[goliadmike]

After watching the replay from the first Cowboy Eagle game of last year, I think we have to do the following.

When on offense: Tony cannot turn the ball over. The offense has to protect the ball (that includes Barber). I hope Garrett runs a lot of screens and even a few reverses or fake reverses just to keep the Eagle ends honest. Last year they shut Barber down in the first half by crashing down into the middle when Barber tried to pound the middle of the Eagle defensive line. I have a feeling Witten and or Bennett will have a big day. Last year, Dawkins followed Witten all over the field and Bennett had a nice game with several receptions. Without Dawkins we should have opportunities over the middle. Another thing I hope we see is our backs catching the ball out of the backfield. Barber scored a touchdown with I think Gacong trying to cover him that was a total mismatch.

I really hope our protection holds up and Tony and the receivers are on the same page with there hot reads. If they are on it will be a long day for the Eagles. If we have a trouble reading the defense and Tony is off we will have a miserable night.

Please, please, please hold the penalties down boys. At last years home game I think the Boys had over ten penalties. This game will be hard enough without making the offenses job even tougher.

On defense: On defense I am cautiously optimistic about our secondary, but if Mcnabb happens to hit a big play or two early I think that swagger the DBs are carrying right now will evaporate into thin air. Something that will go a long way in helping the secondary that has been said all week is they must pressure Mcnabb (its obvious but damn it has to happen). I noticed in the first game last year our D-line did not maintain there gaps and Mcnabb was able to step up buy time and find the open receivers.

Ratliff did a fine job of shooting the gaps, but on more than one occasion the center would let Rat pick a gap and then he would just push Jay in that direction while Mcnabb sidestepped the pressure run forward to the line of scrimmage and wait for his receivers to get open. Something else I noticed was our ends seemed to take the wide angles to the QB giving Mcnabb even more room to step around Jay and make a play and with those wide angles Ware and Ellis were having a hard time getting to Mcnabb. I hope we see a few stunts it just seemed like the D-line was going wide on every pass play.

Our ace in the hole will be special teams. I feel like we will be able to pin them back and make them start at around their twenty instead of around the thirty five or forty yard line.

This should be an interesting match up and one I think we might come out on top.