The Dallas Cowboys defeated the Green Bay Packers 27-16. Winning on the road in a short week, against a team that many consider a contender, in a place that they had never won......well, it was a solid performance. The Cowboys are fortunate in that after playing a Monday night game, they had a Sunday night game, then a 3pm game next week. Having those precious extra hours are certainly a benefit. How would they like a Monday nighter followed by a Sunday noon game or even 3pm? For a short week, they received the best schedule possible.
Defense - Best game in quite a while. They were able to get consistent pressure on Aaron Rogers. Plus, the secondary covered pretty well and that forced Rogers into making poor throws or taking sacks. They did allow some yardage but really gutted up in the red zone.
The Pack was only 28% on third down and held to 84 yards rushing.
DeMarcus Ware might be the best Cowboys defensive players in a very long time.
Nice to see Adam Jones making plays in the running game - forcing a fumble and making 6 tackles and assisting on 2 others.
Romo - we will see this 1 or 2 more times this season. Mostly, just a stinker. 2 intentional groundings (he had 0 prior to last night). He was able to make a couple of big plays to Miles Austin but Romo was never comfortable.
The running game was fantastic. MBIII absolutely pounded the Packers defense and Felix Jones came in and torched them for a 60 yard TD run. Barber had 142 on 28 carries. I imagine that the Packers defense was demoralized at seeing Barber coming at them over and over. He punishes defenders. Then, you throw out the explosive Jones. Scary.
Smart move by Jason Garrett to quickly assess that Romo was off and switch to the running game. How many times did we see the delayed handoff to Barber. It felt like Groundhog Day.
TO - only 2 catches but make several key blocks and attracted 2 of the better Packer defenders. He ran down Nick Collins, from behind, after his INT. He also ran down Felix Jones on his 60 yard run to screen a defender. Kind of like in basketball when your shot is not falling, you can still have a great "floor" game.
You knew that all those FG's by the Packers would come back to haunt them. You cannot beat the Cowboys by kicking field goals.
Every other division leader must be ecstatic that they are not in the NFC East, easily the best division in football.
Worries - another 7 penalties, Barber and his difficulty in holding on the the ball, red zone efficiency (1/5).
For some reason, I never felt truly comfortable until the last minute or so. I guess the Philly game was still on my mind.
NFL re-cap
Green Bay's take
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