It Isn’t Dez Bryant vs. Calvin Johnson
By Mike Burke
When the Dallas Cowboys travel to Ford Field this week to face the Detroit Lions it is going to be one of the most important games of the season for both teams. For the Lions they are looking to stay within reach of the Green Bay Packers who will probably be pummeling the Minnesota Vikings later that day on Sunday night Football. They also would like to stay above the Chicago Bears, who are on their bye week. A win keeps them a game behind the Packers whom they lost to in Green bay 3 weeks ago. It also puts them a half game up on the Bears. In the NFC North it is shaping up as a three team race, and when that happens one team usually has a good season and misses the post season. The Lions, a team that has a pathetic History in the post season cannot afford to be the team that falls into that 3rd place soup.
The Dallas Cowboys are on top of the NFC East, but they too cannot afford a loss. For one thing, the Cowboys need to sustain a string of wins. Two in a row is nice, but two in a row doesn’t take you anywhere when the post arrives except back home to watch the remainder of the games from your couch. On top of this the scuttlebutt around the NFL now is that the Washington Redskins are finally getting their act together and could come up and challenge the Cowboys for the Division crown again. Unfortunately for the Redskins this week, they are going to face the Denver Broncos at Mile High. They might return to reeling quite quickly as the Broncos will look to atone for last week’s loss in prime time to the Indianapolis Colts.
The Cowboys other Division foes, the Philadelphia Eagles and the New York Giants, will face each other at Lincoln Field in Philadelphia where the Eagles are licking their wounds after last week’s drubbing at the hands of the Cowboys. The Giants finally got off the shneid last week by beating the hapless Vikings on Monday Night Football. If the Cowboys want to continue to control the always ultra competitive NFC East then they are going to need to continue to string together wins. Especially on the road, and especially against non Division foes because right now it doesn’t look like any of them are contenders for a playoff spot. The only way for the Cowboys to avoid playing on the road in the post season is to have the best record in the NFC, and frankly that is not likely this year yet.
The game against the Lions will feature probably the two best Wide Receivers in the NFL. The Lions Calvin Johnson, nicknamed Magatron, is returning from an injury that sidelined him for a game. Last year he assaulted the single season receiving yardage record books by making a very serious run at being the first ever 2000 yard receiver. He fell a mere 36 yards short of that goal. His accomplishments were an encouragement to the Cowboys Dez Bryant who suggested he would like to be the first WR to actually cross that magical line.