Week 9: Dallas at Philadelphia

We’ve never really liked the Cowboys. Part of that is just growing up in New Jersey, where the Cowboys function as a sort of diametric opposite to state favorites like the pork roll and Bruce Springsteen. But a lot of it is just the Cowboys and their decades of “America’s Team” pomp and BS.

These days, the problem starts with owner/GM Jerry Jones, whose toupee and Joan Rivers-esque affection for plastic surgery make him probably the most drag pro sports owner since that dude who used to dress up like Marge Schott. But there’s always been a lot to dislike here. A new favorite is Kelli Finglass, who we and our girlfriend (maybe time for the first person singular? No, never!) have gotten to know through that CMT show on the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders. Finglass is a brittle-looking Dallas matron who runs the cheerleaders and who has a look on her face that suggests someone secretly swapped out her usual cup of coffee for a warm mug of farts. She’s nasty and disapproving and is, according to our girlfriend at least, always kicking off the wrong girls. Anyway, what’s important is that…uh, what were we talking about?

Oh, right: we can’t really hate this Cowboys team as much. Odious angerhole Bill Parcells has been replaced by the rather more likable Wade Phillips, newly wealthy QB Tony Romo is entirely too aw-shucks to dislike, and the defense is – with the exception of old-school ‘Boys a-hole SS Roy Williams – generally made up of very good players who don’t seem any more sociopathic, on balance, than the average NFL player. With the exception of a not-that-close loss to the rampaging Patriots, the Cowboys have been both lucky (against Buffalo in Week 5 and Minnesota in Week 7) and good (every week except their Week 6 drubbing by Los Belichicks) thus far, and yet we still can’t muster much in the way of bile for these guys.

And so it is with a clean, if confused, conscience that we’re calmly picking the confusing-us Cowboys over the just-confusing Eagles this week. Some of this is because we think Dallas’ potent offense – by the numbers, it’s second-best in the NFL in yardage (402 per game) and scoring (32.4 points per) – is both bigger and better enough than Philadelphia’s generally very good defense. Romo is not a huge talent, but he’s got real presence, a stable of good receivers, and an inventive offensive coordinator in Jason Garrett. We don’t see Romo going for four touchdowns against the Eagles, who have given up 20 points only twice in seven games and still have a very strong secondary, but we do envision he and RB Marion Barber providing enough offense to carry the Cowboys to enough points and eat up enough clock to put pressure on a mediocre Eagles offense.

It’s a sad fact indeed that Donovan McNabb had to wait until his skills were on the decline before getting not one but two decent receivers to throw to in Reggie Brown and Kevin Curtis. While McNabb continues to be an underrated game manager and an efficient passer, he’s no longer able to escape from pass rushers as he once did and is still without his best midrange receiver in injured TE L.J. Smith. While he and RB Brian Westbrook have both put up solid numbers this season – Westbrook, quietly, has become one of the most valuable backs in the NFL – their team has struggled to score almost every week. This means different things in different games, but it doesn’t bode well against a tough Dallas defense that has spent plenty of quality time in opposing quarterbacks’ personal spaces thus far this season.

From an aggressive secondary to a tough line that has stuffed the run (Dallas’ 80.4 rushing yards per game is fifth-best in the NFL), there aren’t a lot of holes on this Cowboys unit. Factor in how hard-pressed even the old, fast Donovan McNabb would’ve been to outrun monster LB DeMarcus Ware, and this looks like a very winnable game for Dallas. The bigger question, at least for us, is this: why does it not pain us more to type that?

Cowboys by 6