Many find a silver lining in the fact we are missing some players to injury. That is fine, but remember this, the Patriots were missing Richard Seymour and Lawrence Maroney as well. Great teams overcome injuries. To this point in the season we have been a great team because we have done that.
Newsflash, we are still a great team. We just got beat by a better team. There is no shame in that. We have room to improve. No doubt about it. Here are some things I'd like to see going forward from here.
1. No more Tyson Thompson as the primary Kick Returner. Yes, he had one good return last night that almost put us back in the game. He also pinned us inside the 20 yard line against a great defense on every single other kickoff that he received. The guy uses bad judgment constantly. After he gets the ball he jogs leisurely out to meet the coverage where he hopes he can make the first guy miss and then accelerate. This would be a great plan if it had ever worked in NFL history. The best Kick Returners hit high gear immediately and then worry about making a guy miss. Not sure Thompson can make anyone miss anyway, he simply has no wiggle.
2. On 3rd down this defense needs to come harder not try to cover closer. Just my opinion mind you, but if you give an NFL QB more than 4 seconds to throw a football they are generally going to kill you. You give that kind of time to a Brett Favre, Peyton Manning, or Tom Brady and they will kill you in a most heinous manner. We have got to send the dogs in waves. I expected to see a more aggressive pass rush, and while I do see improvement over previous years, I still don't see near enough aggression. How long has it been since we batted a pass down? I swear, Too Tall Jones seemed to bat at least one down per game. "Yeah Hos, but he was 6'9" tall." Last time I check Hatcher and Canty weren't exactly short. new England has a great OL, not a good one, a great one. But we still could have pressured Brady more than we did.
3. We have got to either wrap up on tackles, hang on until someone else can come bail the tackler out, or start hitting guys so hard that they play timid. I personally would prefer if we'd simply tackle better. Guys bite on the first move every time. What the hell is up with that? I don't care if it means playing closer. I don't care if it means be more physical. But for the love of all that is holy bring the guy with the ball down. They teach you this in Junior High. Watch his torso, not his head and drive to the torso. Now, wrap up and drag down. I also could do without ever again seeing us throw a ball carrier forward. yeah the tackle still gets made but you're giving them yardage. Always push backwards. Wrap up and push backwards.
4. Can we play Marion Barber at Safety too, or at the very least start him at RB? Julius Jones is running great, but this team has scored 6 points in the 1st quarter for the season. That simply is not acceptable. You're telling me that an offense with this kind of firepower cannot script plays to score in the 1st quarter? You want to offer me some swamp land for sale too? I'm not buying it. The obvious answer to me is to inject some attitude into the offense and right now, no one on the Dallas Cowboys plays with more attitude than Marion the Barberian. Let's use him to light the fires under this offense. Either that or like I said, play him at CB or Safety and let him knock the crap out of someone. Give me 53 guys who play as hard as this guy does and forget who the opponent is, we won't lose. Julius Jones is playing well. Marion Barber is inspiring and igniting the offense. Why not inject his enthusiasm into the picture immediately? This team starts to score once he is part of the game plan. Do the math.
5. No more being Conservative by the coaches. Every time this season that we have gone for it, we have had positive results. When we were down by 14 yesterday and went for 3 on the Patriots 5 yard line it simply let all the wind out of our sails. The team folded after that. Wade Phillips might as well have waved a white flag. What he told the team at that point was that he didn't think we could punch the Patriots in the mouth, but we could still manufacture 2 more scoring drives in the final 10 minutes against this team that we couldn't punch in the mouth. I guarantee you the Patriots were relieved when we lined up for that Field Goal attempt. It gave them new life. They saw the defeat in our eyes and they mashed the pedal down. Tony Romo talked the coaches into going for it last week and it paid off huge. Listen to the Gunslinger and let's go for it. Even if we don't make it, pinning the patriots 95 yards from the endzone has to be better than kicking off to them and letting them start at the 30.
