Dallas Cowboys' Death: How the Team's Demise Goes Way Past Wade Phillips

Last night, the Giants stomped out the Cowboys, all but putting the nail in the Cowboys' coffin for the 2010 season.  

To add injury to insult, Tony Romo broke his collarbone in the game, knocking him out for 6-8 weeks.  Somewhere, Jessica Simpson is laughing.  

As a Giants fan, I don't know how to feel.  Part of me knows that even with Romo, the Cowboys were still going to be in a hole.

But without him, Cowboy fans everywhere now can blame Romo's injury, Dez Bryant's pre-season injury, and Wade Phillips' ineptness on this season's failure.

And while I like a good Wade Phillips joke as much as the next guy, it's time to just face the facts: Dallas isn't very good, and it doesn't matter who's coaching them.

Just break it down.  Tony Romo has won one playoff game in his career.  He's 30. That's not young. Eli Manning is 29 with a Super Bowl, and won his first one when he was 27.

Ben Roethlisberger is 28, and has two Super Bowls.  By the time Tom Brady was 28, he had won three Super Bowls.  So the "he needs time to develop" argument no longer flies.  

The running game is atrocious.  Marion Barber has never run for 1,000 yards in his career, and is currently averaging a career-low 3.2 YPC.  Felix Jones has seen his YPC go from 8.9 as a rookie to 4.4 this year.  

While he's a home-run threat, this is his third season, and he only has six career touchdowns. He's not a goal-line guy, and he's too injury-prone to carry the ball 20 times.  He's Reggie Bush-lite.  

Marion Barber is a poor man's Brandon Jacobs.  That's not exactly instilling much fear into defenses.

The wide receivers should be a strength.  Miles Austin is one of the best physical specimens at receivers, and has a great attitude.  Roy Williams is also a physical specimen, but has what appears to be an incurable case of the "dropsies."  

Dez Bryant can be dominant (like he was last night), or be totally shut down (8 catches, 103 yards, 1 TD the previous three games).  Any quarterback would love to have this group.

Jason Witten at 28 is one of the best TE's in football, but he's seemingly afraid of the end zone, with only eight TDs over the last 2 1/2 seasons.  

If you're 6'6, 263, with hands like Witten, and have as weak of a running game as the Cowboys do, I wonder how Witten is not scoring TDs in the red zone. 

The offensive line is a joke.  They give Romo little time, they open up few holes for the running game, but they are good for drive-killing false start and holding penalties!  I'd call them a Swiss-cheese line, but I don't want to insult my third-favorite type of cheese (behind American and mozzarella). 

As a team, they're 14th in the NFL in PPG.  That's not terrible, but this team is fifth in YPG, meaning they're not capitalizing on key opportunities.  

On top of that, they're 16th in third-down percentage, and average the second most offensive penalties per game, behind the Lions.  

The teams with the top-5 penalties/game in the league: Raiders, Lions, Eagles, 49ers, Cowboys.  Combined Record: 10-23.  Go figure.

Now the defense.  DeMarcus Ware is a beast, but it can't be a one-man effort.  They're 27th in points allowed/game, and have forced only 10 turnovers so far in six games.

They're 16th in the league in sacks (13), but 8 of them are by Ware.  Not one player on this team has more than one interception.  DeAngelo Hall had four in one game against Jay Cutler.  

Their rush D is 21st, and while their pass D is seventh, that number is skewed as CB Mike Jenkins has been flagged for four pass interference penalties in the last four games. 

Jay Ratliff, a two-time Pro Bowler, has simply disappeared.  Dating back to last season, he has three sacks in his last 12 games.  

Anthony Spencer has seemingly regressed; after picking up six sacks in his final five games of last season, he's been held to only two so far this season.  

He has 20 tackles in six games this season; he had 10 alone in last year's divisional loss to Minnesota.  

On special teams, Dez Bryant is always a threat to run it back.  But kicker David Buehler is only 8/11 on FG's, but if you need somebody to kick the ball to the 15 on kickoffs, he's your guy!

Then there's Wade Phillips.  Yes, he has to go.  Yes, he kind of waddles like a duck.  No, that doesn't affect his coaching abilities, but yes it is something I notice.  Jason Garrett is a really expensive clipboard holder.  

The Cowboys are the Hummer of the NFL.  They're big, they're flashy, and at first glance, look really good.  

But then you start watching them, and all of a sudden you realize just how fragile this team is.  Once the lights turn on, this team crumbles.

Jerry Jones has constructed this team.  He picked Wade Phillips, and he's stuck with him.  But if the players aren't ready for the limelight, they have to take some of the blame.

I mean, I'm not complaining; nothing makes me happier than watching the Giants go into the Palace in Dallas, beat them, and look at the utter bewilderment on Jerry Jones' face. It's as if he never imagined a 4-2 team would beat a 1-4 team.  CRAZY!   

Old Cowboys have come out and complained about the current state of the team.  They complain about the big-time losses, the lack of cohesion, and the general lack of mental toughness.  And they're right.  

This is America's Team? Dallas is Dying...and somewhere, Jess Simpson is still laughing. 

Michael Perchick is the writer/editor of TheJockosphere, a sports/Twitter site, reporting the top tweets and news directly from athletes.  Follow him on Twitter @TheREALPerchick, and at http://thejockosphere.com/.