QB vote in the NFC with 496,912 votes. I guess his recent games haven't filtered out to the football voting public yet. Larry Allen leads at guard with 188,344 votes.
Our old kicker Jose Cortez has been released by the San Francisco 49ers after Joe Nedney was healthy again after a one week absence. Now, if Jose Cortez catches on with another team this year, you have to give the man his due. That would be his fourth team of the year, would that be a record? I wonder if they even give him a locker anymore, or do they just give him a stool in the corner?
Oh man, when I read the opening paragraph of the latest Jaime Aron article, I started to get a little queasy. These are words I never wanted to see this year.
Drew Bledsoe is starting to look like the guy Buffalo Bills fans were glad to get rid of. The uncertainty in the pocket. The turnovers. The lack of confidence those things create - and the losses, two in a row for the Dallas Cowboys.
A comparison to the Buffalo Drew. That's not the way it was supposed to be, the Dallas Drew was the guy everybody voted for in the Pro-Bowl referenced above. But lately, he's been the Buffalo Drew again. It's pretty obvious why, take a look at these stats from the same article.
Bledsoe played six games with his blind side protected by the 6-foot-7, 335-pound "Hotel" Flozell. He's now played six games without him. The statistical difference is stunning.
With Flozell: 124-of-196 (63.3 percent) for 1,649 yards (274.8 per game), 11 touchdowns and 4 interceptions.
Without Flozell: 105-of-178 (59 percent) for 1,040 yards (173.3 per game), 6 touchdowns and 7 interceptions.
OK, well that's pretty clear. Drew, the question now is can you overcome? Can you shed the label, a QB who has to have a squeaky clean pocket to win? You're not going to have one the rest of the year, so you better find a way to get it done.
Jaime Aron article here.
