MTZehvor said:
Garrett just stated Wheeden was staying in, so seems like that won't be happening. Major props to Dallas for hanging in there with that...really not great offense. It's starting to look like the formula for beating New England is to have strong edge rushers. Thankfully most teams don't have Greg Hardy...for more reasons than one. |
True. This game is playing out pretty close to how I expected. Massively improved defense, pretty poor offense. After losing Romo and Dez, losing Dunbar was simply too much. He was the little guy that could get lost underneath and create speed matchup problems. With that gone, suddenly the opposing defense can key on your remaining weapons pretty closely. Notice Witten is MIA, that's no mistake. Belicheck knows he is important, and is blanketing him. And with Weeden, Garrett is (fairly) scared of having him throw into much coverage, so they are predictably running ino stacked boxes on 1st downs and many 2nd downs.
I'm excited about what I'm seeing overall. If Dallas can hang with the NFC East rivals until Romo and Dez are back, they will be a dangerous team. God knows their schedule is ludicrous though. It didn't help that NO played out of their minds last week, and this week played like trash against Philly. Sean Peyton and Rob Ryan both got let go by Dallas though, so they always bring it 110% against the Cowboys.
The Patriots are exceedingly good at utilizing whatever pieces in their machine. They are what Chip Kelly only dreams he could achieve with his mix and match 'system' football concepts.
Anyway, in this game I think if you took out the Patriots QB1 and WR1 starting this game, and had Romo and Dez in for Dallas, that the score would be basically flipped. So I think I'm okay with a competitive loss considering the ridiculous personnel shortage. Weeden is a capable relief pitcher. But a starter .. hahah. NO WAY.
