5 & 3 or 6 & 2 ??????

[Cbz40]

Agreed. We have here ateam that can win or lose on any given week to any team in the league.

We'll need to get consistent before I can make any predictions. We look really good at times and we look really bad at times. My gut tells me we will continue to get better, but we will still see some aggravating growing pains, probably so for the remainder of the season.

That, however is expected with the youth we have. I'm just going to sit back and enjoy the growth.

Chicken...........

 

[Givincer]

I think 4-4 is very possible but 6-2 is just as possible as well I think the Raiders/Eagles/Giants/Seattle games can go either way very easily and I think the Giants game is the most critical of all of them, I think we can handle Arizona after what we've seen from them the past couple weeks coupled wtih the fact Kurt Warner looks to be injured for an extended period of time.

 

[david_jackson]

I think we'll be 4-4 after those games, if we beat the Giants.

Just trying to be realistic. We simply aren't a good team right now. We're average. Average teams go 4-4 vs that schedule. 5-3 if we'd beaten the Skins.


We'll likely lose to the Raiders (don't let their 0-3 start fool you, they're a better team then that), Eagles, and Seattle.

Rack has it pegged. Maybe even 5-3 if we are fortunate. But we shoud be much stronger in the second half of the season.

 

[CrazyCowboy]

Our remaining schedule for the first half of the season........


09/11 @ San Diego W 28-24
09/19 Washington L 13-14
09/25 @ San Francisco W 34-31
10/02 @Oakland 3:15 p.m.
10/09 Philadelphia 3:15 p.m.
10/16 N.Y. Giants Noon
10/23 @ Seattle 3:05 p.m.
10/30 Arizona Noon


Anyone see 3-4 wins? I do.

Oakland L, Philly W, NY W, Seattle W, Arizona W......I say we finish the first half at 6 & 2 giving us a good shot at the playoffs. I know I'm just an "Old Homer"

Seriously, I see 7-1 if we stay focused for 4 full quarters. The better teams we play--the better our team plays. The defense with our young players will get better each week. With victories they will gain confidence in each other.

I really have a great feeling about this team--they are SPECIAL!

 

[kmd24]

Agreed. We have here ateam that can win or lose on any given week to any team in the league.

We'll need to get consistent before I can make any predictions. We look really good at times and we look really bad at times. My gut tells me we will continue to get better, but we will still see some aggravating growing pains, probably so for the remainder of the season.

That, however is expected with the youth we have. I'm just going to sit back and enjoy the growth.

In this vein, I see it as a very positive thing that it is the defensive side of the ball that is struggling. With the youngsters on that side of the ball, defense has the most potential to improve as the season progresses.

If the offense were playing poorly, it would be time to hit the panic button.

As for predictions, I think the Cowboys can take 2 of 3 at home and I'm really hoping for a split on the road. 5-3 at the midway point.

 

[MarionBarberThe4th]

Just my opinion

Sun 10/2 @ Oakland (FOX) 3:15 p.m. W- we can pass on them, and vice versa obviously, but I like our running game more, and our QB is better.
Sun 10/9 Philadelphia (FOX) 3:15 p.m. L- Stil not as good as they are
Sun 10/16 N.Y. Giants (FOX) W- Tough team, tight at almost all spots....except secondary. We can pass on them. Run D also suspect
Sun 10/23 @ Seattle (FOX) 3:05 p.m. W- Solid team, but holes on D.
Sun 10/30 Arizona (FOX) W- They just arent good again. No runing game. Fitz will prob. kill us tho
Sun 11/6 BYE
Mon 11/14 @ Philadelphia (ABC) 8:00 p.m. L- I had us splittign before, but if we dont get FS stabilized, they can make us look silly
Sun 11/20 Detroit (FOX) W- Not a good team. Defense is suspect
Thur 11/24 Denver (CBS) 3:15 p.m. W- Im not sure how good they are, but I think it being at Dallas big.
Sun 12/4 @ N.Y. Giants (FOX) L - They get us in NJ, Eli is much better @ home
Sun 12/11 Kansas City (CBS) 3:15 p.m. L- Dont let monday noght fool you, this is a great team. They may go nuts on our secondary
Sun 12/18 @ Washington (FOX) W- payback.
Sat 12/24 @ Carolina (FOX) L- Im not as high on this team as a lot of people are, but they are tough and will prob. be banging on all cylinders at this time.
Sun 1/1 St. Louis (ESPN) 7:30 p.m. W- Poor pass protection, and almsot no secondary. Should be an up and down game

Post Season
Jan 7-8 Wild Card Weekend

 

[burmafrd]

I think Oakland is the tipping point; we win there we might lose to Philthy but win the rest and go 6-2. If we lose to Oakland we might reallys stink up the place vs Philthy and we are in real trouble if we lose 2 in a row. The Giants have holes we can exploit and Manning can be had; Zona is in bad shape; Seattle- I think we have their number just like NE has Indy's number- some teams dominate others for reasons known only to the football gods.

 

[ghosttown cowboy]

I will keep thinking 7-1, that is just how I am!!! :eekmouse: :shoot3:

My kids (6 and 4 ) picked the emoticons.

 

[Hoov]

i would say looking at the schedule 6-2 is possible but after watching that 49er game and realizing how quickly things got out of control, i'll have to say I hope we are 5-3.

 

[Doomsday]

Not to be doom and gloom but Dallas is capable of winning or losing all of those games.

 

[EMMITSWIFT]

I think we'll be 4-4 after those games, if we beat the Giants.

Just trying to be realistic. We simply aren't a good team right now. We're average. Average teams go 4-4 vs that schedule. 5-3 if we'd beaten the Skins.


We'll likely lose to the Raiders (don't let their 0-3 start fool you, they're a better team then that), Eagles, and Seattle.

As much as I hate to , I agree 1000%.We are not that good as I said before pre-season.I still see us finishing 7-9 or 8-8 at best.I just dont understand what BILL is soooo excited about.

 

[Smith22]

I say 5-3 after 8 games, and coming down the home stretch, we may need to close with back 2 back wins (@Carolina, home vs Rams) to make the playoffs.

 

[Chuck 54]

Our remaining schedule for the first half of the season........


09/11 @ San Diego W 28-24
09/19 Washington L 13-14
09/25 @ San Francisco W 34-31
10/02 @Oakland 3:15 p.m.
10/09 Philadelphia 3:15 p.m.
10/16 N.Y. Giants Noon
10/23 @ Seattle 3:05 p.m.
10/30 Arizona Noon


Anyone see 3-4 wins? I do.

Oakland L, Philly W, NY W, Seattle W, Arizona W......I say we finish the first half at 6 & 2 giving us a good shot at the playoffs. I know I'm just an "Old Homer"

I think we'll be 4-4 or 5-3....I'm betting 4-4 unless Bledsoe can carry us on his back and arm.

Are we potentially better than 4-4? Yes, but we are a young team still making mistakes and racking up penalties, still a team looking for a FS. I think we'll win at least 1 we will be proud of and lose 1-2 that will make us shake our heads like the Washington game...that's what happens to young teams trying to get out of the NFL's basement.

I think we'll move ahead of .500 and then screw up and slip back to it again and again most of the season. Our final record will still be 8-8, 9-7 if we mature quickly and people step up on a consistant basis.

If I'm wrong and we manage 10-6, I'll be as surprised and delighted as I was the first year Parcells got us to 10-6....we have much more talent than that team, but I think we'll deal with growing pains all season.

 

[Givincer]

As much as I hate to , I agree 1000%.We are not that good as I said before pre-season.I still see us finishing 7-9 or 8-8 at best.I just dont understand what BILL is soooo excited about.

Bill is so excited because in san fransisco we won in spite of ourselves which is hard to do. He is also excited because he thinks we got 6 serious players out of the draft and 3 serious rookie free agents. That is something to be excited about for the future and maybe this year as well. Our offense looks more potent than it has in how many years now??

 

[Redball Express]

Thanks for the welcome, actually , I've been following the board for awhile now just decided to post. I was a oldtimer on the DMN forum.. Thanks again though

We just couldn't stand the mayhem over there at some point.

;-(((

parcellswaterboy

 

[Letemburn]

We go 5-3 the best. Anything over .500 and we got a chance at playoffs

 

[Redball Express]

Our remaining schedule for the first half of the season........


09/11 @ San Diego W 28-24
09/19 Washington L 13-14
09/25 @ San Francisco W 34-31
10/02 @Oakland 3:15 p.m.
10/09 Philadelphia 3:15 p.m.
10/16 N.Y. Giants Noon
10/23 @ Seattle 3:05 p.m.
10/30 Arizona Noon


Anyone see 3-4 wins? I do.

Oakland L, Philly W, NY W, Seattle W, Arizona W......I say we finish the first half at 6 & 2 giving us a good shot at the playoffs. I know I'm just an "Old Homer"

I prefer to look at streaks..

Regardless of who's ahead on the schedule..what the Boys have to do is put together 2-3 streaks this season where they win 2-3 games back-to-back.

If they continue to win one then lose one or Moses forbid lose 2 in a row more than once this season..the playoffs are out of reach.

Since it's only a 16 game schedule and we only have 13 games left..you can do the math and see that this weekend is extremely important that we put the first back-to-back win streak in place now.

And then build another win on top of that to try to get a 3 win streak. With so many home games coming up and especially over the 10 day period right before and at Thanksgiving where we play those 3 games so close together..

..it's being able to manufacture the streaks that propels you to the playoffs while other teams grind out their games playing win/lose each week.

The Eagles win because they do this.

Good teams win because they do this.

Unless we do this..we aren't going to be a good team.

So it's an early gut-check game coming up for us with Oakland. This team has an opportunity to go 3-1 and start a streak and maybe capitalize on it again the following week with a game at home to go to 4-1.

If they do, then we'll possibly have lightning in a bottle with this team.

If not, then I see us having a tremendous amount of pressure to try to put together those win streaks in the second half of the season to make the playoffs and that's not good.

The 2003 team collapsed in the second half of the season..the 2004 never played well enough to think of what they did as a collapse because they never really played well to begin with..but suffice it to say the 2004 team only put losing streaks up in the second half of the year.

So the key for this team is to do it early and often to position us for November-December.

While some prognosticators have said they think Dallas will get better as the season wears on..I've got my doubts about that as we have a lot of veteran players at key positions that may get worn down by the 12th game on.

My feeling is we need to win early as much as we can while the team is healthy and the vets are playing well. In the second half of the season, more of the rookies are going to have to play bigger roles as the season goes on to spell those guys or replace injured guys and that's going to cause more problems depending on them to make the difference.

I think Parcells senses this.

That's why he is starting to talk about resting guys more already and he admits he's not doing it. It's also going to be a big mistake to me if he doesn't do more to give more playing time to the backups like A-Train, Price, Tucker, Gurode, Peterman, Brett Pierce and others to get them ready to play as they are going to be needed to fill roles down the road.

RB, OL and WR/TE is where we suffered our injuries last year that crippled our playoff chances badly. We've got backups in place to help that this year but you need to work them in more over games to keep them mentally and physically prepared each week to step in.

Pettitti is doing great..but he's rookie and he'll hit a wall at some point in a game and Tucker needs to be more ready. If Tucker isn't ready, it will really snowball.

Price needs to get involved because as much as I like what the offense is doing so far, it's very similar to last year under Testaverde when everybody was healthy and then WR's and TE's started going down and we had nobody ready to step up...

..it became Vinny taking all the heat to make the offense work and he started throwing INTs. to force plays and it all unravelled. Not to mention he just gave out at the end of the year physically.

Just delete Vinny in the above sentence and insert Bledsoe. Yikes.

Same thing with RB when JuJo was grounded for 8 games. He's now got a concussion and that's a redflag for the offense that we need right now to let some other backs get their timing with the OL down and gain some confidence incase JuJo comes out for any reason.

And Brett Pierce needs to be used as if something happens to Witten or Campbell or they need to be rested, we've got him ready to play in the 2-TE offense.

Not even going to go into WR. We are loving what is going on right now, but what happens if..?

Price needs to be ready despite Crayton playing fairly well to this point. Crayton would not be the guy I'd like starting every game at WR if somebody goes down. I like Crayton out of the slot as a 3-4th WR where he's not being focused on as a starter guy..should the need arise.

So BP..listen up.

Get this changed or we maybe hurting later for this. I don't want you having to admit in a post-game loss press conference that you "shoulda-woulda-coulda" done it and changed an outcome.

I'd rather play some of these guys now and let the bullets fly and see how they do than wait until later and then find out they are really going to be a drop-off.

Let's find out now, so we can work on their problems and get them corrected and not be in reaction to a situation we all know is bound to happen somewhere sometime this year.

Git'er done.

Only game play is going to do that.

:fight:

parcellswaterboy

 

[dragon_mikal]

Average teams put themselves in position to lose by flukes. Good teams don't. Good teams put the Commanders away. Good teams don't let the 49ers jump out to a big lead. Dallas is an average team at this time. That is reality. But so are most of the teams that Dallas faces. That is why I said every game will be a toss up. I will be rooting for a win and I think they can win every one of them, but they can also lose some. That is the NFL.

The Dolphins beat the Patriots last year.

Are the Patriots an average team?

Remember when the Dolphins beat us on Turkey Day way back? Were we average then? Or did we go to the Super Bowl?

Let's not go overboard, ok?

Good teams lose to bad teams all the time. It's how they go out the next week that matters. Our team is very talented and as soon as our defense gels, will be very dangerous.

 

[Doomsday101]

Our remaining schedule for the first half of the season........


09/11 @ San Diego W 28-24
09/19 Washington L 13-14
09/25 @ San Francisco W 34-31
10/02 @Oakland 3:15 p.m.
10/09 Philadelphia 3:15 p.m.
10/16 N.Y. Giants Noon
10/23 @ Seattle 3:05 p.m.
10/30 Arizona Noon


Anyone see 3-4 wins? I do.

Oakland L, Philly W, NY W, Seattle W, Arizona W......I say we finish the first half at 6 & 2 giving us a good shot at the playoffs. I know I'm just an "Old Homer"

I have gotten to the point of not looking past this week

 

[joseephuss]

The Dolphins beat the Patriots last year.

Are the Patriots an average team?

Remember when the Dolphins beat us on Turkey Day way back? Were we average then? Or did we go to the Super Bowl?

Let's not go overboard, ok?

Good teams lose to bad teams all the time. It's how they go out the next week that matters. Our team is very talented and as soon as our defense gels, will be very dangerous.

Who is overboard? I see a team that is growing. Just because I think they are average right now doesn't mean they won't be good down the line. I didn't realize that it was offensive to not think Dallas was already the greatest team out there. They are what they are so far. An average team that won two close games and lost another close game. And with parity in the NFL today, being an average team can take you a long ways. Last season Dallas was a bad team. I am glad they improved and expect more improvement.

And the Dolphins that year in the snowy turkey day game were a good team until injuries hurt the rest of their season.