It's taken years for Crayton's pull up on the winning TD against the Giants to be generally recognized, but now everyone knows we were a Crayton screw up away from winning that game.
Screwups at WR that year changed Cowboys history for the worse, wasting the Team that Parcells Built.
First, Glenn was brought back too early and blew out his knee.
Second, we didn't replace Glenn with a competent WR.
Third, TO gets injured and we get exposed for our lack of depth at WR, with Glenn done and Crayton still just not ready for primetime.
The failure in 2007 is on coaching and management. Screw up after screw up, and Almost Antonio was still throwing the game winning pass in the final seconds in 2007. Crayton's last screw up was just the final straw for the season.
Then the coup de gave next year with the Roy Williams abomination, which dumped TO, kept a 3rd or 4th WR on the field as a starter, and kept better WRs in Crayton and Austin off the field.
Glenn's knee doesn't go out, and it's a whole different timeline.
Anyone who understood the game knew exactly what happened on that play on 3rd down. Laufenberg pointed it out as it happened on the broadcast, he saw it from the booth. Crayton acknowledged it the morning after on Michael Irvin's espn 103.3 fm radio show. Irvin asked him to break down the play and he did, it was a 16 yard dig route (they had run that a million times to crayton) with built in adjustments like all routes....when the safety took off crayton was supposed to run the go but he hesitated and it was only one step and that was all it took. The ball was perfect. Would have been an all time play.
Glenn acted weird that whole offseason after parcells left and he just wasn't right. Then wanted a contract extension if I remember correctly.
The offense was fine in 07 with Owens and witten leading the way. Crayton and hurd were excellent role players and anthony fasano was too.
The injuries to Romo, Owens, Gurode, Canty the final 3 weeks were just bad luck and had some lingering effects though I think none contributed to the loss of the playoff game.
I agree on poor coaching, particularly special teams. They made a mistake in the preseason and should have learned there lesson and didn't, then did it again at ny then finally committed a penalty right before the half coupled with a jacques reeves penalty which allowed the giants a td when they were essentially going to run out the clock and regroup after getting manhandled in the first half.
Some strange things happened in that game, every little thing was called on Dallas and Antonio Pierce threw a punch into the stomach of Barber/gurode I cant remember right in front of two officials and they did nothing. It was just one of those days. The terrible call on ware on the opening drive which extended the giants from punting to first down in which Toomer scored on a bunch of missed tacklers didnt help either.
miles austin was never healthy enough to be relied on until 2009. they wanted desperately to make him the number 3 in 08 and he started the season off fast then got hurt. More bad luck.
i agree on glenn though. Had he played with the same attitude as 06 and been healthy in 07 who knows how much better they would have been. The difference in hurd outside vs glenn was significant. The offense was still great however.
