1). I was not one bit surprised the way Dez Bryant was able to play against Bradley Fletcher. All season long teams had been attacking him with lesser players and having great success. Bryant is too strong down the field for Fletcher to have to deal with. Once he got the separation, it was over. Tony Romo was outstanding with his touch and placement of the ball to Bryant all night long.
2). Mark Sanchez has had a history this season that when the game is close or he is behind, he is incapable of making enough plays to rally his team. The more throws that he had to make the more you would see the indecision and carelessness with the ball. The scoreboard was never Sanchez's friend tonight like it was in Dallas two weeks ago.
3). I know that folks questioned my thought that Tyrone Crawford was the best defensive player of the starting 11, and to be honest, that's OK. I know there are plenty of Orlando Scandrick and Rolando McClain fans, but when you watch Crawford play down after down and what he is able to accomplish against the run – and especially in Philly against the pass – you can easily see my point. When this defense needed an active inside player to step up, he was the man.
4). From the eyeball test, it appeared that defensive coordinator Rod Marinelli went with more man-coverage looks than zone. Going to check the film on the way home and see what happened on the big completions, but I believe he played to the strengths of his guys. There were not the huge crossing routes that we had seen the Eagles hit before with Jordan Matthews in this game, which were successful more against the zone.
5). You can only hope that this Cowboys front office, when it comes time to the draft to rebuild this defensive line, they are able to find players like Brandon Cox and Bennie Logan. It was an all day battle for these inside three on the Cowboys offensive line to handle those two.
6). I never grow tired of watching Jason Witten work down the field against linebackers and safeties. His football intelligence makes him such a wonderful player. He knows exactly the situation, and he is one of the great finishers to ever play in this league.
7). I have to admit that when the Cowboys started the game 4-for-4 on third downs, my offensive plan was coming together nicely. But after that start, they only went 1-for-9 over the remainder of the game. My thinking was that the Cowboys needed to be around 48 percent for the game, which was their road average. For the them to finish at 38 percent was disappointing after the start. Two bad missed opportunities on third-and-1 hurt that average.
8). It was good to see Terrance Williams get some looks early and be able to get him going. Made a really nice snatch-hands catch on third down that gave him a little jump. I have no issue at all throwing him those deep balls, either. He is sneaky in the way he gets down the field and will occasionally draw those calls. I would be careful to give up on him.
9). The Cowboys ran 78 plays to the Eagles' 53, which was a total reversal in what happened the first time these two teams met. The Cowboys also held the ball for 41:55 to Philadelphia's 18:05.
10). Thought there was a much better effort by the Cowboys defensive ends in regards to setting the edge, which was a huge problem in the last meeting. Just a feeling, and will get a chance to study the game, but it was an outstanding effort for Jeremy Mincey on the outside. There were several snaps when he was up the field and holding that point of attack, thus making the ball have to cut back inside to where the help was. He was physical from the opening snap and that's actually what they needed from him to control this Eagles running game.
11). I am interested to see how Jermey Parnell played in place of Doug Free. It appeared that there were some struggles running the ball to that right side once Free was out of the game. I have to say that was surprising because Parnell is a much stronger run blocker than Free, but gives up a little on the pass protection. It looked like the opposite of that happened this evening.
12). #FinishTheFight … on to next week.
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