Dallas Cowboys – San Diego Chargers Game Wrap Up

The Dallas Cowboys showed vast improvement from Monday night in last nights game.  There is starting to be a ray of hope at the end of the second pre-season game.  Questions that have been blogged and debated all during the off-season are now beginning to give us answers instead of leaving us wondering.  Questions like who will be the number 3 wide receiver,  where is the depth still a problem and how will having DeMarco Murray back alter  the play calling and then finally how the team itself will gel. So with that being said let’s look at the positives and the negatives of last night’s game.

  The Positives:

Dan Bailey continues to knock those field goals through making a 40-yard field goal in the first half and then again a 49-yard field goal in the third quarter, a kick that definitely looked like he had enough leg to move it back a bit more.

Cole  Beasley continues to show us a good competition for the 3rd wide reciver spot with a 104 yard game on 7 receptions.

First string offense definitely stepped it up a vast improvement over Monday night’s game where  Tony Romo running for his life and the pocket kept collapsing. Great pockets for Romo to do what Romo does best.

Brandon Carr who can’t say enough about him.  He had  two interceptions off Philip Rivers one for a 17-yard return and the second for an 8-yard return.  This is why Carr was paid the big bucks and he showed that last night.

The first string defense showed that Rob Ryan is getting a handle on the talent he has.  Even without DeMarcus Ware, the first string defense held Philip Rivers scoreless as well as delivering one sack for 6-yards and two interceptions.

The Negatives:

This cannot be said enough.  Penalties! When are the penalties going to finally be addressed? On-going issue for Dallas and something that needs to be nipped in the bud before making a legit run at anything including winning a game.  The penalty killing drives are  demoralizing the team.  In pre-season along against the Oakland Raiders, Dallas had 12 penalties for 91-yards and in last night’s game they had 9 penalties for 86-yards.  No team can survive this much kicking themselves when they are down and still succeed.  This should be one of the most important focuses within the next two games.

Stephen McGee has had two full seasons and going into his third with the Dallas Cowboys and this is just not going to work out.  Fans were grumbling on Facebook about how long Jason Garrett kept McGee in before bringing in Rudy Carpenter to finish off the game.  It wouldn’t be surprising after last nights performance to see McGee cut from the roster.   I do believe that Garrett’s plan was to give McGee a “sink or swim” type of night and well McGee sank faster than the Titanic last night.

Finally, the lack of depth once again comes to haunt us.  Given that fact that McGee had such a miserable night this blame can also be placed on the offensive line, which Jerry Jones stated earlier this week he failed to strengthen this off-season.  McGee had to deal with collapsing pockets most of the night.  There is also lack of depth still on the defense.  The second and third string defenses gave up 20 points total which isn’t a very good sign even if they did hold Oakland scoreless Monday night.

At the conclusion of the second pre-season game it was nice to see the improvements but also scary to see the same things that keep coming back to haunt the team.  Can’t wait for game three next week!

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