After what looked like an inspirational opening-night victory in New York, the Cowboys have come crashing down to earth. Yes they won last week against Tampa Bay, but their hangover from the opening-night win culminated in their meltdown at home to the Chicago Bears. In a game that should have been close, the Cowboys’ offense conspired by hook or by crook to gift Chicago’s defense a pair of touchdowns that ensured this game turned into a comfortable victory. Chicago now finds itself in a tie for first place with the Minnesota Vikings in the NFC North.
Communication breakdowns and misreads have long been an unwanted feature of the Dallas offense, but they hit home hard this Monday night. Most of the time they lead to a loss of down or a loss of possession on a third down, but this week they led to turnovers and the turnovers led to scores. Without a misread by Dez Bryant, Charles Tillman doesn’t have a walk in touchdown. Without a dropped pass by Kevin Ogletree, Major Wright doesn’t have an interception. With some solid pass protection, Tony Romo has an easy dumpoff to Jason Witten rather than being hit and surrendering a pick-six. Taking your opportunities is what close football games are about. As the Bears took theirs and the Cowboys gave theirs away, the scoreboard ensured that this game would not be remembered as a close one.
Let’s take a look at some of the performances that turned the game, and some that are hidden by the few big plays that put this one away for Chicago.
Chicago – Three Performances of Note
Cutler and Marshall In Sync
For the first time since Week 1 the Bears’ ‘saviors' at quarterback and wide receiver hooked up for a score. For the first time this season there was no dropped pass or interception on a pass targeted from quarterback to receiver, and Brandon Marshall (+3.2) capped it all off with a season-high 138-yards receiving. That included 74 yards after the catch, more than doubling his season total. This is the sort of hook up that was supposed to make the Bears preseason Super Bowl picks. I picked them to make the Super Bowl myself, and if they are to get there then they need to have this sort of chemistry more often. The passing game led by Jay Cutler was consistency personified with only two dropped passes derailing the cause — with Kellen Davis rescuing one of Cutler’s few poor passes from a potential interception by Cowboy safety Danny McCray. Bears fans will hope to see Cutler continue to command the intermediate area of the field, as he was five of six for 74 yards on passes between 10- and 19-yards downfield.
Melton Leads the Line
Before the game all of the hype in terms of defensive linemen surrounded the two dominant pass rushers from each team, DeMarcus Ware and Julius Peppers. However, as the game played out the real star proved to be Henry Melton (+3.4) who had his way with new Cowboy RG Mackenzy Bernadeu. Recording a stop in the run game but excelling as a pass rusher, Melton came up with one of the biggest plays of the game by tearing past Bernadeu to hit Romo in the pocket as he tried to flick a dump-off to Witten. That hit ensured the pass couldn’t be targeted and instead floated harmlessly (for the Bears) to Lance Briggs — a gift the Bears’ veteran linebacker gladly accepted before he raced to the end zone for a score. Much like his team, Melton has slowed since his strong, two-sack performance to open the season but he exploded back into life this week. Bears fans will be hoping for more performances like this in the next month as their team try to extend a lead over the rest of the NFC North.
Offensive Line Holds the Fort
Expecting too much at once can often get fans into trouble in the NFL. One big performance in isolation elevates expectations beyond reason, while persistent poor play blinds them to improvements. You will never mistake this Chicago Bears' offensive line for one of the best units in the league, but their showing last night highlighted some of the steps they have taken this season. If you didn’t notice it on the field, you might have noticed it on the sideline at the end of the game when Cutler congratulated LT J’Marcus Webb rather than shouting at him as we’ve become accustomed to. Webb’s display epitomized the small steps taken, and that are still needed, for this line to become good enough for the Bears. Up against DeMarcus Ware he looked outmatched in this game and while he gave up a sack and another pressure that led to a third down stop on a scramble by Ware, you could have expected far worse from this matchup. This unit is unlikely to ever be outstanding, but it has shown signs this season that it can be ‘good enough'. If it can cut out the truly terrible performances that draw the ire of Cutler and the fans, this offensive line will be doing its part to make the Bears a playoff team in 2012.
Dallas – Three Performances of Note
‘Disconnect' an Understatement
At this point Cowboy fans, coaches and players must simply be tearing their hair out. In spite of consistency in personnel at key positions, the hallmark of this offense continues to be miscommunications and disconnects between players. At some point you have to wonder when this will be picked up on as a recurring problem to the extent that it costs someone their job. The base stat line for Romo was poor, (he threw five interceptions) but to lay the blame entirely at his door and pan him for his performance would be misguided, to say the least. He possibly shares the blame with Bryant (-1.7) for the first interception, where Charles Tillman baited both the receiver and quarterback into a throw on a hot read. However, to blame him for the second and third interceptions, which proved crucial, would be misguided — holding him to account for a drop and some very poor pass protection would be unfair, even from his harshest of detractors. With the long-running string of other issues, such as the botched shotgun snaps that have survived through a number of starting centers, you have to wonder when Jerry Jones will decide enough is enough and remove someone from their job.
Quietly Filling the Void
One player that has been mentioned as a possible returnee after the bye week is Jay Ratliff. However, Ratliff is one player that the Cowboys haven’t missed terribly. Reserve nose tackle Josh Price-Brent (+1.0) has shown his quality in a starting role, and extended the good work he has done as a backup in recent seasons. This week he recorded a career-high four stops, including the first sack of his three-year career. In Price-Brent the Cowboys have a different style of nose tackle to Ratliff, and it will be interesting to see whether the Cowboys decide to use the two players in combination when Ratliff returns rather than thrusting him immediately back into a full-time starting role. Ratliff’s great strength is his ability to get up the field to disrupt rushes and bring the sort of pass rush that rarely seen from a nose tackle. With the Cowboys struggling to get pressure from anyone outside of Jason Hatcher on their defensive line, they may be well served to use Price-Brent to manage Ratliff’s snaps in base defense, allowing Ratliff to bolster the Cowboys’ sub-package defense.
Witten arrives
We’ll save the merits of playing hurt compared to getting healthy for another day, but Dallas, fantasy football, and football fans everywhere will have been pleased to see Witten’s performance. He has been on the field for the Cowboys’ first three games — he missed only 22 snaps — but he has been somewhat of a non-factor outside of his run blocking. His 13 receptions against the Bears were almost double his season total prior to this game, as were his 112 receiving yards. There can be no doubt Witten is Romo’s favorite target, and if this was the first game where Witten was back to full health then it is understandable they were trying to feed him the football and get him fully back into rhythm. With a bye week to recuperate further, and Romo’s obvious issues connecting with his wide receivers, it would not be at all surprising to see Witten feature heavily in games just after the break. And those games will be pivotal in dictating the momentum and direction of the Cowboys’ season.
Game Notes
— Rookie wide receiver Cole Beasley saw his first career targets (two) and catches (two) at the end of the game. Both his catches went for 7-yard gains.
— The three tackles that Brian Urlacher missed are the most he has recorded in a single game since Week 3 of the 2010 season, when he missed four in the Bears’ Monday Night Football victory at home to the Green Bay Packers.
— Romo peppered the short area in this game. Of his 42 targeted passes, 28 came between the line of scrimmage and 9-yards downfield.
PFF Game Ball
He recorded a sack and his hit on Romo caused an interception which Lance Briggs returned for a touchdown. This was most definitely a happy homecoming to Texas for former Longhorn Henry Melton.
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