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NFL Dallas Cowboys

Dallas Cowboys of 2014 Turning Skeptics Into Believers

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Jason Garrett Dallas Cowboys

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Admit it, when Eli Manning drove the length of the field to put the New York Giants ahead by four points with three minutes left to go, you said to yourself “Here we go again; same old Dallas Cowboys!” You were just waiting for Tony Romo to fumble or throw a game-ending and soul-crushing pick, weren’t you? It’s okay; I’ve been watching the same Cowboys team that you have been watching for the past 15 years, and a small part of me was saying the same thing.

Fans have had their perception of this team — and especially Romo  — constructedby the media. For years media outlets like ESPN or the NFL Network have done nothing but harp on the fact that Romo is at fault when it comes to the Cowboys losing games at the end with their mistakes, while at the same time completely ignoring the fact that without him the team would have never been in a position to win in the first place. More importantly, they seem to forget that since 2006 he’s leads all quarterbacks in fourth-quarter game-winning drives with 27. Yes, that’s more than golden boy Peyton Manning or Tom Brady have had.

Now you could make the argument that both Manning and Brady rarely find themselves trailing in the fourth quarter and that would be a fair argument, but this is the point I am trying to make. For almost two decades now, Jerry Jones has put a mediocre football team on the field that would always need some sort of miraculous play or drive at the end of a game to win it, but they would only come through in about half of these games, which of course leads to three straight 8-8 seasons. Well it looks like the 2014 Cowboys are no longer making the brutal mistakes that they have become known for.

In a year in the NFL where teams have a combined losing record after the bye week, the Cowboys were initially following suit by coming out with sluggish and sloppy play in the first half against the Giants. The defense almost allowed Manning to have a 100 percent completion rate in the first half against them, as he led his team to three straight touchdowns drives, one of which included a miraculous catch by Odell Beckham Jr. which will go down as one of the greatest of all time.

And then there was the offense which for a half had temporary amnesia and forgot who they were; they resorted to the pass-happy offense of year’s past and as a result couldn’t sustain drives or even protect Romo. But instead of folding like a tent as Cowboys fans have become accustomed to, the defense actually stepped up with a big red zone interception off of Manning which helped turn the game around. From that point on, the offense eventually woke up and started running the ball with consistency. This led to Romo being able to use the play-action pass so that he could look downfield for big plays to Cole Beasley and Dez Bryant.

But as I mentioned before, Manning struck back by leading the Giants down the field to give them a four-point lead late in the game. However, knowing that they needed to prove to not to the only the fans but to themselves that this team is different, the offensive line of Dallas actually stepped up and gave Romo a ton of time in the pocket to lead his team down the field for a game-winning drive just like he has done so many times before in his career. The difference is, this year they are doing so more than half of the time, and this is what will eventually carry them into to the playoffs.

Kelly Anderson is a blogger for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @bgipp01 or add him to your network on Google.

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