DALLAS — Even dreams based on false hopes shouldn’t die this quickly. And maybe, just maybe, this one won’t.
The Cowboys’ season, which began just as the Rangers were resting Josh Hamilton and trying to lock down the AL West, could come to a crashing halt at Houston’s Reliant Stadium today.
Just as the Rangers are resting Hamilton while trying to lock down the AL West.
You’ve heard about the teams that survive 0-2 starts and go on to the playoffs, sometimes even to achieve greatness.
The Cowboys have done it themselves, although it’s difficult to figure who’s going to play the role of Emmitt Smith, who in 1993 signed a contract just in time to ride to the rescue in Week 3.
Kicker Matt Stover or Shayne Graham signing during the bye week? Maybe? Tell us, Jerry, that you at least have noticed how costly the stupid decision not to even bring a veteran to camp to compete with David Buehler looks after the Redskins and Bears games.
That’s not to put Buehler at thetop of the Cowboys’ list of problems. He’s not even close. His is just the easiest problem to address.
Fixing the Cowboys’ field-goal problem is like changing a light bulb. Fixing the Cowboys’ running game problem or getting the defense to rediscover the world of sacks and turnovers are more like rebuilding the whole darned house.
It all starts with one hammer. One nail. One victory today in Houston that’s much more possible than it might have seemed late last Sunday as the Texans were rallying for an overtime victory in Washington.
It starts with the realization that the Cowboys’ hopes of playing in the first Super Bowl held in Dallas-Fort Worth require winning at the site of the second Super Bowl ever played in Texas.
And this will be a game played on foreign soil, make no mistake about that.
When the Cowboys go to most cities, they see thousands of Dallas jerseys in the stands. They hear the shouts, sometimes roars of approval for their own road success.
You have to think this pro-Houston crowd is ready for thekill. As excited as Texans fans are that their team is finally arriving, that the world knows about Andre Johnson as the game’s best receiver and Matt Schaub as maybe the best quarterback in Texas, they are just as excited to witness the demise of the Cowboys.
I really don’t think that’s what they’re going to see, although I’m not blind to what’s happened and recognize it surely could.
Both the media and fans pay less attention than they should to injuries and absences in the offensive lines. They are not sexy topics to discuss. They rarely involve stars with familiar faces. Those players don’t rack up fantasy points for us, at least not in an obvious sense.
But as hampered as the Cowboys were in Washington without Marc Colombo and Kyle Kosier, it’s conceivable that in their second game back, they help Dallas rediscover the run. A team giving up more than 400 yards passing per game as the Texans have done just might commit to fixing that ailment, creating more holes for Marion Barber and Felix Jones (Arkansas Razorbacks).
On the opposite side, Houston’s best offensive tackle, Duane Brown, is out with a four-game suspension. He’s the guy who should be blocking DeMarcus Ware in most cases. If the Texans flipped the tight end to that side, he would be blocking Anthony Spencer.
Either way, there’s a real opportunity for the pass rushers who geared last year’s playoff push to make Texans fans relive the David Carr era by getting to the quarterback.
A lot.
On the offensive side, borrowing from the current local success story, it’s time.
It’s time for yards to start translating into points. It didn’t happen enough last year, and it hasn’t happened at all this year. But it’s just time.
The Texans may be 2-0, but their defense made Donovan McNabb look and feel 10 years younger last week. Romo and the Cowboys have no need to turn back the clock quite so far.
Dialing it back to the way they were playing at the beginning of January should be enough to keep everything about this Cowboys season from crashing to a halt in September.
Sports, Pages 24 on 09/26/2010