The end of an era is upon us. Yes this Saturday night will be the final Cowboy game to ever be played at Texas Stadium. I can think of no better way to end this stadiums term as home of the Dallas Cowboys than for the playoff lives of the Cowboys on the line.
What is your favorite memory of Texas Stadium? I have been lucky enough to have seen many games here, from Texas High School football playoffs, to watching Walter Payton run Randy White and Ed “too tall” Jones ragged. Over 100 hundred former Dallas Cowboys players and coaches will be in attendance on Saturday night, it should be an electric atmosphere! I know the Dallas crowd will be loud and the team will be in kill mode for sure.
All the drama of last week seems to be fading away now. Now that all the “anonymous sources” have faded, and Ed Werder is looking for a new place to perform his piss poor journalism. So we can all focus our attention back to what really matters, football!
The Cowboys have got some things working for them now and appear to be gaining momentum. One thing they are not gaining though is health, this team has had its worst year in a long time as far as health goes. It seems every week they pile up some more injuries, last week was no different as Tony Romo was beaten to pulp last week, so much so that he could not walk on Monday. This is a huge concern for the Cowboys, although he did practice limited yesterday he is listed as probable, and at this point he would play if he was in a wheel chair. So I am not concerned about his availability, I am however highly concerned about the level at which he will be able to play!
At this point from what I am hearing one good hit from Baltimore on Saturday night could force us to turn to Brooks or even Brad! This is not good! So the priority of the game should be in protecting Romo, we still have health problems here though with Kosier being on IR, and “The Big Fella” Holland has not practiced and Wade Phillips has ruled him out for Saturday night. So that leaves us with Cory “I can’t block my mother” Proctor as the starting left guard and the middle protector for Romo. I am sure in the Ravens locker room there is a picture of Romo on their “Bounty” list, with a picture of Proctor in the “How To” column. It will be imperative for the boys to get the ball out of Romo’s hands quickly.
The Ravens have an excellent defense as everyone knows, but they have been known to give up some big plays. The Ravens do an unbelievable job of disguising their coverages, this worries me some after watching how discombobulated Romo and the receivers were in Pittsburgh. They have to be on the same page for them to have any chance at scoring points! The other key to this game is going to be, can the Cowboys establish some kind of a running game against arguably the leagues best rush defense? This is where the new “King of Dallas” Tashard Choice comes into play. The Cowboys may or may not have the services of Marion Barber as evidently he had some sort of re-aggravation of the toe injury yesterday and his status is unknown. So we will be depending on the 4th round rookie draft choice Tashard Choice to carry the load. Two weeks in a row now he has stepped up and taken on that challenge and performed admirably! Those other two games no longer mean anything, can he step up a third straight time?
The final key to this game is, Can the defense keep applying pressure and create some turnovers against a less than stellar offense? The defense should be able to load up the line of scrimmage to stop the Ravens running attack, much the same way they did last week against the Giants. If they can accomplish this without giving up the “Big Play” then the boys will be able to dictate the game to the Ravens and force Joe Flacco into poor decisions. To aid in this last key Wade Phillips announced yesterday that Pac-Man Jones is back from his “career threatening injury” and will play this Saturday! This was great news for the defense as now they are almost back to full strength and can now do more things with Henry in the safety position. Look for a very similar game-plan from last week for the defense.
This should be a good one! Enjoy the final game at Texas Stadium!
