Ok, this guy needs a valium, but this was fun reading.................
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Right pick?
Romo spells Bledsoe, but results don't add up
Doesn't matter who's at QB, this team needs to apologize
By Gil LeBreton
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
IRVING -- Somehow, less than two minutes before halftime, they were at the Giants' 4-yard line, perched at the threshold of stealing the lead.
For Drew Bledsoe and the Cowboys, the night, it seemed, was about to get very interesting.
A blink and one dreadful pass later, alas, the Cowboys' season was over.
It is over, you know. It has to be, because a future Hall of Fame coach wouldn't change to an undeveloped, untested quarterback with anything of value still on the line.
Would he?
Drew Bledsoe: one touchdown, one interception, sacked four times.
Tony Romo: two touchdowns, three interceptions, sacked twice.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss, in other words.
You are what you are, head coach Bill Parcells has often said. The Cowboys looked into the mirror Monday night, and they found themselves woefully lacking.
They couldn't protect Bledsoe. They couldn't tackle Tiki Barber. Eli Manning threw over them. Pass rushers Michael Strahan and Osi Umenyiora ran around and through them.
Don't let the final score -- Giants 36, Cowboys 22 -- fool you. This wasn't about Bledsoe. It was about the season, and Parcells just flushed it.
The Cowboys coach said that the Monday night showdown with division rival New York would show him a lot about his team.
What Parcells saw, however, "wasn't good."
"I'm ashamed to put a team out there that plays like that," Parcells said. "We ought to apologize to the people that came out. That's not good football."
Bledsoe's guilty fingerprints were all over the place.
Again, the 14-year veteran's inability to dance away from trouble sent the Cowboys moving in the wrong direction. On the team's second possession of the game, Bledsoe was knocked on his back for a safety. On the Cowboys' fourth possession, he was sacked on both first and third downs.
Yet, with the Giants ahead and dominating the game, 12-0, an odd and greedy thing happened. Instead of running the ball down the throats of a backpedaling Cowboys defense, the Giants went for the quick kill, and Manning's long pass to the end zone was intercepted by Terence Newman.
Bledsoe's best drive of the night followed -- 10 plays, 80 yards, ending with Bledsoe himself squeezing in for the touchdown.
And when Barber fumbled away the Giants' next snap, there were Bledsoe and the Cowboys' offense, despite their night-long struggle, 14 yards from taking a 14-12 halftime lead.
It all changed five plays later.
Had Bledsoe's pass to the left flag been sooner, sneakier and aimed more at Terry Glenn's inside shoulder, instead of the other side, maybe he would still be the Cowboys' starter. Maybe cornerback Sam Madison wouldn't have easily stepped in front of Bledsoe's pass for an interception.
Maybe it wouldn't have mattered. The Giants still appeared destined to dominate this game.
Whatever Parcells saw up to that point, however, couldn't have encouraged him.
Yes, Romo provided a much-needed change of pace. Yes, he sometimes showed that he could dash from the pocket and elude the Giants' steady rush.
But this isn't a rookie, people. This is a fourth-year, undrafted, heretofore career backup who played small-time ball at a small-time college.
You are what you are, and Monday night Romo, yes, was the people's choice. The boos for Bledsoe said so.
But Romo also had the three interceptions and the occasional near-interceptions. He looked more like the second coming of Kevin Sweeney than the second coming of Tom Brady.
The local and national media today will, without a doubt, herald the official onset of the Cowboys quarterback controversy.
Hold those talk show phones, though. Don't you need at least one good quarterback to make a controversy?
For Bledsoe, granted, Monday night did not seem destined to make an eventual turn for the better. The Giants were that good, that superior, that ready.
As Parcells had spoken these first weeks of the season, the time had not been right to ponder a quarterback change.
Why here, why now?
Because the obvious reality of Monday night's spanking showed Parcells that these Cowboys are what they are.
A team that the head coach feels he should apologize for.
No matter who, from now on, is the quarterback.
------------------------------------------------------------
Right pick?
Romo spells Bledsoe, but results don't add up
Doesn't matter who's at QB, this team needs to apologize
By Gil LeBreton
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
IRVING -- Somehow, less than two minutes before halftime, they were at the Giants' 4-yard line, perched at the threshold of stealing the lead.
For Drew Bledsoe and the Cowboys, the night, it seemed, was about to get very interesting.
A blink and one dreadful pass later, alas, the Cowboys' season was over.
It is over, you know. It has to be, because a future Hall of Fame coach wouldn't change to an undeveloped, untested quarterback with anything of value still on the line.
Would he?
Drew Bledsoe: one touchdown, one interception, sacked four times.
Tony Romo: two touchdowns, three interceptions, sacked twice.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss, in other words.
You are what you are, head coach Bill Parcells has often said. The Cowboys looked into the mirror Monday night, and they found themselves woefully lacking.
They couldn't protect Bledsoe. They couldn't tackle Tiki Barber. Eli Manning threw over them. Pass rushers Michael Strahan and Osi Umenyiora ran around and through them.
Don't let the final score -- Giants 36, Cowboys 22 -- fool you. This wasn't about Bledsoe. It was about the season, and Parcells just flushed it.
The Cowboys coach said that the Monday night showdown with division rival New York would show him a lot about his team.
What Parcells saw, however, "wasn't good."
"I'm ashamed to put a team out there that plays like that," Parcells said. "We ought to apologize to the people that came out. That's not good football."
Bledsoe's guilty fingerprints were all over the place.
Again, the 14-year veteran's inability to dance away from trouble sent the Cowboys moving in the wrong direction. On the team's second possession of the game, Bledsoe was knocked on his back for a safety. On the Cowboys' fourth possession, he was sacked on both first and third downs.
Yet, with the Giants ahead and dominating the game, 12-0, an odd and greedy thing happened. Instead of running the ball down the throats of a backpedaling Cowboys defense, the Giants went for the quick kill, and Manning's long pass to the end zone was intercepted by Terence Newman.
Bledsoe's best drive of the night followed -- 10 plays, 80 yards, ending with Bledsoe himself squeezing in for the touchdown.
And when Barber fumbled away the Giants' next snap, there were Bledsoe and the Cowboys' offense, despite their night-long struggle, 14 yards from taking a 14-12 halftime lead.
It all changed five plays later.
Had Bledsoe's pass to the left flag been sooner, sneakier and aimed more at Terry Glenn's inside shoulder, instead of the other side, maybe he would still be the Cowboys' starter. Maybe cornerback Sam Madison wouldn't have easily stepped in front of Bledsoe's pass for an interception.
Maybe it wouldn't have mattered. The Giants still appeared destined to dominate this game.
Whatever Parcells saw up to that point, however, couldn't have encouraged him.
Yes, Romo provided a much-needed change of pace. Yes, he sometimes showed that he could dash from the pocket and elude the Giants' steady rush.
But this isn't a rookie, people. This is a fourth-year, undrafted, heretofore career backup who played small-time ball at a small-time college.
You are what you are, and Monday night Romo, yes, was the people's choice. The boos for Bledsoe said so.
But Romo also had the three interceptions and the occasional near-interceptions. He looked more like the second coming of Kevin Sweeney than the second coming of Tom Brady.
The local and national media today will, without a doubt, herald the official onset of the Cowboys quarterback controversy.
Hold those talk show phones, though. Don't you need at least one good quarterback to make a controversy?
For Bledsoe, granted, Monday night did not seem destined to make an eventual turn for the better. The Giants were that good, that superior, that ready.
As Parcells had spoken these first weeks of the season, the time had not been right to ponder a quarterback change.
Why here, why now?
Because the obvious reality of Monday night's spanking showed Parcells that these Cowboys are what they are.
A team that the head coach feels he should apologize for.
No matter who, from now on, is the quarterback.
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