Sports Saturday Thread #2 For 1/9/10: So What Were You Saying About Us?

Photo from US Presswire

Finally, most of sports America can stop obsessing over anything negative about Tony Romo, Wade Phillips, and the rest of the Cowboys.

Unless you are an Eagles fan.

It was a totally dominating night on both sides of the ball from the Cowboys, though this salient fact needs to be mentioned: The Philadelphia Eagles didn't know that they are actually allowed to run the football.

Always a pass first outfit, Andy Reid didn't even bother to think about establishing any sort of ground game tonight. A shocking total of 13 rushes from the Eagles, with both Leonard Weaver and LeSean McCoy only getting 5 carries in between. And there wasn't a single one for the hobbled Brian Westbrook tonight.

In comparison, it was a complete balance attack for Romo and company tonight. Felix Jones's explosive burst tonight is a reason why they missed him last year when he went, and Roy Williams arrived to the party that Miles Austin has hosted all year long. It was all engineered through by a quarterback determined to continue shutting up the critics.

Even with the Eagles bringing the blitz constantly unlike last week's peculiar passiveness, it was all for nothing. The Cowboys for a third time this season proved that they are simply a better team the Eagles this year in every faucet.

That includes Romo being better than McNabb, who is already receiving a lot of criticism for his forgettable night. But what could we have expected from the ex-Syracuse standout if Reid and offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg placed him really in a position to fail?

Cowboys' safeties Gerald Sensabaugh and Ken Hamlin didn't even have to concern themselves with creeping up at all. And why did they have to? If a team is going to have a game plan dedicated to the pass like that, the safeties don't have to even worry about coming up. And the one moment they did come up, look what happened? Mike Vick to Jeremy Maclin for 76 yards to tie the game.

That should have been a sign to the Philly sideline to think about designing some run plays at least. Instead, it was more pass after pass after pass from McNabb, signifying that Phillips could bring the pressure with DeMarcus Ware and Anthony Spencer every single time.

Hopefully Eagles fans will clearly see that as the reason DeSean Jackson or Brent Celak couldn't do much of anything out there. Because when you're as predictable as the Eagles were tonight, especially against a team that is clearly familiar with your tendencies, it's pretty darn easy to get shut down the way the Eagles did.

Or with how the Eagles' strategizing was an epic failure tonight, maybe Andy Reid himself was tired of hearing all the monkeys on the Cowboys' back coming into the game. Because with how they game planed, it sure felt that way.