Thoughts from Nashville:
Since I cant start a thread, I will dig this one up.
On the crowd: The Cowboys takeover was not exaggerated. It was 50-50 at worst and likely pro-Dallas.
On Romo: Its tough to tell much about QB play from the cheap seats. He definitely didn't see a couple of wide open receivers, but that's the case almost every game, for every QB. I can tell all the legit (non-troll) Romo haters this, it could be worse. See Jake Locker tape and bio for proof.
On Mo and the secondary: Ah yes, the zone's favorite pariah. As a former DB, my eyes normally find the secondary. Mo's got some warts (some large ones actually) but he is nowhere near the worthless bust a lot would have us believe. At least 3 times we made big plays where Locker was trying to target Mo. He probably never made the tv screen, but the plays were great none the less. On Church's int, Locker was trying to get Mo on a deep post. It was blanketed and he finally tossed some late, lame duck over the middle that Church snagged. One of the sacks was exactly the same thing. Tried to get Mo on a double move and the rush got there eventually.
Carr is a better all-around corner right now, but Claiborne IMO has better man cover skills, and at least from my seat, it not a very close race. PS. I know what he cost in draft collateral, but that is dead and gone. They aren't going to give us the picks back. Carr is costing almost 3x against the cap what Mo is, and at best, marginally better.
The gap between Mo/Carr and Moore IS NOT small.
Overall, I was very pleasantly surprised with the way our coaches mixed up and disguised coverages. We ran a lot of man and cover 3, mixed in a little cover 2, and in general didn't give it away pre-snap. Even JJ has some pretty decent cover skills (when he figures out who his man is). He's been my pet cat since day 1, so I'm a little biased, but he moves well, and at least shows the skill set to develop.
If I saw one big negative in pass coverage, it was underneath. The LBs (and Church) got lost underneath several times. In both zone and man. There were times where it looked like 4 different guys were open underneath and Locker was locked on somebody 30 yards downfield trying to stare them open. Oh yeah, and Moore did not look good, at least on the plays I paid attention.
On the run game: The O-line run blocking was good. Murray was better. All day long, Tennesse stacked 8 in the box. They were staying in base a lot against our 3wr sets AND walking a safety down practically every play. It actually looked like they were running a 46 or some type of 4-4 almost the entire game. I would guess 80% of the snaps were 8 in the box with a single high safety. Didn't matter, the run was there all day.
On Dez: I love me some Dez, but as previously mentioned, Dez (and T-Wil for that matter) had single coverage practically all day. While I love the fact that we ran it straight down their throat with a stacked box all day long, if this is the style we plan to run (and stick to), I really don't see how we can fork out 12mil or so a year to trot Dez out as a decoy. I can guarantee you Tennessee DID NOT do anything to take Dez away today, we just didn't need him. If today is an example of the offense our coaches want going forward, we need to pay Murray and let Dez walk. It kills me to even type that, but Murray was MUCH more valuable to what we were trying to do TODAY than our WRs were.
Sorry for the length, just thought I'd share a little of what one fan saw in Nashville today
