After a great opening game to an awful effort against the Seattle Seahawks, the Dallas Cowboys will look to rebound with their home opener against a now tough Tampa Bay team.

Cowboys win: if they play like they did against the New York Giants, they have to play sound football, don’t make mistakes, error free and as I always say hold onto time of possessions (TOP).  QB Tony Romo cannot resort to what he did last week against the Seahawks and throw errant passes.  Look for RB DeMarco Murray to step it up and have a solid game on the ground.  Unless the Cowboys are climbing back in the 2nd half than watch for the Cowboys to run the ball more than the pass and hold onto the clock in hopes of a victory.    With the great opening game to the Seahawk game, we really don’t know which Cowboys team will show up but lets hope it is a familiar one to week-1′s.

Cowboys lose: simply play like you did in Seattle and they will lose for sure against an up and coming Tamp team that can play defense / offense as Tampa has shown in their first 2 games of the season.

notes:  Dallas maybe with starting safety Gerald Sensabaugh due to a calf injury which might open up Tampa QB Josh Freeman and newly acquired weapon Vincent Jackson.  Another note – Sean Lee on his hit from Seattle Golden Tate.  Lee has stated he had no problem with the hit / block and that it is part of football.  Rumor is Tate has been fined by the NFL but plans on appealing.

Look for the Cowboys to rebound, win the game, might be high scoring but time will tell.  I could do my weatherman forecast here and say it might rain, snow, some signs of sun, cloud today and put that into football terms and say game might be high scoring, maybe a defensive battle etc etc etc but look for the Cowboys to show some poise and end week-3 at 2-1.   Game has more importance to it than some might think this early in the season so I will go as far as saying it is a must win.

as always, comment, questions, concerns

@stantsy

What else can I say, the Dallas Cowboys went into Seattle and got taught a lesson.  From the first kick off it was like the Cowboys were running uphill and that trend continued until the final buzzer with the Seahawks beating the Cowboys 27-7.

All I kept saying to myself was ok Cowboys, time to start clicking, time to start driving downfield, lets play defense and it never happened.  No one on the Cowboys found their grove and it would be clear that the Cowboys have a tough time playing in Seattle as the 4 previous victories the Cowboys held were all in Dallas and the last loss was the wild card game and the famous Romo botched snap to seal that victory for the Seahawks.

I won’t even go to the degree that the Seahawks are any better a team than the Cowboys but something happened on Sunday and only one team showed up and that team was the Seattle Seahawks.

I am open to suggestions as to where the Cowboys went wrong, the whole team blew what I thought had WIN all over it.

what to do now, fly back to Dallas, prepare and push-ups and more push-ups, when I screwed up, it was always push-ups.

comments, questions, concerns but there clearly is work to be done in Cowboy Nation after that debacle Sunday.

@stantsy

The 1-0 Dallas Cowboys are hitting the west coast to play the Seattle Seahawks.  The Cowboys hope to build on their win in the Meadowlands against the Super Bowl Champion New York ‘football’ Giants and leave Seattle at 2-0 with 2 road victories to start this years NFL season.

Dallas certainly used those extra days with the early start of their season and are actually almost at full-strength with the also return of a healthy Jason Witten which will be key and giving Tony Romo an extra body to look at to throw at for ‘first down Cowboys’.

Dallas has won the last 4 meeting between these two teams but we all know everyone will only remember the 2007 NFC wild card game when Tony Romo snubbed the snap and the Seahawks won the game.  Certainly we do not want a repeat of that in Cowboy Nation.

As competitive as the NFL and the talent pool around the NFL, Dallas will be up against a great RB in Marshawn Lynch and rookie QB Russell Wilson.  The Dallas D hopes to piggy back their play against the Giants and keep plugging up the holes, watching out for a scrambling Wilson and allow Romo and company to put some points on the scoreboard en-route to a Cowboy victory.  Watch for Dallas defense coordinator Rob Ryan to step up his defensive plays and give Wilson an introduction to Dallas Cowboy football.

I say Dallas wins, covers the FG.5 as far as points but we know there is no such thing as an easy game in the NFL but 4:05 is kick-off, enjoy the game and get back to me on any predictions, keys to a Dallas victory and or if you are a Seahawk fan than try to convince me how the Cowboys will lose the game.  comment – questions – concerns…..

@stantsy

I am not going to gloat in this blog but I will say last nights victory against the Super Bowl champs was a great way for the Dallas Cowboys to open up the NFL season.   Dallas was the first team to spoil the champions winning their opening game since 2004 when they started playing the mid-week game.  8-1 the record stands at now thanks to the Dallas Cowboys.

Now to the game, the Cowboys played a solid game, stuck to their game plan and scored points.  Kudos to the entire Cowboy squad especially Kevin Olgetree who stepped it up and almost got a hat-trick in the TD category.      Olgetree will now really put some pressure on any secondary when you have the talent of Dez Bryant, Miles Austin and now Olgetree.  Dallas’ running back Demarco Murray had a great game on the ground and showed signs of breaking open a couple but with 131 yards it shows Murray can step up and man the Dallas backfield.    What will really hurt any team but I am focusing on the Cowboys and that is injuries, one key component to the Cowboys being successful will be staying healthy.  With that being said TE Jason Witten was in and out of the game but lets take the win and get the extra time off to get the injured players healthy for game-2 of the season.  big kudos also to the Dallas Coaching staff for calling great plays and the team implementing the game plan.

Tony Romo, he came to play, he captained the offence, moved the ball, held onto time of possession and put that all together and it was a great win for the Cowboys last night.   It was a big game and nice to see Romo win a big game.  One great thing I saw Romo do was use all his receivers and I mean all, Romo found 7 receivers last night which is great with all of them stepping up and getting some yards.

Good game on the defense side of things also for the Cowboys, Demarcus Ware congrats on the sacks and taking control of the defense and keeping the Giant offence off the field and allowing your offence to move the ball.    The fumble recovering was my turning point in the game, go Cowboys.

The game was not perfect, Dallas did have a ton of penalties which almost became the turning point but it didn’t which was nice but certainly the Cowboys will have to continue to focus on their tasks and keep their penalties to a minimum.

I liked the poise of the team last night, some notes, Demarco Murray sliding to stay in bounds and keeping the clock running only to be all for nothing with the penalty but great poise on Murray to think to slide in week-1.  It is these little things that will make you a winner / contender and I am sure the Coaching staff loved it also.

Always homework to do, plays to go over but enjoy it well you can and take the extra time to get healthy, heal the bruises and bring on week-2, Dallas stays on the road and heads to Seattle.

as always comments, questions, concerns…

@stantsy

I know it is the first game of the 2012-2013 NFL season but there is no better time for the Dallas Cowboys to shine than tomorrow night when the   Dallas Cowboys open up the NFL season in New York against the defending Super Bowl Champion New York Giants.   Some will say who cares, it is only week-1 and there are still 15 more games to play.   I say don’t listen to them, go out and win, win big and win every game you can.   The NFL is so competitive that you cannot take any game lightly.

We’ll what do the Cowboys have to do to be better this year? what do the Cowboys have to do to even win week one against the defending Super Bowl Champions?.  First of all and any football fan knows this but Dallas has to put pressure on Eli Manning, giving Eli time will only result in what Dallas saw last year which was L’s in the loss column.  The defense has to play better and Dallas will say they have looked at that department in bringing in a bona-fide defensive back and drafting a corner back to help accent the defense led by DeMarcus Ware.  Last year Dallas gave up way too many passing yards and too many come from behind comebacks to their opponents and that has to stop starting tomorrow night.

First losing the division to the Giants did not sit lightly with the Cowboys and than having the Giants go and win the Super Bowl was a real knock to the Cowboys who we all know have a lot of pride in wearing that STAR on the side of their helmet and this year we have to look at the Cowboys not getting pushed around by anyone.

No excuses but Dallas does start the season with their share of injuries and that starting with Witten, Jenkins and Ratliff, we will see come game time tomorrow if any of those are in uniform but that remains very doubtful so the rest of the team will have to rally and bring their A-games and hopefully start the season 1-0.

Unlike last year and I am no head Coach in the NFL but time / clock  management (TOP),  I mean you have the lead, run the ball, throw the short passes, focus on keeping that game-clock running and getting the W.  Too many times last year did the Cowboys have the lead and they shot themselves in the foot by throwing incomplete passes, giving the opponents the ball back and eventually letting the opponents win the game.  This also has to stop if the Cowboys look to be successful this season.

Now to the captain of the Dallas Cowboys, Tony Romo, your starting quarterback.  I know there are both Romo lovers and maybe more haters and I can debate with the best of them but believe you me Dallas fans, I hear ya, tell me but in order for the Cowboys to be successful, Romo has to play at his best and win the important football games.   The Cowboys have to beat the quality opponents.  Romo had one of his best passer-ratings last season, do we care? we need to go far in the post-season.   I would take the worst passer-rating to get to the Super Bowl so don’t worry about stats and lets get some W’s and move toward a winning and successful season in Dallas.

as always, comment, questions, concerns, how are the Cowboys going to do this year? did they do enough to better the team over last year? is Tony Romo the answer? can Romo bring Dallas to the promised land aka the  Super Bowl, tell me, enquiry minds want to know.

@stantsy

This years Dallas Cowboy squad finished up their pre-season with a win against the Miami ‘fish’ Dolphins 30-13.  Dallas ended the pre-season with a 3-1 record.

As far as the pre-season went, nothing really stood out to say ‘hey the Cowboys are going all the way this year’ but maybe NOT having BIG expectations is a good thing for this years squad.

Now it is time to hone in on the regular season, Dallas starts their regular season Wednesday night  in New Jersey to play the New York ‘super bowl champion’ Giants, everyone knows the game will be huge with the New York Giant fans celebrating the championship and hopefully the Cowboys can play on that and spoil their party per-say.

Dallas has some injuries and hopefully some of those injuries will become non-injuries and those players can get healthy and back on the A-squad and start playing games.  Until those players come back, it will be a team effort to play at 150% on every down and show the coaching staff they belong.    This is a time for a player who did not expect to play this early to play and show everyone what they got.

As always, comment, questions, concerns, short and sweet but looking for some feedback on what you thoughts are with this years Cowboy squad, can we contend?, do we have the team to make the playoffs?, go anywhere in the playoffs and of course for those Cowboy haters out there, I am game, bring it on….

@stantsy

Last nights NFL pre-season game between the Dallas Cowboys and Oakland Raiders was not a pretty one and in fact was more like a hockey / baseball score won 3-0 by the Cowboys.   Almost reminds me of one of the worst football games I ever attended which was a Cleveland Browns / Buffalo Bills game and also a Tampa Bay Buccaneers / Atlanta Falcons game which were both 3-0 scores and very boring.

Now back to last nights snooze fest, Dallas QB Tony Romo played, scrambled and never found any element of a grove which is not the start any Cowboy fan was looking for.   The only good news out of this is there is so much room for improvement which will be on-going throughout this pre-season.  Romo will certainly have to have a word with his offensive line as clearly on one play where Romo was sacked it was like a red-carpet right to Romo and like or dis-like Romo, we cannot have him go down with any injury especially in the pre-season.  I am liking Kyle Orten as this years back-up role and hopefully getting in some regular season snaps.

The game was full of mistakes on both sides and was more like a football version of the ‘bad news bears’ but time progresses, it is pre-season so this is the time to iron out things and prepare for the rest of the pre-season and regular season.

Comes down to a commitment to communicating with everyone, coaching staff, players,trainers, accountability and taking responsibility for your actions and learning from them and hopefully not letting them happen anymore.

Lots of work to do, lots of players still to see, time will tell, preparation will be key to this years squad being successful.

As a note, Dallas WR Dez Bryant made one catch 24 yards we’ll he nurses a bruised hamstring.

As always, comment, questions, concerns, even I have some cob-webs to iron out.

@stantsy

next game – San Diego Chargers – August 18th, 9:00pm

Just announced that the Dallas Cowboys will play in New York against the Super Bowl champion New York ‘football’ Giants on Wednesday September 5th, 20:30.

This will mark the opening of the 2012-2013 NFL season.   You ask since when does the NFL season open on a Wednesday, the answer is US President Obama has a speech planned for the following night, Thursday September 6th so clearly the NFL does not want to open their season on the same time / night as their President has a speech planned.   We all know President Obama probably wants to watch the season opener anyway.

So not much else new to speak of in Cowboy Nation but here’s to looking forward to the season opener.

‘stantsy’

@stantsy

A reader commented and directed me to this really good article that I would like to share with you all.     Definitely worth the read for all those long time Cowboy fans out there and the ones that remember the Bill Parcells era in Dallas along with the flopped snap by Dallas quarterback Tony Romo against the Seattle Seahawks which happens to be the last game Parcells coached in the NFL.

Enjoy the read…..

http://espn.go.com/dallas/nfl/story/_/id/7435562/five-years-later-many-dallas-cowboys-best-players-bill-parcells-guys

‘ @stantsy ‘

I want to thank everyone for all the great input and comments back and forth on the end of the Cowboy season blog.   There was some really good comments and bantering back and forth and everyone had some great input, now lets see if anyone out there  is listening.   I  wanted to make mention of an ESPN article which was brought to my attention so if time allows, give it a click,  copy and read.  Very interesting considering a lot of the comments on Jerry Jones, owner, GM capacity and how it shows failure in Cowboy Nation.

http://espn.go.com/dallas/nfl/story/_/id/7418937/dallas-cowboys-owner-jerry-jones-consider-giving-gm-titlery

Thanks and come back soon.

@stantsy