Big Dud in Big D

(AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)

Bill Simmons wrote a piece last fall about the Boston Red Sox that included a conversation with his father about knowing the Sox's flaws and finally seeing them exposed. For obvious reasons, that paragraph stuck in my head as I watched the Dallas Cowboys falter at home yesterday against the New York Giants. The Pokes were a flawed 13-3 team with some squeaked-out wins and pathetic losses.

The Giants exposed them yesterday.

What were the fatal flaws the doomed Dallas yesterday? They had nothing to do with trips to Mexico or bags of popcorn, but simple football flaws that were not overcome when the game mattered the most.

1) Penalties - the Cowboys committed stupid penalties frequently yesterday. Throughout the year, the Cowboys have been able to overcome false starts and defensive off-sides by making big plays afterwards. Not against the Giants. New York's first touchdown drive was aided by a questionable off-sides call on DeMarcus Ware on 3rd down. The crucial touchdown drive before the half was aided by a 15-yard face mask call. These are the same silly mistakes the Cowboys have made all year long.

Offensively, it was the same story. The offensive line looked out of sync all game long, undoubtedly affected by the Giants' pass rush. For whatever reason, there were problems with the snap, problems with the snap count and problems staying set. Tony Romo also made a horrible decision during a 4th quarter drive while sitting in the pocket with little pass rush to fire a pass to nobody and earn an intentional grounding call.

Overall, the Cowboys committed 11 penalties for 84 yards.

2) Running Game - Once again, the Cowboys became completely one-dimensional in the 2nd half and forgot all about running the football. Marion Barber III looked fantastic as a starter and really hurt the Giants in the first half. The second half? He was barely used as Tony Romo threw the ball again and again. Even trailing 21-17, there was plenty of time to run the football. Instead, Romo dropped back again and again, getting hit again and again. Jason Garrett might be the hot young assistant in the game right now, but he has a tendency to forget about the running game as soon as his offense falls behind (remember the Philadelphia game?).

3) Defense - the numbers do not back it up, but my eyes tell me that the Dallas defense is not as good as advertised. The 3-4 continues to fail, outside of DeMarcus War, in regards to pressuring the quarterback. It continues to fail to stuff the run. Roy Williams and Jacques Reeves cannot cover anyone. Though the Cowboys got a couple of big stops in the 4th quarter, the Giants were able to move the ball with ease throughout much of the game. The statistics do not back this up, but that is mostly due to the Cowboys 10-minute drive in the 2nd quarter. Anyone who watched the game knows that the Giants picked up chunks at a time on the ground and had people open all the time on pass plays.

These problems have been present all season long, but overcome with superlative quarterback play, big catches and runs by receivers and bend-don't-break defense. For these reasons, the Cowboys 13-3 record felt like it was built with sand. The Giants washed away the sand yesterday along with Dallas' Super Bowl hopes.

Tony Romo did not play poorly, but he did not play well either. He missed a touchdown opportunity to Terrell Owens when the ball seemed to slip out of his hand as he moved up in the pocket. He also took a couple of sacks when he could have thrown the ball out of bounds and then committed a terrible grounding penalty for no real reason. Romo has been fantastic in the two-minute drill all season, but twice failed to get the Cowboys into the endzone late in the game.

The Cowboys missed a couple of chances to make big plays as well. Specifically, Patrick Crayton missed chances to make big plays. His drop of a perfect Romo pass was one of the biggest blunders of the ballgame. With the entire field in front of him, Crayton had a first down and possibly a touchdown if he simply caught the ball, but it deflected off his hands and harmlessly hit the Texas Stadium turf. On the final drive of the game, Crayton seemed to slow his route and was subsequently overthrown by Romo in the endzone on a critical third down. For a player who started running his mouth this season, he failed to live up to his self-created hype with a pair of pathetic plays.

Finally, the Cowboys defense bent and broke at critical times. New York took its opening drive down the field for a touchdown. It ran its two-minute drill perfectly before the half, aided by a stupid Dallas penalty. After giving up field position with poor punt coverage, the defense could not keep New York out of the endzone and gave up the lead. Poor tackling, poor coverage and no forced turnovers allowed the Giants to reach the endzone three times yesterday. The defense showed up late, but not consistently throughout the game.

After the Romo botched hold in Seattle last year, it was hard to imagine a loss hurting more. This one did. The Cowboys looked poised to challenge the Patriots in a marquee Super Bowl match-up, but instead were sent home by Eli Manning and the G-Men. When Brandon Jacobs fired the football into the play clock to celebrate his 4th quarter touchdown, he might as well have been firing it into the collective gut of Cowboys fans across the country. Yesterday was certainly a punch in the stomach for Big D.