Cowboys Ensure That Jerry Jones Won't Have to Look Up Out of NFC East Cellar Yet

The Dallas Cowboys defeated the Washington Redskins on Sunday by a score of 33-30 to pull into a tie for third place in the NFC East with the Redskins.

Winning would have clinched third place in the NFC East for the Washington Redskins, and would have ensured that the Cowboys would remain in the cellar of that division, regardless of what happened the last two weeks of the 2010 season.

By virtue of beating the Cowboys twice, the Redskins would have remained ahead of the Cowboys even if they had lost the last two games and the Cowboys had won their last two.  

It's a far cry from what most analysts and experts would have predicted for the Cowboys this season. Most expected that the Cowboys would compete hard for a birth in this year's Super Bowl, to be played at "Jerry World".

Jerry reportedly paid out over $160 million in player's salaries in this uncapped year in the NFL, but an impotent offense that repeatedly turned the ball over at crucial times early in the year led this once-proud group of players to a disappointing 1-4 record after the first five games of this season.

In game six, Tony Romo got hurt, and the wheels came off.

Frustrated by a 1-4 start in which it was allowing only 281 yards per game, but was negated by an offense that repeatedly failed to produce and continually turned the ball over at critical times, the defense apparently gave up.

The Cowboys were actually leading that sixth game by a score of 20-7 when Romo went down, thanks to big plays by the defense that gave the offense the ball in scoring position twice in the early part of that game.

But, what ensued for the next three games was probably the most disappointing display by a group of players in NFL history.

The offense continued to turn the ball over, doing so 10 times from the time Tony Romo went down until the final whistle at the end of the "Green Bay Massacre" in which the offense never showed up, and the defense limped through a 45-7 whipping at the hands of the Packers.

The score would most assuredly have been worse, but Green Bay showed mercy and quit trying to score sometime during the fourth quarter.

Wade Phillips was fired the next day, and Jason Garrett was named head coach.

Now, just six games later, the Cowboys have won a close game with the Redskins to keep their dreams of finishing in third place in the NFC East alive.

For now.

Jason Garrett may have the Cowboys climbing out of the cellar, but that's as far as they can go this season.

I thought it was interesting that Daryl Johnston remarked during the game that Jason Garrett now claims that his offense couldn't produce in the run game during the first eight games of the season because they weren't practicing in pads and couldn't be physical in games.

Really?

I thought it was because he was so far behind during the first half of the year? Wasn't that his excuse earlier in the year?

But suddenly, our run game took off and has been productive—except of course, those straight ahead "smashes" at the goal line that everyone knows is coming. 

Why Garrett can't change a formation and spread the defense before he sends our running back into the heart of the defense never ceases to amaze me. Two consecutive games that we get stopped on 4th-and-goal, when Choice is asked to run straight ahead into a defense that is concentrating on the middle of the field. 

Has Garrett ever heard of a fake inside and a pitch to the outside in those situations? I mean, when you see the entire defense grouped to the middle of the field, is it that hard to think, "Hey, let's make them spread out before we run in there?" Or, "Let's fake to the full back, and pitch it to the outside?"

Same old Garrett. Blame it on the line, blame it on the defense. Blame it on not being able to practice in pads, even though the run worked when you called it in the first eight games.

Blame it on anyone but the man that abandoned the run, and ran the pass happy, turnover prone offense that cost the Cowboys the entire 2010 season.  

This whole thing stinks. But at least they are climbing out of the cellar.

I guess.

That's the bottom line.