On the Offense
Tony Romo – One attribute great players have is the ability to bounce back from a bad game. Tony has demonstrated his short memory before. Romo has a passer rating of 94.2 after throwing three or more interceptions. It will be interesting to see if Romo can continue to knock the rust off and get back to his usual high performance.
Dez Bryant – Dez caught 4 passes for 55 yards last week against a Niner defense that was determined to not let Bryant have a big day. The biggest issue I have with that is Dez was only targeted 6 times. Was that strictly because of the good defense or Romo not seeing Dez? It will be interesting to see how Dez reacts if last week’s outing becomes a trend. Not to mention the “dehydration” that crept up last week.
DeMarco Murray – Murray was a beast last week, but he did have a fumble which he is known to do from time to time. Murray carries the ball against his forearm while securing it with his hand. He doesn’t tuck the ball against his bicep and secure it tightly. He started to cover it up with two hands a little more after the fumble. But it will be interesting to see if he goes back to the old habit of not securing the ball tight enough.
Offensive Line – I want to see if the communication between the O-line and Romo are better this week. The running game was awesome and they gave Tony plenty of time to throw. However, there is still room for improvement. I would just like to the communication get better.
Cole Beasley – I look for Beasley to get more and more involved in this offense. The niners took away Jason Witten with double-teams and wanted to make someone else beat them. Cole did just that, he was money on third down.
On the Defense
Jeremy Mincey – He flat-out shocked me last week. He went up against one of the better tackles in the league and gave him fits all day long. Mincey will be going against Michael Roos, who has been struggling so far in the early part of the season, so let’s hope Mincey can continue his good play and put up a few sacks.
Henry Melton – Melton didn’t get as many snaps as he thought he would last week as the team is set on bringing him back slowly. However, when he did play it was as if he had never had been hurt. He played with quickness and power.
Terrell McClain – The big man finally gets his chance at some action after missing all of training camp and preseason with a dreaded high-ankle sprain. I expect the ‘Boys to bring him in on limited snaps like they did with Melton. But having another big man in the lineup is a plus.
Bruce Carter – I picked Carter as player to watch last week and I believe he has finally found his niche in this defense. Last week was by far the most productive that I’ve seen from Carter in a while. He still had some miscues but overall he played well at the SAM position. He was able to rush the QB more instead of being in coverage all the time and recorded the only QB sack of the game for the Boys.
Rolando McClain – Like Carter, I picked McClain as a player to watch in last week’s game. I don’t want to jump the gun but, McClain looks like he could be the steal of the year. It’s early and anything can happen. But I look for McClain to keep getting better and better each week.
Anthony Hitchens – The rookie gets his first shot at starting in only his second game of his young career. He will be stepping in for Justin Durant at the Will spot, who is out with a groin injury. Let’s see how the rookie can handle things when the lights come on and it’s game time.
Mo Claiborne & Brandon Carr – I put these two guys here because they played poorly. Both had missed a lot of training camp for different reasons and showed rust as a result. I will say both were asked to play zone more because of the threat of the QB taking off and running. And we know zone coverage is not a strong point in either player’s game. So I do expect a better performance out of both guys as long as they get to play more man to man.
Hopefully all the guys mentioned above will ball out and can get a victory over a tough Titan team.
Don’t mean to brag, but I got a few of those right.