It's the day after, normally after having time to cool off I feel better about games, especially games where we won and maybe didnt play well. That isnt the case today.
That was a royal clunker yesterday against a very bad football team. A bad football team missing a number of its key players. A bad football team that only once this yr had allowed as few as 7pts in a game, and that was vs a pathetic Rams team at home back in week 2. Some people are taking pride in the fact that we held them to two fg's, yet this is a team that ranks at the bottom of the league in scoring offense and near the bottom in virtually every offensive category. They were missing oodles of OL, down to their 3rd and 4th string RB's, missing their best receiving option in Cooley. Missing their best defensive player.
The only real positive from the game is we won. Beyond that, it was pathetic.
1) The box score will show we ran for 153 on 33 rushes, almost all of it by the RB's. That looks great until you also note that the Commanders rank at the bottom of the league in rush defense even with the 100 million dollar DT. He didnt play yesterday.
2) Our passing game was absolutely atrocious yesterday, and most of it was because of how poorly Romo played. I give him credit for shaking off the back injury and playing through it. It might have even been the reason he was so inaccurate. On the last drive of the game he played very well and he has to be given credit for that too. But he has had problems virtually all year with accuracy, and especially throwing passes that sail high. Romo was outplayed badly by Jason Campbell.
3) For those cheerleading the defense, anytime you dont give up a TD you have to be pleased. But the Commanders are an absolutely horrid offensive team. They rank at the bottom of the league in almost every offensive category.When you have to rely on a kicker who had been prefect missing a gimmee to win the game, you shouldnt be that happy. Only twice in 9 games has Campbell thrown for more yards than he did yesterday. He came into the game being sacked 28 times, and we got him only once. He completed something like 13/13 passes on 3rd down.
4) Doug Free played pretty well in hid first start. His worst play was probably the run play where Barber got caught from behind on 3rd down, had he got the guy blocked even a little, Barber easily gets the first down. Otherwise, he was pretty good.
5) Alan Ball was ok too, really no different than the bum who makes 40 million dollars and plays ahead of him. Looked like he got a little more comfortable as the game wore on, but totally blew what looked like a gimmee pick.
6) A few guys who stood out as terrible yesterday IMO were Leonard Davis, Roy Williams, Romo, Newman, Sensabaugh and even Jay Ratliff. For the 2nd straight game Ratliff went up against a truly dreadful OL, and other than one or two plays I hardly noticed him. There might have been others, Folk missing a FG was bad. Barber laying the damn ball on the ground in the redzone was lame and that play might have changed the whole way that game played out. The common theme here though is a bunch of guys who get paid a ton of money (save Sensabaugh and Folk) took turns looking awful.
7) On the other hand, I thought Martellus Bennett looked really good and clearly they have to start getting him involved down the field. Patrick Crayton had another very solid game returning punts and kept working to get open on our only TD. As mentioned above, Free didnt seem to hurt us out there. Spencer was all over the place. Bowen's deflection might have been a season saver. Keith Brooking is playing at a very high level.
8) I am still amazed at how incredibly close they call our DB's for everything. If they were calling it that way on both teams every week, that would be one thing. But they are not. And for the 2nd straight game, officials seemed to totally botch instant replay.
9) We should hammer Oakland, but I'm doubting we will. After that we play at NYG, San Diego at home, at New Orleans, at Washington and home vs Philly. I'm gonna go ahead and say this, but if we play the way we have the last two games in December, we'll be 0-for-the-month, and at best 1-4.
10) We limped out of this game with a bunch of injuries, and Mike Jenkins might be out vs Oakland, which would be a huge loss because he is eonsbetter than Scandrick right now. Gurode and Ware also got dinged up again. Bennett appeared to be ok, but he got absolutely blasted on one pass play. Romo has the back thing too.
Something is wrong with this team. It isnt play calling. It isnt injuries. They just dont seem to get "it". After laying an egg last week, you'd think they'd have come out in front of a great home crowd and really stepped it up against a very bad Washington team. Instead they managed to get shut out for 56+ minutes and look hopeless for most of the game in general. Its concerning, and IMO we're teetering close to wasting another season. This team should be better be playing better than it is right now.
