Choke Job: Giant Collapse Casts Pall Over Cowboys' Season

There are numerous synonyms for “choke” in any good thesaurus. They include asphyxiate, bar, block, die, drown, gag, garrote (one of my favorites), gibbet (another favorite), noose, occlude, suffocate, throttle and wring to name a few. And just like that, the 2007 season for the Dallas Cowboys is over. Garroted… gibbeted… choked away. 13-3? Meaningless. Home-field throughout the NFC playoffs? Doesn’t matter now. Sunday’s loss to the New York Giants 21-17 casts a pall over this once magical season. Instead of it being one for the ages, it is one of utter failure. The playoff victory drought for the Cowboys now stands at 11 seasons and six straight playoff losses. As difficult as last year’s loss to Seattle was, this one is tougher to deal with.
 
How do you lose when you out gain your opponent 336 to 230 in total yardage? How do you lose when you run for 154 yards compared to your opponents’ 90? How do you lose when you convert 63 percent of your third downs? How do you lose when you dominate the time of possession?
 
How about 11 stupid penalties for 84 yards? Three penalties in the last two drives thwarted any comeback Dallas had. The Giants had a total of 3 for 25.
 
Terrell Owens made a valiant effort but was clearly NOT the player he was earlier in the season before he suffered his high ankle sprain three weeks ago. Despite a New York secondary minus corners Sam Madison and Aaron Ross, who went out during the game, T.O. just couldn’t explode off the line of scrimmage.
 
Cowboys’ special teams were awful outside of Mat McBriar’s punting and Nick Folk’s kicking but that’s old news to any Cowboys fan this season. R.W. McQuarters set the Giants up for the game winning TD at the Cowboys 37 with a 25-yard punt return coming after a Domenik Hixson 45-yard kickoff return.
 
Then there’s the secondary. After the Cowboys offense used 10:28 of the second quarter on a TD drive, the Cowboys defense gave it right back in 46 seconds. Cue the Roy Williams and Jacques Reeves moan. As always, an opposing team’s QB is nothing but dense if he DOESN’T throw at Roy Williams when he’s in coverage or Reeves when he’s on the field.

And last but not least, you have the once mighty offense that could only manage 17 points. You’re not going to win many playoff games scoring 17 points. Incidentally 14 of those points came in the first half. How a team goes from averaging 32.5 points a game over the first 13 to a team averaging 12.5 is going to be one of the many questions that will haunt this team throughout another long off-season.
 
The offensive line got manhandled in the second half by the Giants front seven as they cranked up the pass rush and got to Tony Romo after not getting to him at all in the first half. 
 
Marion Barber was bumped up to starter and finished with 129 yards on 27 carries. While some might say that taking Julius Jones out of the starting role worked, I say look at the fourth quarter when Barber was clearly tired and had no burst. The fourth quarter had been Barber’s quarter all season where he would pick up steam and grind out yards. Not so in this game.  Also, 101 of his yards came in the first half so you do the math as to how effective he was in the second half.
 
Then there’s Tony Romo. In plain, depressing words he was average at best today. 18 of 36 passes for 201 yards, 1 TD and 1 INT at the very end of the game for a 64.7 QB rating is average. Meanwhile Eli Manning finished with 163 yards on 12 for 18 passing with 2 TDs and more importantly no INTs. His QB rating? 132.4. Not very gaudy numbers but Manning made plays when he had to.
 
Another question to be brought up is whether or not Wade Phillips is the man to lead this team as head coach. His playoff record is now 0-4 and he will no doubt be scrutinized for going away from the pass first offense that the Cowboys were and moving to a ground oriented game. His good ol boy attitude may have helped in the regular season grind but it has yet to work in the playoffs when it matters most.
 
Strange how this year’s collapse was the offense’s doing while last years’ revolved around the defense. When it all clears up, this team wasn’t as good as a 13-3 record would indicate. They should’ve been 11-5. Maybe even 10-6. Honestly those Buffalo and Detroit wins were gifts.

In the end, it is to be another long off-season of “what ifs” and “whys” with a spike of soul searching for the Dallas Cowboys. This team just wasn’t good enough to advance this year.