Cowboys 2011-12 Schedule Starts and Ends with a Bang, but in Between, a Delight

Cowboys 2011-12 schedule starts and ends with a bang but in between, a delightful sight for Tony Romo and Rob Ryan.

The release of the NFL schedule brings lots of chatter about strength of schedule, back-to-back home and road games and sexy subplots to be found in every week.

Climb your way through the Ryan and Harbaugh brothers game and the warm-hearted and tough moments sure to come from the Sept. 11 matchups, and you will see a schedule of opponents that has only one team that can light it up offensively, and one team that can strike fear defensively.

With seven games against teams that may not know who their QB will be until late in the offseason, Rob Ryan should be licking his chops even with an abbreviated window of time to implement his system. Aside from Brady (a real big aside), Ryan should be facing Sanchez, Stafford, Bradford, Vick, Manning and Freeman.

Vick is certainly a tough one, but in the division, familiarity alone will somewhat mitigate the threat of an offensive explosion. We can predict that rounding this list out could include Grossman, Bulger and two or three rookies, as well.

Ware should need a calculator to tally his sacks at the end of the year and maybe, just maybe, the Cowboy secondary might rebound to have a solid season.

Romo’s progression back to the top of his game and his quest to lead the Cowboys to the Super Bowl is now fully within view. The season starts with an awfully tough matchup, but help is on the way after the game.

Defenses (if I can call them that) of the Rams, Seahawks, Bills, Bucs and Lions provide a real opportunity to build offensive balance with the run and the pass. Games against the Patriots and Dolphins defense are tough, but not insurmountable, and the divisional games are a matchup of familiarity.

The schedule has some intrigue and several bright-lights games, but the true toughest opponent for the Cowboys this year will be themselves. Ryan and Romo have a great opportunity to put their signature on both sides of the ball and it all starts Sept. 11.