Michael Irvin:You slow down the game for superior opponents

[Maikeru-sama]

He is on his radio station now talking Dallas Cowboys football. He feels we made a mistake by starting Marion Barber.

1) You slow down the game for superior opponents, not inferior opponents like the Giants.
2) They had a very banged up secondary and the Cowboys won by getting Jason Witten and Terrell Owens the ball.

Dale Hansen coming up next

 

[The Panch]

He's right. I know everyone was happy to see MB3 finally get his chunks early on, but this was the absolute worst time to do it. Poor poor coaching.

 

[khiladi]

Actually, what they should have done is taken shots downfield in-between Barber running the first half the way he did...

 

[CaptainAmerica]

I didn't understand the game plan at all. It was fine for Barber to start but play offense the way we played it all season. That's the type of game a team would think about playing against the Patriots.

 

[ThreeSportStar80]

Actually, what they should have done is taken shots downfield in-between Barber running the first half the way he did...

Yeah they didn't exactly take advantage of play action when MB3 was gashing the Giants...

 

[superpunk]

Is Irvin saying....*gasp*....we played "not to lose"?



BS. I don't care what the gameplan is, if you can get 90 yards rushing in the first half, you take it.

 

[Boyzmamacita]

I didn't understand the game plan at all. It was fine for Barber to start but play offense the way we played it all season. That's the type of game a team would think about playing against the Patriots.

I believe they were practicing for the Patriots. The problem is they forgot that they had to win in order to have another chance at them. This was the worst time to change the game plan, but if it had worked (which it could've), we wouldn't be complaining.

 

[Chocolate Lab]

I didn't understand the game plan at all. It was fine for Barber to start but play offense the way we played it all season. That's the type of game a team would think about playing against the Patriots.

Exactly. Nothing wrong with starting Barber -- how can you argue with his results?

But why did we not go after their backup corners after we'd torched their starters earlier in the year? That's what almost makes me wonder if Romo wasn't physically right, or if Owens' ankle was worse than we all know. I can't think of any other explanation.

 

[Nav22]

Michael is so right. The looong drives vs. inferior teams are fine as long as they result in 7. When we hogged the ball for 8 minutes to start the 2nd half and only came away with 3... that worked out very well for the Giants.

 

[ThreeSportStar80]

I believe they were practicing for the Patriots. The problem is they forgot that they had to win in order to have another chance at them. This was the worst time to change the game plan, but if it had worked (which it could've), we wouldn't be complaining.

Bottom line is it's all apples and oranges at this point, Dallas picked the wrong time to play like crap as a team...

 

[superpunk]

Exactly. Nothing wrong with starting Barber -- how can you argue with his results?

But why did we not go after their backup corners after we'd torched their starters earlier in the year? That's what almost makes me wonder if Romo wasn't physically right, or if Owens' ankle was worse than we all know. I can't think of any other explanation.

You could just drum up some random rehashed blame posts from our loss at Seattle last year, which was basically a carbon copy of this one.

We played not to lose.

Garrett has a corvette in the garage but only drives it 45 mph.

Philly gave the league a blueprint for beating the Cowboys, and Coach Wade's outdated system was solved for all eternity...

I mean, there are any number of ways we can go with this.

 

[Bach]

What's so unbelievable to me is that we had that long 10 minute scoring drive in the 2nd quarter followed by a long 8 minute drive to start the second half, yet our offense was the one that tired out, not the Giants depleted defense.

And obviously, it's clear that Barber is vastly superior to Julius. But it's also good to have him fresh and dominating in the 2nd half.

But it really all comes down to the fact we gave up that TD in the final seconds of the first half, and then squandered the long drive in the 3rd by settling for a FG. We gave them two dominating drives and only had a 17-14 lead to show for it.

 

[utrunner07]

I believe they were practicing for the Patriots. The problem is they forgot that they had to win in order to have another chance at them. This was the worst time to change the game plan, but if it had worked (which it could've), we wouldn't be complaining.

Then they should have practiced against Washington and in the bye week, not during the game that counted! If you are right (which I really doubt you are) then the entire coaching staff needs to be fired, or at least the one that thought up that idea.

 

[Coy]

He is on his radio station now talking Dallas Cowboys football. He feels we made a mistake by starting Marion Barber.

1) You slow down the game for superior opponents, not inferior opponents like the Giants.
2) They had a very banged up secondary and the Cowboys won by getting Jason Witten and Terrell Owens the ball.

Dale Hansen coming up next

Couldn´t agree more with him, we should have gone out there throwing it all over the place, and use Barber in the fourth quarter with a nice lead.
It sucks.

 

[Punkabilly56]

He is on his radio station now talking Dallas Cowboys football. He feels we made a mistake by starting Marion Barber.

1) You slow down the game for superior opponents, not inferior opponents like the Giants.
2) They had a very banged up secondary and the Cowboys won by getting Jason Witten and Terrell Owens the ball.

Dale Hansen coming up next

Skip bayless said the same thing. very frustating.
:bang2:

 

[stealth]

I really like Mike's show, love his perspectives on the game.

 

[SultanOfSix]

Actually, I think you slow it down to keep a high scoring offense off the field. The Giants aren't exactly a team with a slouching offense. You also slow it down so you can execute long drives and come away with TDs, while wearing down their defense. Wait, we did that, all in the first half. But, somehow our defense gave up a TD in 48s and prior to that, gave up a 60 yd TD completion with horrid tackling, and the offense is being blamed?

 

[Punkabilly56]

This current team needs Michael's heart, fire and toughness. Jerry shoudl hire him.

 

[dmq]

I was really upset when I heard earlier in the week that we were gonna run the ball more. When had the Giants ever stopped our passing game to warrant this change in philosophy? The only reason I can come up with is either they thought TO wouldn't be healthy or they have lost confidence in Tony.

 

[GTaylor]

You could just drum up some random rehashed blame posts from our loss at Seattle last year, which was basically a carbon copy of this one.

We played not to lose.

Garrett has a corvette in the garage but only drives it 45 mph.

Philly gave the league a blueprint for beating the Cowboys, and Coach Wade's outdated system was solved for all eternity...

I mean, there are any number of ways we can go with this.

Agree, had the offensive line not gotten slapped around like Curly in the 2nd half they could have worn down and taken out the Giants.