Dallas versus Washington

¿Si O No?

By A. Govea

December 25, 2014

Right after all the highs fives stopped in celebration of the win over the Colts and securing the NFC East.  The debates began on sports talk radio, offices, in line at the grocery store and homes all over the metroplex.  Do we play or rest the starters?  After all, this game against Washington is basically meaningless, unless and it is a big unless, both Seattle and Arizona lose.  If this unlikely scenario did happen it would give Dallas a first round by.

Now of course the chances are slim and none, but who would have picked Washington to beat Philly last week and thus awarding the NFC East to Dallas before they even played on Sunday?  So “yes” anything can happen in today’s NFL but, do you want to risk another injury to Romo?  After all they literally broke his back last year, and can we afford injury to Dez or any further injury to Murray? How about on defense can we afford to lose a starter there?  Of course not, but as many have said this is a young team, do you really want to stop the team momentum?

To paraphrase Dallas Hall Fame Coach Tom Landry “You can roll into the playoffs or you can back in, I prefer my teams to be playing their best going in.”  As for me, I do not want to see any key starters in the 4^th quarter, but I do believe you want to give your team a chance to win.  I am concerned with this team or actually any team, to have the ability to turn it off one week and on the next. Having said that best thing is to treat this game like you would treat the 3^rd preseason game, go with your starter’s first half and maybe start of 3^rd quarter then pull them out.  I believe that on offense coaches can go with a game plan that is low risk for Romo or any of the Pro Bowl starters.

That list includes Romo, Murray, Dez otherwise known as “Los Nuevos” triplets (new triplets) Tyrone Smith, Travis Frederick and candidate for rookie of the year Zack Martin.  Noticeably missing this year is Jason Whitten, who even though his number of catches are down is having one of his best overall career seasons.  Of course no one really expected anyone on the defense to be named to the Pro Bowl and they weren’t.  However everyone should agree as I wrote earlier they are much improved over last year.  Their best game this season came last Sunday against the Luckless Colts (sorry couldn’t resist).  They handed Andrew Luck, which many label as the new NFL QB standard bearer the worst game of his career. They were kept to 229 yards, 7 points and 1 rushing yard.  Yes, this is not a typo 1 yard, you have to go back to 1966, when against the Steelers they held a team to single digit rushing yards, the Steelers only managed 7 yards.  The defense looked like the Super Bowl winning defense of the 90s, fast, fresh and swarming.  In this, yet to be labeled defense there are some players emerging as standouts, Crawford, Hitchens, Mincey and Wilcox.  But perhaps the real hero of this defense is coordinator Rod Marrinelli who has managed to devise schemes that work best for this “No Name” defense.  The results speak for themselves including 8 takeaways in the last 3 weeks.  The pass rush has also gotten better and given the latest results I only expect them to get better.

To answer the question, ¿Si O No?  Get your chips, salsa, refried beans and of course the beer and let’s find out Sunday.