Chuck 54
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I don’t understand all the knee-jerk blaming of the coaches for what happened yesterday.
People want to fire the head coach; the head coach is not responsible when players choke. We ran the ball effectively and smacked the Giants in the mouth, Barber gaining over 100 yards in the first half. We had a 20 play, 10 minute, 90 yard drive for the go ahead TD, leaving only 47 seconds in the half. Every coach in the NFL would be playing a safe zone in that situation, but they would expect their players to react and play the receivers and the ball, and they might even expect them to make a tackle.
We did NOT run the ball too much…it was beautiful. The Giants were playing to protect their secondary, so we took advantage of it with Barber. Had they stacked the line to stop the run, we would have passed more.
Coaching is not why the kickoff and punt coverage units gave up their lanes and missed tackles. Coaching is not why we had Nate Jones take a deep kickoff away from Austin when they were standing toe to toe at the goalline. I did wonder why we didn’t use Newman instead of Crayton on those last two Giant punts from deep in their own territory.
As aggrevating as the defense can be and has been for several years, and as deflating as that 47 second, 70 yard TD drive was before the half, the bottom line is that the defense only gave up 21 points to a very potent Giants offense that had been on a roll. The defense had two 3 and outs in a row when we really needed them down the stretch, giving our offense the ball in great field position twice, once at the Giant 48 and once at our own 43 because Crayton choked and dropped the punt.
The offense choked even bigger than the Special Teams, imo. When we really needed them, they lost their aggressiveness. Suddenly Columbo is getting bull rushed, Barber is getting rolled over at the QBs feet, and Adams throws a punch to the DE’s face and then lets him run right by him instead of just staying in front of him and getting his hands on him. The OL played scared down the stretch. Crayton killed us. As bad as that 3rd down drop was (on a truly remarkable play and sidearm pass by Romo), what he did on that pass to the endzone on the next to last play of the game really boggles my mind. He ran by the CB, had him beat, and seemed to just stop like “I’m not the primary guy” when Romo had a TD to him if he just ran. Romo had a TD to Owens if the OL hadn’t let him get drilled, making the pass come up short.
The bottom line was this Jason Garrett offense with all its probowlers and stars back on the field, along with a 100 yard rusher, only put up 17 points…yet I hear people wanting to fire Wade and hire Garrett…yeah, that makes sense.
The way the offense tanked the past 5 games, I think I’d question Garrett’s genius before I’d question Wade Phillips.
I remember when Parcells took Campo’s 5-11 team to the playoffs with a 10-6record and got a lot of credit for it. Now Wade took Parcells’ players who went 9-7 last season to an 11-3 record, but he’s getting blasted…makes no sense to me. These aren’t even Wade’s players. He had to play his defense with the type of guys Parcells put together.
I’ll close with two thoughts which I find very important to consider:
1. This offseason it will be very interesting to see whom Wade goes after in FA and the draft because it’s going to say a great deal about whom he sees as the weak links that may be keeping him from running his defense the way he wants.
2. Parcells was the head coach…Zimmer was the defensive coordinator…we know what we got with that defense. Wade Phillips is the head coach and runs a different style of defense, but we get the same results with the same players. Maybe it’s not the coaching…maybe some of these guys aren’t as good as we pretend they are because as weak as Reeves is in the secondary, I thought Henry and Newman both looked bad as well with plenty of balls being caught in their areas and lots of missed tackles. I’ll also add that this was not a particulary good game for Roy Williams either.
I’m sick about this game, but I’m certainly not going to blame Wade Phillips. I think some of the players choked, and others let NY smack them in the mouth. We all have our thoughts on which players walk on water and where the weak links exist; the offseason will show us what the coaching staff thinks about this team.
Sidenote, I was very happy with Romo’s performance.
People want to fire the head coach; the head coach is not responsible when players choke. We ran the ball effectively and smacked the Giants in the mouth, Barber gaining over 100 yards in the first half. We had a 20 play, 10 minute, 90 yard drive for the go ahead TD, leaving only 47 seconds in the half. Every coach in the NFL would be playing a safe zone in that situation, but they would expect their players to react and play the receivers and the ball, and they might even expect them to make a tackle.
We did NOT run the ball too much…it was beautiful. The Giants were playing to protect their secondary, so we took advantage of it with Barber. Had they stacked the line to stop the run, we would have passed more.
Coaching is not why the kickoff and punt coverage units gave up their lanes and missed tackles. Coaching is not why we had Nate Jones take a deep kickoff away from Austin when they were standing toe to toe at the goalline. I did wonder why we didn’t use Newman instead of Crayton on those last two Giant punts from deep in their own territory.
As aggrevating as the defense can be and has been for several years, and as deflating as that 47 second, 70 yard TD drive was before the half, the bottom line is that the defense only gave up 21 points to a very potent Giants offense that had been on a roll. The defense had two 3 and outs in a row when we really needed them down the stretch, giving our offense the ball in great field position twice, once at the Giant 48 and once at our own 43 because Crayton choked and dropped the punt.
The offense choked even bigger than the Special Teams, imo. When we really needed them, they lost their aggressiveness. Suddenly Columbo is getting bull rushed, Barber is getting rolled over at the QBs feet, and Adams throws a punch to the DE’s face and then lets him run right by him instead of just staying in front of him and getting his hands on him. The OL played scared down the stretch. Crayton killed us. As bad as that 3rd down drop was (on a truly remarkable play and sidearm pass by Romo), what he did on that pass to the endzone on the next to last play of the game really boggles my mind. He ran by the CB, had him beat, and seemed to just stop like “I’m not the primary guy” when Romo had a TD to him if he just ran. Romo had a TD to Owens if the OL hadn’t let him get drilled, making the pass come up short.
The bottom line was this Jason Garrett offense with all its probowlers and stars back on the field, along with a 100 yard rusher, only put up 17 points…yet I hear people wanting to fire Wade and hire Garrett…yeah, that makes sense.
The way the offense tanked the past 5 games, I think I’d question Garrett’s genius before I’d question Wade Phillips.
I remember when Parcells took Campo’s 5-11 team to the playoffs with a 10-6record and got a lot of credit for it. Now Wade took Parcells’ players who went 9-7 last season to an 11-3 record, but he’s getting blasted…makes no sense to me. These aren’t even Wade’s players. He had to play his defense with the type of guys Parcells put together.
I’ll close with two thoughts which I find very important to consider:
1. This offseason it will be very interesting to see whom Wade goes after in FA and the draft because it’s going to say a great deal about whom he sees as the weak links that may be keeping him from running his defense the way he wants.
2. Parcells was the head coach…Zimmer was the defensive coordinator…we know what we got with that defense. Wade Phillips is the head coach and runs a different style of defense, but we get the same results with the same players. Maybe it’s not the coaching…maybe some of these guys aren’t as good as we pretend they are because as weak as Reeves is in the secondary, I thought Henry and Newman both looked bad as well with plenty of balls being caught in their areas and lots of missed tackles. I’ll also add that this was not a particulary good game for Roy Williams either.
I’m sick about this game, but I’m certainly not going to blame Wade Phillips. I think some of the players choked, and others let NY smack them in the mouth. We all have our thoughts on which players walk on water and where the weak links exist; the offseason will show us what the coaching staff thinks about this team.
Sidenote, I was very happy with Romo’s performance.
