That was Just Great

Some had estimated there would be around 15,000 Dallas Cowboy fans at the game this past Sunday. I would venture to say there were probably a lot more on hand as Dallas gave Houston a sound beating at Reliant Stadium in Week 3.

Whatever problems existed in Week 3 of the preseason for Dallas seemed to have fallen by the wayside in Week 3 of the regular season. As I said in Week 2, Dallas seemed to be pulling things together after a subpar preseason and an embarrassing Week 1. And come together they did in Week 3.

The story for Houston again was the weak secondary. Dallas took advantage of the inexperience, with Tony Romo going 23 of 30 for 284 yards and 2 TD's. It didn't help that Houston didn't blitz at all, which translated into little pressure on Romo. The Dallas offensive line kept Houston at bay for much of the game, with only 2 times where pressure was really applied to the quarterback (1 resulted in an Intentional Grounding call and the other resulted in a dropped interception by Bryce McCain). A lot of balls were also thrown in Kareem Jackson's direction, leading many to believe that our #1 draft pick this season may be a bust.

The Dallas running game also picked up steam. Marion Barber scored Dallas's first rushing touchdown in the 2nd quarter. For some reason the Houston defensive line was not picking up the draw play very well at all, another weakness which Dallas exploited. At the end of the day, Dallas racked up 101 yards on the ground (Barber and Felix Jones making the bulk of the ground game), with a lot of these coming from draw plays. One thing I did notice on the draw plays was that the offensive line did an incredible job of cutting off the line of sight for the Houston linebackers, which helped them move the ball very efficiently.

That said, there were few bright spots for the Houston offense in this game. The protection problems from Week 2 were apparent again as Schaub was sacked 4 times (3 of those coming from DeMarcus Ware). The Dallas defense was able to disrupt the offense resulting in a lot of holding calls and false start penalties. Houston just couldn't seem to get the air attack going. Arian Foster did have a decent day running the ball going 17 carries for 106 yards. Foster ran the ball effectively, which makes me wonder why he only got it 17 times in this game. Here I would question the gameplan. Would it have been possible to mount a comeback through more running of the football? It seems that if Foster had gotten more carries, the passing attack would have benefitted as Dallas would have concentrated more on the run.

In conclusion, Dallas played to their potential and Houston just looked lost in their own stadium. The next game for Houston is in Oakland against a Raiders team that seemed to click with Bruce Gradkowski under center. Let's hope the hangover from this party is over by October 3.