4th Down all over again

Well, I am glad that the “ultra competitive” Larry Allen, who was given a completely free pass for his swipe at Jose Cortez last week because of his fiery “will to win”, was so competitve yesterday that he got abused for 4 quarters by Warren Sapp. Perhaps in 1999 it is not embarrassing to be abused by Sapp, but in 2005 many have left Sapp’s career for dead. Well, luckily for him, he was matched up against an equally washed up superstar of another decade.

Football is pretty simple. Your big boys beat their big boys and you generally control the line of scrimmage, which then generally controls the scoreboard. On Sunday in Oakland, the Cowboys were controlled on both sides of the ball. Lamont Jordan looked like the $27 million dollar man that he was supposed to be, Derrick Burgess, Sapp, and Ted Washington dominated the Cowboys OL for most of the day, and on the line of scrimmage, Oakland won big.

But, because it is the NFL, the Cowboys had 3 shots at the end zone from about 5 yards away.

2nd down and 2 from the 3 yard line: Run left with Jones behind Allen and Adams and 2 TE’s. The play was doomed from the beginning as Raiders poured past those two highly compensated linemen, and Jones is nailed for a 2 yard loss. Marcus Spears was the FB, but he was not a factor as LT (especially) and LG had been beaten before the play was a moment old and Tommy Kelly blew the play right up.

3rd down and 4 from the 5 yard line: Jones and Witten are kept in to protect, with Keyshawn to the left, Glenn in the right slot, and Crayton out right. Bledsoe is looking nowhere but Keyshawn the whole play, and fires a pass that had no chance over Keyshawn’s head. Nmandi Asomugha was all over Key, and really did a great job all day against him, considering I am not sure I have ever heard of him before yesterday besides draft day of 2003.

4th down and 4 from the 5 yard line: After a timeout, the Cowboys had to go to the one play that they believe can get them the end zone. Technically, they could still get a first down, but it was only inches from the goal-line. This time, Keyshawn is wide right, Glenn in the right slot, Crayton wide left, with Witten off of Left tackle. Keyshawn heads on another fade route, Glenn and Witten run similar sideline patterns, and Crayton runs a slant while crossing with Witten. By now, you know where Bledsoe went. Just like in the Washington game with one play left, he throws a pass too short to Terry Glenn. If the pass was better, Glenn might have caught it, but Charles Woodsen decapitates him before Glenn can get enough yardage for a touchdown, although you could debate it may have been enough for a first down. Meanwhile, with Crayton’s slant occupying the defenders, Witten stands all alone at the top of the screen, and would have walked into the endzone. It is easy to play QB from my couch, but how do you ignore Witten on the goal line on the last 2 plays given how clutch and open he appears to be on numerous 3rd downs throughout the game?

Nevertheless, the Cowboys are 2-2. Again, they could/should have won both the games they lost, and could/should have lost both the games they won. Take your 2-2 and get ready for Philadelphia.

Parcells does something to his rookies that he never did to Vinny: he calls them out by name …

Parcells pinned this loss on his rookies. He mentioned Tyson Thompson and DeMarcus Ware by name and alluded to others.

"Some of our young players today kind of hurt us with some mistakes," Parcells said. "Missed assignments ... Ware is offside three times. You know, those are concentration things that hurt. We just did enough of that stuff to keep us from being successful."

When Parcells decided to make this rookie class an important part of the team – two started and eight played Sunday – he knew they would make mistakes.

He's simply betting that the rookies will be better players at the start of November than they are right now, which will make Dallas a better team. So he's willing to put up with Thompson's missed blocks, Ware's penalties, right guard Rob Petitti's struggles in pass protection and running back Marion Barber's inability to convert a third-and-2 from the Oakland 12 in the second quarter, forcing Dallas to settle for a field goal.

"I told you what I was going to do," Parcells said of using rookies. "There are some problems involved in doing some of that."

If you don’t like what rookies do at RB, perhaps I could interest you in “healthy scratch” Anthony Thomas? Seems like he could handle things that rookies cannot.

Colishaw on the amazing Cowboys running game …

Galloway on the day in Oakland …

Hate the Eagles, Really dig their QB, though …What a game for them yesterday…

Brewers finish 81-81 …And Doug Melvin finishes 2 games ahead of the Texas Rangers in 2005, with that silly Brewers payroll…

Remember when I wrote on August 9th, that we might not want to bother with premiership season since Chelsea had it won before it started?

It Starts Saturday!! The English Premiership Opens for business. This represents happiness on Saturday mornings for the next 9 months for me. Sadly, Chelsea is good enough to already be declared the winner, but the rest of us ponder who finishes 2nd (Arsenal, most likely) and who finishes 3rd. Manchester United will have something to say about that, but so will my beloved Liverpool

Well, Chelsea decided to go into Anfield, and show Liverpool how football is played on the Reds turf, with a 4-1 thrashing …Ouch….

Robert Cessna speaks the truth about Aggies-Baylor …

Aggie head football coach Dennis Franchione reminded us after his team's 16-13 overtime victory over the Baylor Bears on Saturday that the University of Texas was A&M's rival.

Of course that's true. But what many of us didn't know until Saturday was that Baylor is closer to A&M than A&M is to Texas. Now that's cause for concern.
Baylor, which just two years ago was outscored 191-24 by Texas, A&M and Tech, came within a play of beating the Aggies in consecutive years for the first time since 1984-85.

It was easy for A&M fans to shrug off last year's 35-34 overtime loss in Waco as a fluke. There's no way Aggies can shrug off what happened Saturday at Kyle Field.
For three-plus quarters Baylor was the better team. It just doesn't know how to win. The Bears self-destructed, showing why they've never won a Big 12 road game.

Guy Morriss has that thing headed in the right direction in Waco. He is no Kevin Steele.