Bleeding Silver and Blue

As a Dallas Cowboys fan I am excited to know that it’s only two days until the first game of the season, albeit only a preseason game I’m still looking forward to seeing my ‘Boys in blue kicking some tail on the turf once again.

Needless to say, I, and many of you too, was left with a bitter taste in my mouth after the crushing defeat at the hands of the Eagles last season. It was the icing on a crap cake after all the injuries and drama fueled on by the mediots in need of a story. So some of it turned out to be true, or more true than the Cowboys organization wanted us to believe at the time, it merely turned a sad and frustrating situation into a disappointing end of an era and end of a season that started so full of promise.

But as a blogger I’ve been feeling somewhat without during this training camp.

Maybe it’s because my fandom has found itself in the backseat for the last month as life presented me with much more pressing issues to contend with than finding a way to watch the games at work and the best places for complete camp coverage.

From the numerous and annoying references to “Coachable” Roy Williams on the DMN – you know what I’m talking about – to the news of players being held of practices and those slated to miss the preseason opener in California this Thursday evening. It’s been enough to read, but nothing to get excited about.

The only real bright spot coming out of camp, considering that we don’t get the full scoop on everything being done as far as plays and schemes go is the increased communication between Williams and Tony Romo. You know, the kind of communication that makes Cowboys fans cheer until their throats are sore and opposing fans boo their own teams’ secondary. Pass and catch.

So now we have Terence Newman and mike Jenkins both out and while the word is that neither injury is serious, it causes me great concern. Didn’t we hear the same thing last year when Newman got hurt in camp? Didn’t he end up missing like six games in total because of that “not too serious” injury?

What about the injuries that aren’t too serious, after last season how can any of us really believe that the severity of the injury at first means anything? I mean we pretty much knew what was up with Felix Jones last year, and it was a totally different and non-football related injury that landed him on injured reserve for more than half of the season.

It makes it harder to be a fan when you see things like I am seeing them now, undoubtedly, but it’s the eternal optimist in me that still peaks it’s head to let know these Cowboys could do it this year.

We’ve got all but one of the weapons that we had in 2007 when we outscored all but one team in the league and lead the NFC. The one weapon we’re missing is missing because he began to backfire on us every other game by doing interviews with the likes of Deion Sanders and steadily causing the ball to be forced his way far too often, and I might add into the hands of a quick defender far too often as well.

Our defense is missing some of the bigger and long standing forces of the past in guys like Greg Ellis and Anthony Henry. But we’ve finally broken free of the liability known very simply as Mr. Horse Collar a.k.a. SS Roy Williams. Not only that, but we also replaced him with a guy that can do what safety in a 3-4 defense should do best – cover – and he does it better than a lot of other guys around the league at his position. Now maybe that’s an overstatement since we haven’t seen him in a game yet and especially since the first preseason game will be a very short one for him. Gerald Sensabaugh is likely the biggest upgrade we’ve made on defense in several years, aside from the miracle of drafting DeMarcus Ware.

We even get the sheer joy of having one the leagues all-time defensive minds not only leading our defense, but taking direct and hands on control of it as the new defensive coordinator by title and duty.

Even the special teams unit has gotten a huge face lift with a new coach known for running a tight and very effective unit in Joe DeCamillis. Add to it the return of a healthy core of kick and punt returners and the addition of some muscle and athleticism from the new linebackers drafted this year, and you’ve got a special teams unit that should be vastly better than the one we booed so often in 2008.

So yeah, maybe the steady and somewhat unremarkable progress during camp has made things boring for a blogger like me, but for a fan, things are definitely looking up.

Are you ready for some football?