Phillips looks on

The Cowboys loss to the New England Patriots today was the first loss for the Cowboys all season. The game was marred with penalties and the defense allowed too many third down conversions. The Patriots went to Texas Stadium and showed the Cowboys and their fans that they are still the gold standard as far as teams are concerned. That’s the bad news. Call me Mr Brightside though, because I also see a lot of good in this game as well.

The Good news is the Cowboys will not play another team this season with so many weapons on both offense and defense. They also were able to keep the game alive despite being down 14 points in the 1st Quarter ending the half being down by only 4 points with the score 17-21. To top that off they were able to score in the third quarter with a touch down pass to Patrick Crayton, to put the Cowboys up by three. Unfortunately the Cowboys wouldn’t be able to keep the scoring up and only scored three points for the rest of the game.

It may be a bit odd for someone to say this after losing by 20 points, but after watching this game I really believe the Cowboys are able to play with the elite teams. Defense was a problem in this game allowing too many third down conversions, but keep in mind the Cowboys were playing with out Anthony Henry and with a Terrance Newman who isn’t yet 100%. Knowing that Anthony Henry will soon be back with Terrance Newman playing the other side and Tank Johnson coming back after the bye week if not sooner is what gives me confidence in this team. If you can believe it, this is a team that should actually improve going into the second half of the season. A far cry from a team that has actually lost momentum the last two seasons after the bye week. More reason to be excited, when Terry Glenn is able to come back it will give us an extra weapon on offense and take the double coverage off of Terrell Owens.

I have been pleased overall with the Cowboys performance six games into the season. How they do next week will be the second part of the test. We have seen how the Cowboys can win against bad teams, seen how they can come back when being down, and now we’ll get to see how they respond after a loss. If the Cowboys can use this loss to improve some of their deficiencies than they could go a long way into becoming that elite team we all think them to be. This is a really good team, and they are only a few players away from being great. Let’s hope they are only three players away (Henry, Glenn, and Johnson) and will be able to improve to be even better in the second stretch of the season.