Monday Night Review: Disaster in Dallas

If you thought it couldn't get any worse for America's team, you thought wrong. The Cowboys fell to the Giants last night 41-35, but more importantly loss starting Qb Tony Romo for at least 8-10 weeks with a broken Collarbone. That is just a devastating blow to the popular preseason Super Bowl picks. Their season effectively ended with Romo's injury.



The play occurred in the beginning of the second quarter. Linebacker Michael Boley busted through the Cowboys line at full speed and just leveled Romo. As soon as I saw it, I knew it was bad. Romo lay on the ground motionless, grimacing in pain. Boley himself was quoted as saying he heard “Romo let out a little scream.” That scream was surely echoed by owner Jerry Jones, who was witnessing the end of his team’s season. All the Super Bowl talk and being the first team to host and play in the Super Bowl ended on that one vicious hit.



The game itself had such a promising start for Dallas. Eli Manning threw an interception to Terence Newman on the fourth play of the game and Newman returned it to the Giants five yard line. A Marion Barber rush for one yard and than a five yard pass from Romo to tight end Jason Witten would lead to a Dallas touchdown. On New York’s second drive, Manning would be picked off again by Gerald Sensabaugh, who returned it to the Giants 18. From there Romo completed a 13 yard pass to Martellus Bennett but the drive would stall and Dallas would settle for a field goal.



The Giants got back into the game with a good drive that ended with a Hakeem Nicks touchdown catch. On the next drive Romo led the Cowboys to a field goal and the Dallas defense forced New York to punt on their next drive. On the punt, Rookie Dez Bryant made a nice cut up field and was able to find a seam and was off to the races for a 93-yard return. That score made the game 20-7 and that would be as happy as the story gets for Dallas. From that point, New York would go on to five unanswered scores and put the game out of reach. Eli Manning caught fire in the middle of the second and would finish 25 of 35 for 306 yards 4 touchdowns but also 3 interceptions.

Dallas would later add two cosmetic touchdowns going to Dez Bryant but the game was never really in doubt after the Romo injury. The Cowboys now sit at 1-5 without their starting QB. Jon Kitna looked a mess running the offense and could never get it going until the game was out of reach. The season ended all on the Boley blitz in that instant. The question now becomes how far will Dallas fall this season? Will Coach Wade Phillips be able to survive the turmoil that will ensue now? One thing is for sure, for this season the Cowboys are down and out.