Five Boys to Watch During the Dallas Cowboys vs. Tampa Bay Bucs Game
By author
Felix Jones: After a devastating injury to DeMarco Murray, Jones is back as the Cowboys starting tail back and last week he had a decent performance filling in for Murray. However can that continue and can he be a number one back which he failed to do early in the season? I sure hope so because the Cowboys playoff hopes might depend on it. The big difference between Murray and Jones and it was evident Sunday night was the ability to put away the game and run out the clock. Jones has to be able to run the clock out when the Cowboys have the lead, because as you saw last week the inability to do that came back and bit the Cowboys badly.
Defense
DeMarcus Ware: It is not very often if ever that you will hear me or anyone calling out a superstar like Ware, but today I am. Ware needs to step up and have a big game and light a fire under the dead defense of the Cowboys. I know Ware is a defensive star but his off sides penalty last week could not have come at a worst time. He is the defensive leader of the team and its time he steps up and lead this defense. Ware always plays his heart and is always all over the field and it shows, but the past few weeks the defense has just been downright awful. DeMarcus its time for you to light a fire under this team or the Cowboys won’t be playing in January.
Rob Ryan: Last week I said that you needed to change something because the way the defense had played lately wasn’t working, well you and the defense apparently didn’t get the memo. The defense of the Cowboys has been awful and has cost us numerous games down the stretch. The Cowboys have blown 3 4th quarter leads this season and it is all because they have one of the worst 4th quarter defenses in all of football. Yes a lot of the blame falls on the players but you Coach Ryan deserve some of the blame. What happened to that fired up defense against the Patriots, 49ers and Bills we saw? Instead we see awful performance against the Redskins, Dolphins and Cardinals. I know Eli is a great quarterback and we got beat by a good team but blowing a 10 point 4th quarter lead to a divisional opponent at home cannot happen. Coach Ryan you better figure things out because if you don’t you will be watching your brother in the playoffs from your couch.
Special Teams
Dan Bailey: I said last week that I thought given the chance to kick a game winning field goal that you would come through for us and sadly you missed the one to tie it. However this loss is not your fault, no you hit the 2 field goals early in the game and would have made the tying field goal had it not been for the timeout by the Giants. Now I still have a lot of faith in you, more than I have had in a Cowboys kicker in a long time, but you have to hit one in the clutch just to reassure me that you can.
Head Coach
Jason Garrett: You got the dreaded vote of confidence this week from owner Jerry Jones, and while I don’t blame you for this week’s loss like I did last week’s. I feel you have got to figure out how to stop the 4th quarter collapse and fast. Your defense is just awful and I know you are the Offensive guy you are still the Head Coach and things need to get better around Big D. You have the Bucs this week in what should be a win and the Eagles at home and Giants on the road to finish out the season. If you don’t win at least 2 of these games the chances of making the playoffs are going to take a huge hit. The offense looks great for Garrett but as the head coach something has to be done about the defense and doing a better job of protecting the 4th quarter leads. If he doesn’t fix these problems the Cowboys season, just like their 4th quarters will be a collapse.
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