Delhomme Goes All Delhomme Again

Before I get into last night’s game, let me first apologize if this post is boring. I don’t know if it is just me or what, but last night’s game was very uneventful for me and it was pretty tough to come up with things to take away from the game. What we do know is the Panthers season is basically over, barring a miracle, and with Jake “the Mistake” Delhomme at quarterback, we can pretty much forget about miracles. Crazy how after 3 weeks two of the best teams in the league are pretty much finished already (the Titans being the other). No one in this game looked all that impressive, except for maybe Jason Witten being his usual self and Roy Williams actually showing signs of life. But, here’s my best effort:

• Jake Delhomme is done. Again, with the team driving and trying to score a go ahead touchdown in the waning minutes of the game he threw an interception that was returned for a TD by Terence Newman. This guy is a walking turnover and, to cap it all off, when they got the ball back and tried to score again, he fumbled the ball away to end any hope they had. Jaws and Gruden tried to say that they felt bad for him because the interceptions that he threw last night weren’t even his fault but I don’t buy it. Great players, or even good ones, make their own luck. Bad luck seems to follow guys who stink, and right now no one smells worse than Delhomme.
  

  I hope I get out of here before anyone realizes I'm stealing paychecks.

• Flozell “the Hotel” Adams is just a fat guy. He is a very god run blocker but he can get beat very easily on the edge by good rush ends on passing downs. Even worse, when he does get beat he resorts to bush league tactics to try and thwart any further progress, for instance what he did to Giants defensive end Justin Tuck last week. But last night I seemed to notice him more than ever, and if you’re an offensive lineman, that is a very bad thing. The Cowboys had a 3rd and goal at the Panthers 1-yard line and what does “the Hotel” do? False start, that’s what. It drove them back 5 yards, they don’t convert, and they settled for a FG. Adams is becoming more of a liability than an asset right now and the Cowboys need to rectify this situation before it gets any worse. Especially before Tuck gets another shot at him.
• Cowboys vaunted backfield depth in trouble. Before the season everyone said if the Cowboys wanted to compete for the division title and further, they were going to have to utilize their three-pronged attack at running back more because this team is built to run, yet they throw too much. Well, last night they definitely tried to do that and for the second time in three games, speedster Felix Jones was unable to finish the game. With Marion Barber already out with a strained quad muscle, this is something the Cowboys might not be able to withstand. This time for Jones it was a knee injury that kept him out and the Cowboys better hope it’s minor (as I am too, I got him on 2 fantasy squads) because they will get very thin in the backfield in a hurry if not. That would be worse news than going on the Maury show to find out your 18 year old son is in fact your brother (yeah, that’s right, your dad and your wife). That would mean the ball would be put more often in Tony “Oh-no” Romo’s hands and we all know what happens when he has to sling it around the field. The Cowboys would be set-up for failure.
• The Panthers are the worst tackling team in the league. I can’t point to any specific play here because it happened so often, and if you watched the game you know what I’m talking about. It seemed that every time the Cowboys had a 3rd down, the Panthers could have stopped them short of the marker but simply blew a tackle or slipped off of the ball carrier. My middle school lightweight football team tackled better than that. I don’t know if they need to be shown fundamental videos or what, but they all looked like punters covering a kick. If you can’t tackle, you can’t win, which is probably why they’re 0-3.

Can anybody tackle around here?

Another thing to take away is to not buy into the Cowboys hype yet that they are a contender. They’ve beat two very bad teams and lost to their only tough opponent so far. Time will tell if they are legit or not, but from what I saw last night, they don’t look like a contender to me. Disagree? Let me know what you think. I’ll also be back later tonight or tomorrow about why the NFL missed a golden opportunity to show they have a magnanimous side and completely blew it.