Tom Hicks' Legacy in Texas

On Saturday night, the news broke that Tom Hicks and the investment group led by Chuck Greenberg and Nolan Ryan had finally struck a deal to purchase the bulk of Hicks' remaining stake in the Rangers.

You needn't have looked any further than this thread over at Lone Star Ball to see just how badly Ranger fans were looking forward to this day. Myself, included, as I opined that one team was down, but there were two more to go.

Obviously, I realize Hicks is going to hold onto Liverpool FC until he can get a new stadium built for England's most storied football club of all time (sorry, Mancs). And the last time Hicks put the Stars up for sale, all he could fetch was a couple of chirps from his neighborhood crickets. So let's throw that pipe dream out the window.

As the days have passed, however, I am forced to admit to a certain degree that Hicks wasn't as bad an owner as some are making him out to be. Part of this partial turnabout is due to Jamey Newberg's latest article, where he points out...

Hicks gets far too much criticism from the mainstream media, who choose not to recognize the guts and foresight it took to make Jon Daniels, who at the time had less than five years in baseball, his general manager, and the patience and lack of ego it took to authorize the plan that Daniels presented to him in May 2007 to trade Mark Teixeira and shift focus and resources to scouting and player development and a wholesale effort to load up on young talent through the draft and international market and trades, a philosophy that’s a lot less flashy and far more gradual than many owners would have signed off on. 

[...]

The Herschel Walker trade wasn’t the Herschel Walker Trade until the Cowboys turned the Minnesota draft picks into Emmitt Smith and Darren Woodson and Russell Maryland and Kevin Smith and three Lombardi Trophies. The Teixeira trade is no Herschel Walker Trade – yet. But there’s no question that without it, this franchise wouldn’t be in nearly as good a position as everyone agrees that it is. Hicks should get some credit for believing in, and consenting to, the plan that Jon Daniels and his crew proposed and have now been executing for two very good years.

Don’t count on the general columnists recognizing Hicks’s role in that, however.

Or acknowledging in print the millions of Hicks dollars that may not have gone to player payroll (a favorite topic of the media, rarely mentioning Ben Sheets or Torii Hunter or Daisuke Matsuzaka or Barry Zito or Carlos Delgado as free agent acquisitions he has consistently greenlighted even though they’d have busted the budget) but did go to annual decisions to pay out of slot to pave the way for the drafting and signing of the right high school and college players (Teixeira, Derek Holland, Justin Smoak, Taylor Teagarden, Julio Borbon, Jake Brigham, Neil Ramirez, Marcus Lemon, Robbie Ross, Clark Murphy, Johnny Whittleman, Kyle Ocampo, Matt Thompson, and others), to outspend the competition in Latin America (examples: Martin Perez, Fabio Castillo, Cristian Santana, and Richard Alvarez, plus the aggregate of a Preller/Welke/Batista class like 2006’s Wilmer Font/Wilfredo Boscan/Kennil Gomez/Carlos Pimentel/Geuris Grullon/Macumba haul), to pay top dollar to make sure we had the hitting coach and pitching coach we’d zeroed in on, and to hire Nolan Ryan.

Hicks also authorized Jon Daniels, on many an occasion, to go above slot when it came to signing draft picks to help stock what Baseball America termed last year, the top farm system in the Majors. Not to mention, he actually stuck with a Daniels-approved plan instead of trying to emulate the flavor of the month, be it Florida, Tampa Bay, or the White Sox.

That all having been said, the club was about to hit a glass ceiling that I'm not sure they would have been able to break. And that's all due to Hicks' financial struggles.

That's not to say that Greenburg and Ryan should start trying to compete with the Yankees, Red Sox, or even the Anaheim Angels in terms of free agent spending. Afterall, I still hold true to the belief that the best way to build a winner is to fill holes first by looking from within your own farm system. Any holes that need to be filled after that, you fill through free agency.

And as Hicks found out in the 90's and early 00's, it's extremely difficult to financially compete with the Yankees. My other favorite team, the Red Sox, has a hard enough time, themselves, keeping up. And they've got a payroll approaching the $130 million.

Fortunately, the bar for Greenburg and Ryan won't be nearly that high. I'd settle for a payroll in the $80 million to $90 million range. And a commitment to a consistent approach.

Fortunately for Ranger fans, Hicks had the decency to at least hold up that end of the bargain. And the Rangers will be all the better for it in the long haul.

Vikings 34 - Cowboys 3

Troy Aikman said he thought the team that could best protect it's quarterback would be the team that would win the game. And after each team's first series, both defensive lines had an impact on 3rd down when Ray Edwards stripped Tony Romo and the Kevin Williams recovered the ball on their own 35 yard line.

Minnesota's offense took over and went three and out after Demarcus Ware sacked Brett Favre on third down. The next time the Dallas defense sacked Favre, it was already 17-3 and the Vikings defense had asserted their will on the Cowboys' offensive line.

Dallas' best chance to win this game was gone after the first three drives produced a grand total of three points. I don't think the Romo fumble on the first drive hurt because Dallas' defense was able to get the Vikes to go three and out. But to not get anything out of the second drive (and not go for it on 4th down when the run game was gashing the Vikings' defense) and to not be able to punch the ball in on the third drive when they had to settle for their only points of the game?

That was a killer.

A month ago, Dallas took the crowd out of the game in New Orleans by scoring on their first two drives of the game. I think that allowed them to win that night.

Not being able to jump out to a quick start today killed any chance they had of winning the game.

Now I suppose you could look at the lopsided score and suggest this was as bad as the 44-6 debacle in Philly that ended the year for the Cowboys last year.

In some ways it was. I'm still dumbfounded at how bad the offensive line played and how Gerald Sensabaugh probably still doesn't know Sidney Rice caught that TD pass in the first period. He gets his head around, and he might even have a chance to intercept it.

But unlike against Philly, I still think Dallas had a fighter's chance to get back in this game. Aside from the Favre to Rice TD, the defense played rather well. through three quarters and finally gave in in the fourth. Against Philly, they were out of it almost from the word go, and then it snowballed downhill from there.

Now Jason Garrett is going to get some blame. And he probably deserves some, like on the pitch out to Marion Barber. What that play was supposed to accomplish, I'm not entirely sure.

But when your offensive line is getting used and abused by what's probably the best defensive line in football, there's not a lot you can do, playcalling wise, to counter that.

And as we look to the future, I'm not sure what the Cowboys will be able to do to upgrade their offensive line. Because they made the final 8, they're subject to the stupid free agent rule that prevents them from signing any free agents unless the lose one first. Thanks Roger. Ass.

And because some moron owner decided to trade away a third round, sixth round, and seventh round pick this season for a spare wide receiver, the Cowboys are a little limited in the draft in April.

So I'm just going to make the following prediction:

This team will miss the playoffs next season and Wade will get fired.

Cowboys-Vikings Preview

Mike Fisher notes that he successfully convinced a newspaper he worked with years ago (the Startlegrame, presumably?) to do away with the stupid matchup chart.

You know, which team had the edge at the QB, RB, WR, etc. positions?

His reasoning was simple. Tony Romo isn't going up against Brett Favre, head to head. He's going up against the Vikings pass defense just as Favre is going head to head against the Cowboys defense.

Now, if you want to make a position by position comparison and used it to determine which team has the more prolific weapons at their disposable, I suppose you could that.

To me, though, this game may come down to which team can protect it's QB better. I say that because I think Dallas could do a slightly worse job protecting Romo, but still come away with the win, if only because Minnesota's pass defense was shredded in December by the likes of Kurt Warner, Matt Moore, and Jay Cutler.

And no, I don't buy the 'they didn't have anything to play for' excuse, just as I wasn't buying it from the Cowboys two years ago after the Giants dispatched the Cowboys at Texas Stadium in this same playoff round.

Against Favre, I'd still give the Cowboys improving secondary a chance against Percy Harvin, Sidney Rice, and Bernard Berrian. Though that glaring mismatch between Visanthe Shiancoe and the Cowboys' linebackers could prove to be problematic as the game wears on tomorrow.

The only reason I'd give the Vikes a chance in this one is simply because they're playing at home where they're 8-0. Albeit, partially because of a perfect mark saving catch by Greg Lewis in the back of the end zone against San Francisco.

But it's clear that Minnesota is much different team at home than they've been on the road, where they lost their last three road games and finished with a 4-4 mark. It's also clear that the noise the Cowboys will face tomorrow will probably be the most deafening crowd noise they've faced all year.

Will you be able to handle it, Flozell and Jason? Because this game may come down to their ability to handle the crowd noise and, specifically, for Flozell to be able to contain Jared Allen. If he can't, both Allen and Kevin Williams may have a field day in harrassing Romo.

And the Cowboys will be going home.

I try not to blog too much on politics on a sports blog

For one, politics are extremely divisive these days.

That said, I think we can all agree that the following pols/political commentators said some really stupid things this week:

Pat Robertson, Rush Limbaugh, and Danny Glover.

But the dumbest comment of the weak? That belongs to Martha Coakley, a Democrat who is running in the special senatorial election in Masschusetts against Republican Scott Brown. The winner will finish out the term of the late Ted Kennedy.



That's right, she accused Curt Schilling, noted Red Sock great but also political fly in the ointment conservative (especially since he lives in the uber-liberal land known as Boston), a Yankees fan.

That's not her most egregious error, however.

Boston, MA - Thomas "Hockey Dad" Junta was sentenced today to 6 to 10 years in prison for killing Michael Costin during the course of a fight at a hockey rink. Another senseless death may have resulted from the manslaughter case, say some doctors, because the district attorney overruled a request from Costin's family to donate his heart in a transplant to save another person's life, according to an article in the January 25, 2002 issue of the Boston Globe.

"Middlesex District Attorney Martha Coakley blocked the donation of Costin's heart after he was diagnosed clinically brain-dead," writes Sean P Murphy of the Globe, "to preclude any possibility that his assailant's lawyer might contend at the trial that Costin died of a pre-existing heart condition rather than the beating."

Although the move may have made sense as a matter of legal strategy, Murphy notes, some doctors say that a patient was probably denied a heart transplant because of it, and that preserving the heart would not have strengthened the prosecution's case any further "because it was demonstrably healthy, and transplant surgeons would have rejected it if any defects were discovered." The medical evidence, they argue, showed overwhelmingly that Costin died from head trauma and that his heart was fine, and that would have been enough to counter any doubts raised by the defense by questioning the cause of death.

If this woman somehow wins this election, it'll be due to the fact Massachusetts is one of the bluest states in the land. Because, honestly, this is one of the worst political campaigns I think I've ever seen.

Congratulations to Dirk Nowitzki

Member of the NBA's 20,000 point club as of about 45 minutes ago. He was the 19th quickest in NBA history to reach that sacred plateau.

But I'm sure he'd probably give back those points if it meant a win tonight. Instead, the Mavs fell 100-95 to the Lake Show in front of a packed house at the AAC. Most of whom rooted for the Mavs, a few of whom were honest to goodness lifetime Laker fans...and then have asshats like this guy.

Hat tip to Bob Sturm for the upload. In case you can't tell, this jackass is wearing a Bulls hat backwards and a Lakers sweatshirt. Like Mike Fisher said, he probably had on a Patriots and Cowboys sock, Yankees wristband, and...OK, Mike, the Habs don't have that much of a bandwagon fanbase here in Dallas. Probably was wearing Red Wings panties.

Anyway, this may or may not have been his method of transportation to tonight's game.

It reminds me of somebody I used to know who rooted for the Yankees, Red Wings, Lakers, and Packers.

Seriously.

And no, I don't consider myself a bandwagon fan. My fandom of the Red Sox goes back to 1986, bitches.

Back on track, I knew this game was lost when Erick Dampier found himself all alone under the bucket and couldn't convert on what should have been an 'and one' with about 21 seconds to go. Damp's a 58% free throw shooter. That fact alone boggles my mind.

Seriously, this is the NBA. How is it that you can only hit 58% of your free throws?

On this particular trip, Damp couldn't even hit one free throw and the Mavs still trailed by 2. Andrew Bynum left the door open by only hitting 1 of 2, but Josh Howard couldn't take advantage of some nice ball rotation that left him wide open for a potential game tying three. J-Ho clanked it off the front end of the rim, the Lakers rebounded, and Jordan Farmar salted the game away.

Don't look now, but the Mavs and Spurs are even in the loss column. San Antonio, as they are always wont to do, started slow but have slowly gathered some chemistry and steam. They don't show any signs of going away in the second half of the season.

And if the Mavs don't take care of business on Friday against the Thunder, they'll finish up this homestand with an ugly 0-3 mark.

[Update] And if they do lose on Friday to OKC, they'll be a very average 12-8 at home. Championship teams don't go 12-8 at home. They don't even go 12-7, either.

I didn't even realize the Mavs were so poor at home until Mike Fisher pointed it out over at DB.com.

Riding the Fence With the Mavs

As it stands here on January 12th (or the 13th, depending on when you read this post), your Dallas Mavericks stand as the 2nd seed in the West and division leaders in the Southwest with a 25-12 mark and just 3.5 games behind the defending NBA Champion, Los Angeles Lakers.

BTW, the Lake Show will be rolling into town tonight either with or without Kobe.

By all accounts, it's been a fairly successful campaign to this point. But I can't help but feel is also been a little unsatisfying at times.

Case in point, Dallas rallies from down 13 in the 3rd period Friday night to beat the Spurs down San Antonio way. They follow that effort up with a 111-93 loss to the Utah Jazz. And that's after the Lakers took them behind the ol' woodshed and kicked their asses to the tune of 131-96 back on January 3rd at the Staples Center.

Now granted, I'll gladly take this season over the start of last season where the Mavs stumbled out of the gate at 2-7, then recovered nicely to make the playoffs as the 6th seed, where they dispatched of the shorthanded Spurs in 5 games. And Dallas has gotten some surprise contributions from Drew Gooden and J.J. Barea this season. And they've beaten the Lakers and Spurs on the road this year

And, oh yeah, they have gotten something out of Shawn Marion that they haven't gotten...well...ever in the Mark Cuban ownership era.

An athletic big who can defend.

He can also score a little, though his PPG is down to around the 11 point mark.

Still, they've had some less than impressive close wins against some of the dregs of the NBA and had a season opening loss to Washington. Certainly enough to cast a shadow over the big wins against the Lakers and Spurs.

And there's still that whole thing in 2006 and 2007 that we never speak of around here.

And I think until the Mavericks can vanquish those ghosts much like the Cowboys vanquished the "Can't win in December and in the playoffs" ghost, that's just how it's going to be around here.

Daisuke's our Japanese Punching Bag

And for good reason, according to this Peter Abraham story in which Matsuzaka told a Japanese magazine, Friday, that he hurt his leg before the World Baseball Classic but hid the injury.

(h/t to Joy of Sox)

Some excerpts from the story, as translated by friend of the blog Daigo Fujiwara, a Globe staff graphic designer.

"Early on in January 2009, I hurt my right inner thigh. I consider movement around my hip joint a crucial part of my pitching motion. It happened during my exercise to strengthen my hip joint that I incorporated into training since 2008. I may have pushed myself just a little too hard. It wasn't the pain that killed me, but it was the regrets and guilt that filled my mind. It was the time to start building up for the season, but I hurt myself because of my own doing.

"I had to make a decision whether this injury was serious enough to withdraw from the World Baseball Classic. But my body was functioning well, and by taking anti-inflammatory medicine I can tolerate the pain. So I continued training, but actually it was even hard just to jog. .

Matsuzaka mentions later that Red Sox trainers didn't know he was injured because he has his own training regimen. The fallout from all this, as all Sox fans know, is he had a subpar season due to the adjustment in his mechanics. An adjustment that also led to his shoulder injury in May.

Well, that's just fan-fucking-tastic, Dice.

As redsock from Joy of Sox points out, Theo Epstein spoke with Tony Massorati

One of the things we actually tell our players in the minor leagues is you need to be more honest with us about when you're hurting ... With the way we built this team, I would rather have a right fielder who plays at a very high level who plays in 130 games rather than someone who plays hurt, plays at a lesser level, and ends up playing 155...Now I have respect for the guy who guts it out all the time, but sometimes they can cross the line and be fool-hardy.

Not hard to figure out whether Dice crossed the line or not.

Cowboys Finally End Playoff Win Drought

And to give you an idea on how long this drought was, I was working at a deli at Tom Thumb the last time the Cowboys won a playoff game.

I remember because I was listening to the entire game. So it's actually been about 15 years since I've actually watched the Cowboys win a playoff game. Which in my case, it was Super Bowl XXX.

Getting back to the here and now, I wasn't really surprised in the least by the result. OK, a little bit, since I called it 24-10 in favor of the Cowboys. They had 27 by halftime and that was largely due to the Eagles self destructing with critical turnovers at the end of the first half.

But the domination? Nope. Not in the least.

The 7-0 record that the Eagles had brought into Cowboys Stadium tonight in opening playoff games in the Andy Reid era meant absolutely nothing. That record was built largely through a unit that was truly feared and a mastermind of a defensive coordinator.

The last two weekends, the Cowboys showed no fear of this unit while their own defensive unit is going to give Mr. Noodle and Brett Favvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvre many things to worry about next weekend.

But that IS for next weekend.

Tonight, the Dallas Cowboys organization and it's fans get to enjoy the fruits of their labor. And 44-6 truly has been erased from the consciousness of this team. I can't tell you how big of a mental hurdle this was and important it was to clear it.

A few other thoughts:

* I hate to start off with officiating, but the Eagles and Cowboys set an NFL record for combined penalties with over 240 yards. And I'm convinced that Ed Hochuli's crew actually set out to set the record by calling every chintzy penalty that they could, starting with that joke of an offensive pass interference penalty against Jason Witten. It reminded me of the ridiculous PI call on Witten in the first meeting against the Eagles.

And they capped off a dreadful performance in the first half by waiting a good 3 to 4 seconds after the play clock had expired. Had the Eagles' defense not pointed this out, I'm convinced they would have missed the call completely!

* I suppose you could call this a turning point if only from the standpoint that it marked the point in the game where things started to roll downhill for the Eagles. Even if they get this call, I'm still convinced Dallas comes back and wins rather handily.

But Philly had just tied the game on a catch and run by Jeremy Maclin (on a play where he pushed off to gain separation on Mike Jenkins). After the ensuing kickoff, Tony Romo's throw to Miles Austin sails high and the pass appears to have been picked off by Sean Jones at the Dallas 34. He gets up and runs another 20 yards before getting pushed out of bounds.

Wade Phillips pulls out the red flag, waits a few moments to let his coaches upstairs look at the play, and he decides to challenge it. Ed Hochuli looks at the replay, determines the ball hit the ground AND that Jones used the ground to gain control of the ball.

With a second life, Romo leads the Cowboys 85 yards in 10 plays culminating with a Tashard Choice TD to retake the lead. Dallas tacks on 13 more points unanswered in the second half and puts it in cruise control from there.

Again, I still think Dallas would have won the game. But I'd be lying if I told you I wanted to test that theory.

* Make that 13 times out of 20 that one team's been able to sweep a divisional rival twice in the regular season and then been able to cap it off with a third win in the playoffs. Sooner or later, people will realize it's not that hard to beat a team three times in one season.

* I still think Chris Collinsworth is a moron. But he's 100 times better than Joe Thiesmann, who NFL fans had to suffer through during NBC's early game today. Not to mention, Tom Hammond makes me want to gargle lighter fluid every time I hear him

Anybody got a match?

* I'll give Mike Jenkins a pass for fumbling after he picked off McNabb in the third quarter. But I won't be so forgiving for Ken Hamlin.

Seriously, what the f**k was he thinking tonight? First, he nailed a defenseless Brent Celek on a completely unnecessary hit. Then he got into it with Jeremy Maclin, picking up 30 yards in penalties all because of his stupidity, on the lone Eagles' TD drive of the second half.

I expect Roger Goodell to dock him at least $7,500 for his hit on Celek in the first. If not more.

* Dallas Mavericks' owner Mark Cuban grabbed some headlines earlier this week when he blasted the NFL's decision to schedule tonight's Eagles-Cowboys game opposite the Jazz-Mavericks game. Yes, he's right that the NFL doesn't give a whit about the little Mavericks.

But so what? The NFL's job is to find the most appealing matchups of the first two weekends of the playoffs for it's broadcast partners and schedule them accordingly.

Which along those lines, there's rumblings that the Cowboys-Vikings game could be scheduled in the early game timeslot next Sunday.

The Mavs are also playing on Sunday as well at Toronto. Guess what time the game tips off? Oh, at about the same time the Cowboys and Vikings could be playing each other.

BCS Title Game Thoughts

Despite the fact I'm a Sooner, I do make an honest attempt to root for all Big 12 schools come bowl season. And I generally have little to no problem with this.

Except when it comes to the Longhorns.

Part of that is because of the rivalry between Texas and OU. But a lot of it has to do with Mack Brown and Texas fan. Both of him are joined at the hip when it comes to whining.

I don't need to rehash last season when Brown went on just about every media outlet there is to go on and whined about the three way tiebreaker that the Big 12 uses. I get that as Texas coach, he has to lobby for his team. But everywhere I turned, it was 45-35. 43-35 this and 45-35 that.

But never a 39-33. Or a 63-21 for that matter. No, that game didn't count in the minds of Brown and other Texas fans because it was played in Lubbock. That win over OU was at a neutral site (but still in the state of Texas) and it counted more.

For the record, I think college football needs a playoff. Had one been in place, it would have either mitigated or eliminated the controversy from last year.

But they don't. And I don't know that they ever will.

Anyway, you may also know that Colt McCoy lasted all of 5 snaps in the BCS Title Game before he took a hit to his throwing arm that knocked him out for the remainder of the contest.

We found out yesterday that he suffered a pinched nerve that caused his arm to basically go dead. I hated it when it happened mostly because Colt seems like a good kid. If he's good enough to be one of Sam Bradford's best buddies off the field, that's good enough for me.

And he's also been damn good in his four years at Texas. Thursday night was his night and it was cut short. It sucked.

But the other reason I hated it?

I'm still disappointed because McCoy was disappointed. He stood in front of his locker and said on at least three different occasions that, yes, he would have made a difference.

"I'd have given anything to have been out there because I know it would have been different," McCoy said.

Texas coach Mack Brown defined how different.

"It wouldn't even have been close," he said in an unguarded moment outside the locker room.

Well, if Mack can play the 'What If' game, then so can I.

OU lost to Texas in October, 16-13. Sam Bradford was knocked out in the second series of the game after he came back a week earlier and led the OU offense to 389 yards passing and a TD pass against Baylor. On the first series, he helped OU drive 77 yards before settling for a FG on the opening drive of the game.

If he had not have been knocked out against Texas, OU would have won the game. And let's not forget about Jermaine Gresham being out for the entire year. Throw him into the mix and it would have been 63-14 all over, again.

Nevermind that I have no idea how they would have won, what Texas would have done differently, etc.

And let's also take into account that Greg McElroy only threw 11 passes Thursday night in part because he suffered two broken ribs in the SEC Title Game against Florida that have not yet healed.

So if he was healthy, he might have offset whatever a healthy Colt McCoy could have accomplished.

And we'll never know that, will we? Because the only thing we can say with any certainty when a big name play suffers an injury that early in the game is that it changes the complexion of the entire game.

We do know it took Garrett Gilbert time to get his legs under him before he led the Horns on a furious second half rally to cut an 18 point deficit down to three.

But we have no way to know if Colt McCoy would have been able to duplicate the same success against an Alabama defense that almost assuredly would have defended the Texas pass game closer with him in there.

But undercutting other teams to win points in the public arena is what Mack does best. It's what he did last year after the possibility that the three way tiebreaker would have to be used to decide who won the South became a very REAL possibility.

And what's he did Thursday night when he let his guard down and showed his true colors.

I Don't Get All the Love for Eagles

One of my favorite daily blog reads is Uwe Blog. It's cleverly named and very well written with thoughtful analysis on everything going on in the DFW sports scene.

I highly recommend you add them to the list of blogs you peruse on a daily basis.

That having been said, I read Chip's analysis of tonight's Cowboys-Eagles preview and I can only assume he thinks Brian Dawkins and Lito Shepherd still patrol the back end of Philly's defense.

Yes, I know the failures of this team when the pressures been on have been well chronicled. I know parallels have been drawn all week between the failure in 2007 and this matchup with the Eagles, knowing that Andy Reid is 7-0 in first round games.

But I have to take umbrage with the statement below, and not just because he predicts a Philly win:

Prediction
Eagles 27, Cowboys 23
All I can say to Romo, Phillips, Jones and Co. is "prove it!" The Eagles have over the last decade. Forget what's happened the last four weeks and consider the last 10 years. Or what happens tomorrow night. If a 13-3 Cowboys team can lose to the underdog Giants, an evenly-matched Cowboys team can lose to the Eagles.

They're not. Especially on the defensive side of the ball for Philly.

Like I said at the beginning, Lito Shepherd and Brian Dawkins are no longer providing that shut down defense on the back end of the field. And to take it a step further, Jim Johnson, God rest his soul, is no longer putting together the blitz packages that made this unit one of the most feared defensive units over the last decade.

As they've proven in the first two games, the Cowboys can generate big plays on this defense when they need to.

In the first matchup, they stemmed the tide twice with long throws to Patrick Crayton on their final drive of the first half and a 3rd and 14 conversion to Miles Austin for a 49 yard TD in the fourth quarter that broke a 13-13 deadlock.

Then last week, they proved they can methodically drive down the field on the Eagles en route to a 24-0 win that, in spite of what some mediots might suggest, was not a case where Sean McDermott intentionally pulled back on his blitz packages because of the rematch this week.

Philly had a first round bye and home field in the second round on the line so you can kiss that theory good bye. Rather, they played back because Dallas burned them in the first meeting.

On the other side of the ball, I will concede that Philly's wideouts and Donovan McNabb have had chances to make big plays.

In the first meeting, Jeremy Maclin had a chance to extend a drive on third down but let a ball slip right through his fingers. Last week, Desean Jackson got behind Terence Newman but McNabb over through him for what surely would have been a game tying TD...in the first half.

But what else ya got?

Because to hear some mediots tell it, the Eagles offense was dominating the Dallas defense in the first two meetings. They just weren't putting up the points to show for it.

If only DeSean had hauled in that catch and taken it all the way or Donovan hadn't have bungled that snap at the Dallas 20 in the first half, the Eagles would have surely won.

That's assuming the Eagles defense would have instantly found a solution to slowing down the Cowboys' offense.

Now about those parallels to 2007, I'd submit to you that the Cowboys team that is entering these playoffs is vastly different from the one that limped in two years ago.

Against the Giants, we were hoping to see the Cowboys flip the switch on offense and it never happened.

This time around, the Cowboys offense which struggled for much of the year has scored a touchdown on it's opening drive of the game in three straight games. The switch is definitely on.

And it's definitely on on the defensive side of the ball where the Cowboys, for the first time in franchise history, posted back to back shutouts against the Redskins and Eagles. No small feat to be sure.

They also don't have Jacques Reeves playing opposite Terence Newman. And they certainly don't have Roy Williams sucking the life out of the defense at strong safety.

What they do have is a nice replacement in Gerald Sensabaugh and Mike Jenkins, whose gone from being the guy who won't try to lay a finger on Brandon Jacobs as he strolled into the end zone at the Meadowlands last year to being a ball hawking, play making corner, as evidenced by his momentum stopping pick against the Eagles back in Week 9 with Philly leading 13-10 late in the third quarter.

What this game boils down to is two offenses.

One that's really hitting it's stride and shown in the past two games that when a play needs to be made, it can make that play versus another offense that's banking on it's ability to break out. Because, you know, that's what they did against the lesser lights of the NFL.

I'm obviously taking Dallas tonight and I don't really think it'll be all that close.

Cowboys 24, Eagles 10

The Semi-Return of Knee Jerk City

If you were a long time reader of my old KJC blog, you may no doubt know that I decided to cut the cord about 11 months ago when I joined Brandon Worley at the upstart Defending Big D. It was an opportunity I couldn't pass up as a hockey blogger.

At the time, I had turned KJC into primarily a Dallas Stars blog. So when I joined Brandon, it didn't make sense at the time to share my Dallas Stars thoughts on two separate blogs. Part of the deal was that I couldn't cross post something I had written at DBD over to any other blog.

So why the return?

Well, I've got a number of thoughts about my other favorite teams that won't fit within the confines of Twitter's 140 character limit. I'm from Dallas, have followed Dallas sports teams all my life, and I'm also a huge Oklahoma Sooner fan. In addition, I also follow the Boston Red Sox and Liverpool FC.

In other words, I'm following the template of my good friend, Art Middleton, who ran a Stars site for so long, then joined me alongside Brandon Worley and Brad G over at DBD. If he has a Stars thought to pontificate on, he does it over at DBD.

Anything else in the sports world gets blogged about on his own blog.

And that's how I'm going to run this latest incarnation of Knee Jerk City.