If You Told Me...

[Hostile]

...we would have 11 penalties, give up 37 points, and two crucial turnovers, and still win...I'd have asked you what you were smoking.

The three things I am most jazzed about with Monday's win.

1. It was a Division Rival who has been giving us fits. The Eagles have the best record against us of any Division rival. They have won more games against us than any other team.

2. Tony Romo was not sacked despite a furious pass rush by Eagles DC Jim Johnson. I have nothing but respect for Jim Johnson. I think he is the best DC in the NFL. Call me crazy, but I will take 2 or 3 penalties by the OL every game as long as Romo is never sacked.

3. The play of our top 3 rookies. How encouraging was that? I can't speak for anyone else, but as for me, the future doesn't look at all bleak. Great job by the scouting department and by the entire staff at the Draft.

 

[LeonDixson]

Right on, Hos. I said about the same thing you said in #3 in a thread the other day. The rookies from this draft are going to serve us very well for years to come. Don't forget Scandrick and Choice either. Those guys give us an enormous flexibility in case of injuries.

 

[Cbz40]

All three of your points of interest are more than valid...

#1 for me is the many adversities we overcame to get the "W"...That's the mark of a winning team.

 

[Hostile]

All three of your points of interest are more than valid...

#1 for me is the many adversities we overcame to get the "W"...That's the mark of a winning team.

They punched us right in the festering gob. We smiled, took it, shook it off, and punched back harder.

I think the team showed real heart to win that game.

 

[WoodysGirl]

Watching the replay..and I think I just noticed that Dawkins got beat like a drum during that game.

 

[the kid 05]

I think things will be really interesting when we have both witten and bennett and jones and barber and owens on the field as Romo's weapons to throw to...talk about dang scary dreams for DC

 

[CoCo]

...we would have 11 penalties, give up 37 points, and two crucial turnovers, and still win...I'd have asked you what you were smoking.

The three things I am most jazzed about with Monday's win.

1. It was a Division Rival who has been giving us fits. The eagles have the best record against us of any Division rival. They have won more games against us than any other team.

2. Tony Romo was not sacked despite a furious pass rush by Eagles DC Jim Johnson. I have nothing but respect for Jim Johnson. I think he is the best DC in the NFL. Call me crazy, but I will take 2 or 3 penalties by the OL every game as long as Romo is never sacked.

3. The play of our top 3 rookies. How encouraging was that? I can't speak for anyone else, but as for me, the future doesn't look at all bleak. Great job by the scouting department and by the entire staff at the Draft.

Aside from the fact that I don't believe we built this defense with an expectation to give up 30 points (their defense gets credit for 7) and we would not be content with those same results week after week, I can certainly get on board with the positives from Monday.

I don't mean that to be contradictory. But I'm not going to be so negative about what a talented Philly offense did to our still developing defense as to lose sight of the positives of Monday. As Hos illustrated, they have significance. Let me add to his list.

Our current array of receivers is still doing quite nicely. Would we like more depth? Of course. Is TO getting up in age? Yes. But when TO, Witten and the complementary weapons are out there, there is no significant deficiency.

We stemmed the emotional tide of the INT & then fumble in the end zone for a TD. We came back against a top team in Q4 and beat them.

And Folk, how big is 2 for 2 from 47 & 51?

There were problems, but then Rome wasn't built in a day and I don't expect us to go undefeated in 2009.

 

[VACowboy]

...we would have 11 penalties, give up 37 points, and two crucial turnovers, and still win...I'd have asked you what you were smoking.

The three things I am most jazzed about with Monday's win.

1. It was a Division Rival who has been giving us fits. The Eagles have the best record against us of any Division rival. They have won more games against us than any other team.

2. Tony Romo was not sacked despite a furious pass rush by Eagles DC Jim Johnson. I have nothing but respect for Jim Johnson. I think he is the best DC in the NFL. Call me crazy, but I will take 2 or 3 penalties by the OL every game as long as Romo is never sacked.

3. The play of our top 3 rookies. How encouraging was that? I can't speak for anyone else, but as for me, the future doesn't look at all bleak. Great job by the scouting department and by the entire staff at the Draft.

It didn't look like to me that Philly blitzed that much. Maybe the Dallas OL made things deceiving, but I didn't see furious waves of blitzing.

I agree 1000% about our draftees. The way the media maintains that Dallas must win now is kind of confusing.

 

[CoCo]

I think things will be really interesting when we have both witten and bennett and jones and barber and owens on the field as Romo's weapons to throw to...talk about dang scary dreams for DC

Bennett is certainly a work in progress but its hard not to get excited about the potential in that guy. And I like how Jason is on record as saying the guy can contribute in 2009.

 

[Boysboy]

Watching the replay..and I think I just noticed that Dawkins got beat like a drum during that game.

Well-Eagles fans now know how we feel when we went through year after year since '04 with poor safety play.

 

[adamknite]

Watching the replay..and I think I just noticed that Dawkins got beat like a drum during that game.

He had that great play on Bennett, but other than that, he was being abused.

 

[bbgun]

It was a nice win, but don't expect to get to the Super Bowl that way (i.e. shootouts). We held them to 10 measly points last December, even though they were healthier then at wideout. Is Desean Jackson worth a 20 point boost?

 

[Boysboy]

It didn't look like to me that Philly blitzed that much. Maybe the Dallas OL made things deceiving, but I didn't see furious waves of blitzing.

I agree 1000% about our draftees. The way the media maintains that Dallas must win now is kind of confusing.

It's not that Jim Johnson actually blitzes every play, it's the way he DISGUISES his blitzes. I thought Romo read them perfectly.

Aside from that, Philly's front 4's pass rush is pretty lukewarm. Cole is too undersized and wears down as the game goes on. Bunkley/Patterson are really run stuffers(and very good ones), but have next to nil pass rushing skills. Howard is washed up, and Juqua Parker is really more of a situational guy.

Oh-their LBs and safeties have pretty poor coverage skills. Throughout the year, they're D is going to have problems in the middle of the field.

 

[sago1]

From some of the things I've read in the Dallas papers & in the Philly papers, Jim Johnson got more conservative in his blitz calling after Romo hit TO for that 72 yard TD.

 

[sonnyboy]

...we would have 11 penalties, give up 37 points, and two crucial turnovers, and still win...I'd have asked you what you were smoking.

The three things I am most jazzed about with Monday's win.

1. It was a Division Rival who has been giving us fits. The Eagles have the best record against us of any Division rival. They have won more games against us than any other team.

2. Tony Romo was not sacked despite a furious pass rush by Eagles DC Jim Johnson. I have nothing but respect for Jim Johnson. I think he is the best DC in the NFL. Call me crazy, but I will take 2 or 3 penalties by the OL every game as long as Romo is never sacked.

3. The play of our top 3 rookies. How encouraging was that? I can't speak for anyone else, but as for me, the future doesn't look at all bleak. Great job by the scouting department and by the entire staff at the Draft.

I completely agree. I want to see the team flagged twice as many times for holding as sacks surrendered.
Especially in todays game. Notice how you see so many more holding calls on run plays than you do pass plays.
Wasn't always that way. In fact I remember back in the 1980's it seemed like holding was called more often on passing plays.

I thought it was just me, but I heard Wade Tuesday PC and he mentioned how we were flagged for holds while the Eagles got away with a few.

 

[jobberone]

...we would have 11 penalties, give up 37 points, and two crucial turnovers, and still win...I'd have asked you what you were smoking.

The three things I am most jazzed about with Monday's win.

1. It was a Division Rival who has been giving us fits. The Eagles have the best record against us of any Division rival. They have won more games against us than any other team.

2. Tony Romo was not sacked despite a furious pass rush by Eagles DC Jim Johnson. I have nothing but respect for Jim Johnson. I think he is the best DC in the NFL. Call me crazy, but I will take 2 or 3 penalties by the OL every game as long as Romo is never sacked.

3. The play of our top 3 rookies. How encouraging was that? I can't speak for anyone else, but as for me, the future doesn't look at all bleak. Great job by the scouting department and by the entire staff at the Draft.

Agree with it all. No sacks so far. Teams are going to have a hard time outscoring us with our D and Tony scoring points. He's getting it into the EZ.

All three of your points of interest are more than valid...

#1 for me is the many adversities we overcame to get the "W"...That's the mark of a winning team.

Mark of a champion. And as Wade said "Let's let our best be better".

 

[AdamJT13]

Watching the replay..and I think I just noticed that Dawkins got beat like a drum during that game.

You probably didn't notice it during the game because the announcers almost never mention which safety is being targeted on passes -- unless that safety happens to be a certain someone, in which case it is almost always mentioned.

 

[Hostile]

I think Romo is a witch. He feels pressure from behind and in 2 steps he is out of harm's way and they are grasping at air. Combine that with really good blocking despite a sub at LG and it equals 2 games, 0 sacks allowed.

 

[sonnyboy]

It's not that Jim Johnson actually blitzes every play, it's the way he DISGUISES his blitzes. I thought Romo read them perfectly.

Aside from that, Philly's front 4's pass rush is pretty lukewarm. Cole is too undersized and wears down as the game goes on. Bunkley/Patterson are really run stuffers(and very good ones), but have next to nil pass rushing skills. Howard is washed up, and Juqua Parker is really more of a situational guy.

Oh-their LBs and safeties have pretty poor coverage skills. Throughout the year, they're D is going to have problems in the middle of the field.

He's not blitz crazy, he's just blitz brillant. His defenses just do it so much more effectively than most.

However, he will blitz more and more in a game when its working. Like week one against the Rams. They couldn't handle it so they got more and more of it as the game went on. By the 4th Q they were bring 6-7 guys every fricken play.

The flip side of that was last night. They did have success very early but then BANG, we go upside their head for a 72 yard TD and they back off a little. The more you hurt Johnson's blitz, the less he uses it.

 

[Hostile]

He's not blitz crazy, he's just blitz brillant. His defenses just do it so much more effectively than most.

However, he will blitz more and more in a game when its working. Like week one against the Rams. They couldn't handle it so they got more and more of it as the game went on. By the 4th Q they were bring 6-7 guys every fricken play.

The flip side of that was last night. They did have success very early but then BANG, we go upside their head for a 72 yard TD and they back off a little. The more you hurt Johnson's blitz, the less he uses it.

Great post.