When not comparing his valiant tight end Jason Witten to "El Cid" or having his eye-glasses cleaned by his dutiful son-in-law, Jerry Jones is talking about Lombardi trophies.
Fortunately, Dallas Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett doesn’t want to touch that topic in the afterglow of his team’s 24-17 win over the New York Giants.
But don’t be blinded by Garrett’s bland oratory. He knows that Wednesday’s win could be a springboard to a successful season. And he also knows that, in some ways, it validated everything that he’s preached throughout the offseason and training camp. His philosophy of stacking “good days” together sounds trite, but it gained some credibility with what happened in the Meadowlands.
Despite a staggering amount of penalties on offense, the Cowboys dominated the defending Super Bowl champs in the second half. In my 10 years of covering this team on a semi-regular basis, I believed this was by far the most physical training camp. And that’s saying something when you consider the limitations placed in the new collective-bargaining agreement. You wonder if the physical practices will make a difference in the regular season, especially with all the injuries suffered by starters. Well, based on how gassed the Giants looked in the second half while the Cowboys surged, the early returns are pretty positive.
Garrett was wise not to abandon the running game after it sputtered in the first half Wednesday. NBC’s Cris Collinsworth had just finished saying the Cowboys were doing the right thing to solely focus on the passing game when Garrett started feeding the ball to DeMarco Murray. The second-year running back punished Giants defenders and eventually broke loose for one of the most remarkable runs we’ve seen since No. 22 was in the backfield. Actually, his 48-yard run on which he reversed ground and found the sideline might have been more reminiscent of Tony D., who tweeted during the game that he was bouncing back and forth between Cowboys-Giants and Bill Clinton’s speech at the Dems’ convention in Charlotte, N.C.
Murray appears to be one of those rare backs who can demoralize a defense with his punishing style. And Garrett admitted Thursday that some of this has caught coaches and perhaps even scouts by surprise.
“I don’t know if any of us really, really saw how physical he was at the end of plays,” Garrett said Thursday. “All the great runners that I’ve been around are guys that finish runs. You think it’s a 4-yard run; boy, he made 6. You think it’s an 8-yard run; aw, he made a first down. He has that ability.”
And Murray also validated Garrett’s near obsession with situational football when he ran for a first down on third-and-2 late in the game and immediately slid to the ground in bounds to keep the clock moving. The play was wiped out because of a Witten holding penalty, but it stood in stark contrast to what former Cowboys running back Marion Barber did in a similar situation for the Chicago Bears last season.
Young players such as Murray and linebacker Sean Lee have become such a vital part of this team that all this talk of windows closing this past offseason (from Jerry) seems pretty silly. In fact, it was Garrett himself who blew that theory out of the water by reminding everyone that he expects his players and coaches to always have a sense of urgency. He didn't think his team needed any added motivation to prepare for the season.
But although he’d never admit it, Garrett needed a signature win to remind folks why he was hired in the first place. He lost some credibility last season, in part because of how he handled the aftermath of a loss in Arizona in which he mismanaged the clock in the closing moments of regulation. Garrett would not publicly admit that he let down his team and that was certainly a mistake. But the Cowboys were still one win away from qualifying for the playoffs in place of the Giants last season.
Now, they’ve put themselves in position to have a fast start to the season. And that’s why you can’t blame Garrett for extending his 24-hour rule (moving on from a loss or win) a bit before beginning to focus on the Seattle Seahawks.
For one game, the Cowboys seemed to be more about substance than style. And Jerry didn't even need his glasses to see that.
