Can you begin now to understand why I hate Kickers? I'm not just talking about Buehler doinking the PAT either. Opposing Kickers rarely if ever miss FGs against us, especially if they are important. Feely's last 2 FGs both barely went over the crossbar.
I am not a Stephen McGee fan, but that kid moved the ball down the field and set up Austin with a perfect pass for what should have been the winning TD. Doink.
No, I do not think this means Buehler is gone this week, or even next year. It means he is a young Kicker learning on the fly and for the second time this year missed a Kick that could have won the game for us. He makes that PAT I do not believe Arizona scores. I have no idea why other than the team was jacked up and that let the air out of the tires.
Nothing else seemed to get this team down. Not the 2 pick 6's. Not Marion Barber inexplicably taking off his helmet after he scored. Nothing. Doinked PAT and a long given up conversion on 4th down and you could feel the L coming.
Okay, I do not like when people blame referees for losses, and I want to stress I am not trying to do that. However, before the game when it was announced that Jeff Triplett was the Referee for this game I said out loud that it concerned me. All night long after I said the Cardinals fan to my right kept saying, "I like Jeff Triplett." This was never more evident than on the overturned Interception. I do not know how it looked to you guys on the TV, but at the stadium on the big video boards there it looked like an INT. Cardinals fans were just about as shocked as Cowboys fans that it was held up as an incomplete pass.
I'll tell you how shocked people were. After the replay finally showed on the video board, the Cowboys OL took the field to get ready for us to have possession. I want to see it for myself, but I swear it looked like he got his hands underneath that ball. I kid you not, all around me Cowboys fan were confident, Cardinals fans were depressed. I said, "that is Jeff Triplett under that hood. He is not going to give us the INT." And he didn't.
Also confusing to me was why there was no 10 second run off after an Offensive Penalty for Illegal Formation. On the way home in a radio interview, one of the Cardinals, I do not know which one, said he almost threw his helmet because he too expected a 10 second run off. Last night I asked AdamJT13 if there should have been, and he said no. So I am a little more calm about that.
Last thing I will say about Triplett. He just comes across as bumbling. On Doug Free's Illegal Procedure penalty he announced that Free was Off Sides. Another example was him insisting Skelton was out of the pocket on the ball he threw out of bounds late. Maybe he doesn't know where the pocket is? It's like he just doesn't quite know what he is doing out there. By far, he is the referee that I just do not trust. I am not blaming him for our loss, but I am not shocked that controversy follows his game.
Okay, I want to say Cowboys fans once again dominated the attendance in Arizona. I am going to say at least 40% of the crowd last night was Cowboys fans. I am extremely pissed off that on McGee's last drive that at least 30 or 40 of them seated in the area where I was, left the game to go home. Cardinals fans were asking me, "where are Cowboys fans going? You can win this game." Embarrassing.
If we had pulled out the win as we should have, those people would have deserved to have missed it.
I want to mention something at this point that is absolutely immaterial to the outcome of the game last night, but that caused me immense pride in our team. During the National Anthem our Dallas Cowboys were in a perfectly straight line on our sideline. Coaches, players, and trainers all at attention, respectful, professional. Cardinals players and coaches on the other hand were all over the place. A couple of players were even milling around instead of showing respect.
I have no doubt whatsoever that this team is in good hands with Jason Garrett. I do not know how the team did this before he was hired, because cameras rarely if ever show this moment before a game. When you combine this kind of expected professionalism with the feeling you get that this team is never out of it while he is the Coach, you get a sense of what the future can bring.
Last night I read the comments about Jerry saying his mind is not made up. I honestly believe he is just being coy so that no one can claim he won't have a thorough coaching search. Before the game Garrett comes out with the Specialists and he works with them until the WRs and QBs show up and then he even participates in the passing warm ups with some of the WRs. Later as the team is stretching he mills around them and if he comes by a player they reach out a hand to him. This team likes this guy. They respect this guy. He has instilled in them a sense of the importance of being a Dallas Cowboy and never giving up. Just say no to retreads and stick with the guy who has led this team to a metamorphoses in front of our very eyes.
There is no way we should have been in position to win this game. You don't recover from 2 pick 6 Interceptions in the 1st quarter. While on that subject can we just say we have paid our allotted number of WR tipped INTs for the decade? I swear, it is more this season than I have ever seen. It is beyond ridiculous.
You don't recover from your starting QB going down and your backup coming in cold. These things are rare. I don't know what happened to Miles Austin but for a large chunk of the 4th quarter he was on the sidelines and our 3 WR package was Holley, Hurd, and Roy Williams. He came in at a perfect time to make a sweet catch for the go ahead score. It was a beautiful contrast to the first INT where he fell down and it went the other way.
I do need to add to my serving of crow about Jon Kitna with eating some about McGee. The kid was shaky a couple of times, but when he needed to come up big, he did just that. If he has to start next week and gets all of the reps this week he can do just fine. He really has improved since pre-season and once again my commentary about our backup QBs bites me in the buns.
Speaking of our QBs. Tony Romo was throwing passes in the pregame and he had some zip on them. He'll be fine next season. I hate that I didn't get to see him play. With him and Dez back next year I feel like the Offense will be okay. I continue to worry about the Defense even though truthfully they allowed one fluke TD and a couple of long FGs. If you look at the stat sheet we dominated the Cardinals, as we should have.
Before the game I was walking around the area where people were tailgating and a Cardinals fan asked me, "are the Cowboys playing today?" I replied, "yeah, but I've never heard of the team they're supposed to be playing." There was a live band called "Loud House" playing on the big lawn at the stadium. They played everything from Dwight Yoakum to ZZ Top to Jimi Hendrix. Prior to the gates opening I ran into JJT and got to talk to him for a short while. We've talked on the phone but this is the first time we'd met.
I am hoarse today. I yelled my fool head off. I talked nonstop. A fellow Zoner (Wisconsin_Cowboys_Fan) bought the 2 tickets I had as extras. Nice guy. His girlfriend was very pretty, even if she was a Cardinals fan. I can forgive her, she is born and raised in Phoenix and they are her home team. Poor girl. It was my first time at the new stadium. I've seen all of my previous games against the Cardinals at Scum Devil stadium. The roof was open and the music was pumping. Nice atmosphere for a game and it is a nice stadium. It's too bad they have to root for a team that wears pajamas.
It was an exciting game, especially at the end where my emotions ran the gamut of every peak and valley. Dread, elation, shock, disappointment, rage, and melancholy. It would have been a perfect ending to my best Christmas ever to pull out a win in the final minutes of the game. Larry Fitzgerald didn't have a single catch until he caught one for 26 yards on 4th and 15 after DeMarcus Ware notched his 77th career sack to tie Greg Ellis on the all time list. It just wasn't meant to be. The fates were against us last night.
Had we won, it would have matched the 56 win total we have against the Giants. If we were to beat Philly next week that would also be 56 wins. It would have been a very nice way to end this pitiful season. I hate when I pay good money to see the Cowboys play and then they lose. Especially to the Cardinals.
I've tried all season to keep the game of football in perspective and last night was no different. It was wonderful having my Mom home for Christmas. 30 miles from home I got a call from my brother and my Mom was taken to the hospital with flu like symptoms. She should be okay, but once again I learn that football is just a game, and though I put a lot of emphasis on it in my life, in the long run it is still a game.
I took a few pictures, and I will try to post them later. I am not good at this stuff so don't get too excited.
