The Real Measuring Stick
Nick Eatman - Email
DallasCowboys.com Staff Writer
IRVING, Texas - This is the real thing.
This is the real big game.
Apparently, the other ones have just been opening acts for this showdown. We were fooled into thinking the Cowboys would get to see how good they were a couple of times this season.
But when the Patriots come to town on Sunday, this undoubtedly will be the test of all tests.
Remember three weeks ago, when the Cowboys were getting ready to face the big, bad Bears up in Soldier Field?
Didn't we call them the defending NFC Champions, just to make it sound better? It's not that they've lost that title, but as the Cowboys were headed up to Chicago, there was heavy emphasis on the fact that the Bears were, and have been, the team to beat in the NFC.
And there were those two words that wouldn't go away all week long:
Measuring stick.
Let's see exactly how the Cowboys compare to the Bears. Well, on that night, they proved it wasn't that close. It's just we really didn't think it would be the Cowboys pulling away at the end of the game, running over their defensive guys and even playing their backup quarterback on the final possession.
But here we are a few weeks later, and the Cowboys are about to face a real test.
Nothing against the Bears, who were banged up and got even more injured after the game. In fact, don't discount Chicago being in the mix here before it's all said and done.
But this week, it's not about the team to beat in the conference, but the team to beat in the entire league. And not just this year, but the entire decade, too.
The Patriots come to town with their identical 5-0 record, which seems to carry a little more weight than the Cowboys' unblemished mark through five games.
This is a statement game - not just for the Cowboys, but the Patriots, too. The statements are different, however.
For the Cowboys, New England is the standard they are trying to get to. The Patriots have won three Super Bowls this decade. They do it with offense, defense, special teams. They win as a team. They can play finesse football, but more often than not, they like to smash people in the mouth. Whatever way you want to play, the Patriots can play it, and usually play it better.
For the Patriots, the Cowboys are just another bump in the road. And more importantly, they're just the next bump. But at 5-0, averaging 36.4 points per game and winning every game by at least 17 points, the talk is starting rumble about possibly going undefeated.
Sure, it's always premature to get that talk going until about Week 10. But if the Patriots can handle the Cowboys on the road Sunday, and do it with the seemingly easiness that most of the national media is forecasting, you can bet references to the 1972 Dolphins - the NFL's only undefeated team - will be mentioned this week.
For the Cowboys, they want to see if they are truly one of the best teams in the NFL right now.
The Patriots want to see if they're one of the best teams of all time.
Talk about a real measuring stick.
Those words haven't been tossed around much this week, though. I haven't heard it once, to be honest. Maybe we just got sick of saying it three weeks ago.
But when it comes to seeing exactly where a team stands, this is the game the Cowboys should point to.
Because we know what the Patriots are. We know they are well-coached with a great quarterback, a play-making receiver and quality role players on offense. We know they have a stingy defense that can always confuse quarterbacks, and if that's not enough, they know how to win.
And they know how to win big games like this, even though after listening to the conference calls with their head coach Bill Belichick and linebacker Mike Vrabel and reading the interview transcripts from Tom Brady and Belichick, I kind of get the feeling the Patriots probably don't have the same feelings towards this game as the Cowboys.
And really, why would they?
This game is being touted as a potential Super Bowl match-up. So naturally, it's getting Super Bowl hype.
But don't you think the Patriots have been through plenty of these before? Just about every team they face is gunning for them. Every opponent they face probably puts the "measuring stick" tag on the game.
Now, of course, it's not every day, year, or decade even, that two 5-0 teams have played each other.
It's just the fifth time in NFL history, and that's going back to the 1920's when the Buffalo All-Americans and the Akron Pros were squaring off. And man, what a game that was, right?
But it's just third time since NFL-AFL merger, and the last was a Patriots-Jets showdown in 2004. New England won that game 13-7 and eventually won the Super Bowl that year, their third of three in a four-year span.
And when you've won three Super Bowls in the last six seasons, 12 playoff games and five division titles, a regular-season game in mid-October just isn't going to get the juices flowing like they are down here.
That's understandable. Don't have a problem with that at all, mainly because it's that kind of temperament that will give the Patriots an edge come Sunday afternoon. Now that doesn't mean it will be an edge for the entire game, but at least for a while maybe.
Look at Monday night's game in Buffalo. Tony Romo was all jacked up and his passes were the same way. He overthrew Jason Witten on that first pass over the middle so bad that it didn't matter if Witten was supposed to cut the route short or not. That ball was headed to Canada.
Was Romo just not ready for the game, or a little too fired up? I'd say the latter. And remember this, we like to compare him to the great Brett Favre for their strong arms, unwillingness to surrender on every play and their creative improvisations that can often get them in and out of trouble.
But Favre had the same issues of being too fired up early in his career. In those playoff games at Texas Stadium back in the mid-90's, Favre would usually struggle in the first quarter, sailing passes over his receivers heads, and it took a while to calm himself down. Sometimes, it can be too late.
Now Brady doesn't have that problem too often. The Patriots have been coming out hot, outscoring their opponents 44-7 in the first quarter.
The Cowboys, meanwhile, have been sluggishly slow coming out of the gates. They have just two field goals - six points - in the first quarter of five games this season. Somehow, they've managed to pick it up in the second quarter and then by the second half, they start rolling.
But that's because their defense has kept them in the game.
A slow start this week could lead to an even slower finish.
The Patriots know how to close out games. Sure, you can say they don't have a great running game, but when you have a quarterback like Brady, you don't always have to run the ball to play it safe. The good ones - Brady, Peyton Manning, even good ball-control guys like Jeff Garcia and Matt Hasselbeck - know how to throw short, but still safe, passes that can move the chains and still drain the clock.
So getting behind the Patriots early could be a dangerous game the Cowboys should try to avoid playing if all possible.
But they couldn't jump out on the Rams, Bills and Dolphins, and those teams have a combined 1-14 record.
So that means, NFL un-conventional wisdom likely suggests the Cowboys will blast out of the gate on Sunday. It always seems to be the opposite of how expect things to fall.
But whether the Cowboys start fast and end slow, or the opposite of that, we will likely find out a lot more about this team come Sunday.
A big loss doesn't mean they're not contenders. And it doesn't mean they won't face the Patriots again down the road this year. Well, February of next year actually.
And even a big win doesn't guarantee the Cowboys will even be playing next January or February either.
But one thing this game will probably do is show us what kind of team the Cowboys really are.
If they can hang with the Patriots, they are for real. No doubt. And if they can't, then we'll keep waiting . . . for the next measuring stick to come along.
DallasCowboys.com Staff Writer
IRVING, Texas - This is the real thing.
This is the real big game.
Apparently, the other ones have just been opening acts for this showdown. We were fooled into thinking the Cowboys would get to see how good they were a couple of times this season.
But when the Patriots come to town on Sunday, this undoubtedly will be the test of all tests.
Remember three weeks ago, when the Cowboys were getting ready to face the big, bad Bears up in Soldier Field?
Didn't we call them the defending NFC Champions, just to make it sound better? It's not that they've lost that title, but as the Cowboys were headed up to Chicago, there was heavy emphasis on the fact that the Bears were, and have been, the team to beat in the NFC.
And there were those two words that wouldn't go away all week long:
Measuring stick.
Let's see exactly how the Cowboys compare to the Bears. Well, on that night, they proved it wasn't that close. It's just we really didn't think it would be the Cowboys pulling away at the end of the game, running over their defensive guys and even playing their backup quarterback on the final possession.
But here we are a few weeks later, and the Cowboys are about to face a real test.
Nothing against the Bears, who were banged up and got even more injured after the game. In fact, don't discount Chicago being in the mix here before it's all said and done.
But this week, it's not about the team to beat in the conference, but the team to beat in the entire league. And not just this year, but the entire decade, too.
The Patriots come to town with their identical 5-0 record, which seems to carry a little more weight than the Cowboys' unblemished mark through five games.
This is a statement game - not just for the Cowboys, but the Patriots, too. The statements are different, however.
For the Cowboys, New England is the standard they are trying to get to. The Patriots have won three Super Bowls this decade. They do it with offense, defense, special teams. They win as a team. They can play finesse football, but more often than not, they like to smash people in the mouth. Whatever way you want to play, the Patriots can play it, and usually play it better.
For the Patriots, the Cowboys are just another bump in the road. And more importantly, they're just the next bump. But at 5-0, averaging 36.4 points per game and winning every game by at least 17 points, the talk is starting rumble about possibly going undefeated.
Sure, it's always premature to get that talk going until about Week 10. But if the Patriots can handle the Cowboys on the road Sunday, and do it with the seemingly easiness that most of the national media is forecasting, you can bet references to the 1972 Dolphins - the NFL's only undefeated team - will be mentioned this week.
For the Cowboys, they want to see if they are truly one of the best teams in the NFL right now.
The Patriots want to see if they're one of the best teams of all time.
Talk about a real measuring stick.
Those words haven't been tossed around much this week, though. I haven't heard it once, to be honest. Maybe we just got sick of saying it three weeks ago.
But when it comes to seeing exactly where a team stands, this is the game the Cowboys should point to.
Because we know what the Patriots are. We know they are well-coached with a great quarterback, a play-making receiver and quality role players on offense. We know they have a stingy defense that can always confuse quarterbacks, and if that's not enough, they know how to win.
And they know how to win big games like this, even though after listening to the conference calls with their head coach Bill Belichick and linebacker Mike Vrabel and reading the interview transcripts from Tom Brady and Belichick, I kind of get the feeling the Patriots probably don't have the same feelings towards this game as the Cowboys.
And really, why would they?
This game is being touted as a potential Super Bowl match-up. So naturally, it's getting Super Bowl hype.
But don't you think the Patriots have been through plenty of these before? Just about every team they face is gunning for them. Every opponent they face probably puts the "measuring stick" tag on the game.
Now, of course, it's not every day, year, or decade even, that two 5-0 teams have played each other.
It's just the fifth time in NFL history, and that's going back to the 1920's when the Buffalo All-Americans and the Akron Pros were squaring off. And man, what a game that was, right?
But it's just third time since NFL-AFL merger, and the last was a Patriots-Jets showdown in 2004. New England won that game 13-7 and eventually won the Super Bowl that year, their third of three in a four-year span.
And when you've won three Super Bowls in the last six seasons, 12 playoff games and five division titles, a regular-season game in mid-October just isn't going to get the juices flowing like they are down here.
That's understandable. Don't have a problem with that at all, mainly because it's that kind of temperament that will give the Patriots an edge come Sunday afternoon. Now that doesn't mean it will be an edge for the entire game, but at least for a while maybe.
Look at Monday night's game in Buffalo. Tony Romo was all jacked up and his passes were the same way. He overthrew Jason Witten on that first pass over the middle so bad that it didn't matter if Witten was supposed to cut the route short or not. That ball was headed to Canada.
Was Romo just not ready for the game, or a little too fired up? I'd say the latter. And remember this, we like to compare him to the great Brett Favre for their strong arms, unwillingness to surrender on every play and their creative improvisations that can often get them in and out of trouble.
But Favre had the same issues of being too fired up early in his career. In those playoff games at Texas Stadium back in the mid-90's, Favre would usually struggle in the first quarter, sailing passes over his receivers heads, and it took a while to calm himself down. Sometimes, it can be too late.
Now Brady doesn't have that problem too often. The Patriots have been coming out hot, outscoring their opponents 44-7 in the first quarter.
The Cowboys, meanwhile, have been sluggishly slow coming out of the gates. They have just two field goals - six points - in the first quarter of five games this season. Somehow, they've managed to pick it up in the second quarter and then by the second half, they start rolling.
But that's because their defense has kept them in the game.
A slow start this week could lead to an even slower finish.
The Patriots know how to close out games. Sure, you can say they don't have a great running game, but when you have a quarterback like Brady, you don't always have to run the ball to play it safe. The good ones - Brady, Peyton Manning, even good ball-control guys like Jeff Garcia and Matt Hasselbeck - know how to throw short, but still safe, passes that can move the chains and still drain the clock.
So getting behind the Patriots early could be a dangerous game the Cowboys should try to avoid playing if all possible.
But they couldn't jump out on the Rams, Bills and Dolphins, and those teams have a combined 1-14 record.
So that means, NFL un-conventional wisdom likely suggests the Cowboys will blast out of the gate on Sunday. It always seems to be the opposite of how expect things to fall.
But whether the Cowboys start fast and end slow, or the opposite of that, we will likely find out a lot more about this team come Sunday.
A big loss doesn't mean they're not contenders. And it doesn't mean they won't face the Patriots again down the road this year. Well, February of next year actually.
And even a big win doesn't guarantee the Cowboys will even be playing next January or February either.
But one thing this game will probably do is show us what kind of team the Cowboys really are.
If they can hang with the Patriots, they are for real. No doubt. And if they can't, then we'll keep waiting . . . for the next measuring stick to come along.
posted by The Gryphon at 10:33 PM
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