What can we learn from Week 6?

It was a tough loss last night. Although the offense looked OK, there were a lot of things wrong with this game that should be dissected all this week. I will go through a few of those problems here.

1. If the coaches and Jerry Jones don't regret not going after secondary in the draft and the free agency market, they should now. Even with Henry and Newman in the game, I am still not comfortable with how the secondary plays. Maybe it's just the coordinator's schemes, I have no idea. But what I saw during the Patriots game was awful. It seemed like we turned into the Buffalo defense from last week. We were giving the Pats receivers 10-yard cushions.

We made absolutely no contact with these receivers at the line of scrimmage. And we couldn't slow their route running. And to make it worse, the tackling was atrocious. I was real disappointed in the play of the secondary. I knew this was going to happen, too. I knew I'd be moaning all year about the Dallas secondary, and I said at the beginning of the year that if we want to be an elite team we need to improve at the cornerback-safety positions and have tight nickel coverages. We don't.

2. Penalties. Hey, I am used to Flozell Adams' two false starts a game, but what happened last night is unexplainable. A lot of Cowboy fans are complaining about the refs. I'm not going to do that. I didn't see many bad calls. The several holding calls were probably warranted. The offsides calls all seemed fair. (The lack of calls of holding against the Pats might be valid, but my TV didn't show it).

We just committed these penalties at the worst moments: on third downs when we were driving the ball. Too many penalties is a sign of poor team discipline. Nice guy Wade Phillips might want to crack the whip this week because if he doesn't don't be shocked if we go into Minnesota and get beat again. It's possible with the rookie runner they have.

3. Play calling. With the Princeton degree, I was hoping Offensive Coordinator Jason Garrett would have some better plays than what we saw last night. We didn't throw one deep ball to Owens or Crayton. Not a single bomb. Although I thought we played smart with the short passes to take what we were getting, we didn't spread out the field at all. We ran the ball 14 damn times. That's it! And we were running it well. Both Julius Jones and MB3 had great runs. I didn't understand why, after we took the lead, that we didn't just run the ball and wear down the Patriots defense.

Not going for it on fourth down in the fourth quarter when we were down by 14 points was possibly the worst call of the year for the Cowboys. I'd like to know how the discussions went between Phillips and Garrett on this call. Who said what? Because it was a dumb call.

A field goal was meaningless. Yes, I know, Phillips said anything can happen. But we're not playing Buffalo, Wade. Our miracles already happened in one damn game this year on Monday night. I doubt we'll get anymore luck. It's time to play, Wade. Stop being Mr. Laid Back Nice Guy and get this team to improve!