That Star is tarnished
An 8-8 future for the Cowboys? Houston Texans show they should finish with abetter record than Dallas
Another is the Cowboys inability to protect Tony Romo.
Wade Phillips has a lot to worry about.
Mario Williams' renewed motor is one of the reasons the Houston Texans couldfinish with a better record than Dallas.
It'd be easy to dismiss the Houston Texans' 23-7 throttling of the Dallas Cowboys as meaningless.
This is the preseason after all. Anything that happens in an August exhibition is by definition as suspect as a Lindsay Lohan explanation. Even NFL owners have realized how pointless the preseason is (they're cutting it in half as soon as they can).
The Cowboys purposely showed a gameplan so basic that many of the high school teams that opened on Friday night would have laughed at it. To say Dallas coach Wade Phillips was paranoid about giving anything away with these Texas teams set to meet in a real game back at Reliant Stadium on Sept. 26 is an understatement. Texans coach Gary Kubiak, on the other hand, treated this game like the August Super Bowl, even breaking out that bootleg, across-the-field pass to Jacoby Jones.
Still, there are plenty of reasons to walk away from the Saturday night affair, believing that the Texans will finish with a better record than the Cowboys this season.
Houston could do that — and still not make the playoffs for the first time in franchise history. That's how hard and how fast Dallas has fallen.
This isn't about the encouraging signs shown by the Texans as plentiful as those were: the continued pass rush push of Mario Williams, the emergence of running back Arian Foster (18 carries for 110 yards) as every fantasy football geek's sudden sure sleeper and Jones' (five catches for 63 yards and a touchdown) move up the importance chart past the ever-disappointing Kevin Walter. It's more of a reflection of the woes of the Boys.
Dallas seems more incapable than ever of protecting quarterback Tony Romo against a good team. It doesn't matter if it's the Minnesota Vikings in January or the Texans in August. Roy Williams continues to be the most clueless would-be No. 2 receiver in the league. Barebones scheme or not, the Cowboys defense made even the Texans look like a powerhouse running team, which is like making John Goodman look like a Calvin Klein model.
The Cowboys schedule is almost as difficult as the Texans, which is only tied for the toughest in the league. An 8-8 record in Dallas is hardly out of the question. Jerry Jones might want to start bracing himself for the fate of being just a good host during Super Bowl week.
