16 Reasons the Cowboys Make Me Poop My Pants

First and foremost, I hate the Cowboys. My buddy Dave always said that his second-favorite team was whoever played Dallas that week. A couple years, that team went 11-5, which was friggin' sweet.

Ah, the Dave Campo Era. I still say that the collapse of the Cowboys was Chan Gailey's fault, not Campo's and that Bill Parcells benefited from some of the sound draft picks that Campo made and players that he developed. But, still, the fact that Dallas went 5-11 three straight years makes me smile.

However, they were 13-3 last season and, after struggling through Tony Romo's broken thumb, they appear to be back in 2007 form. And they need to make a statement. And we're the next team on the schedule.

And I'm already wasting some of my 16 points. Let's get to it.

1. People talk about Marion Barber. People talk about how awesome he is. They talk about how he might be limited by a dislocated toe. (Don't make fun of anyone with a toe injury. Jonathan Ogden is 12 feet tall and was felled by a toe injury. He will eat you and your loved ones.) I think he'll play and he's definitely a concern, but I think Jim Brown's clone would still struggle against this defense. We've faced too many great running backs and shut them down too many times for me to think otherwise. As soon as someone goes off on us, I'll change my tune.
2. The one dude that does scare me is Felix Jones, Barber's back-up. He's crazy-fast, he's a big play guy, and he's been hurt most of the year after he got off to a good start. He was a first round draft choice. He's got some incentives in his contract, to be sure, that he figured he was going to hit, but then he missed a bunch of time. He probably already spent that money in Week 5 before he got hurt. He probably has some Escalades and some gold-plated hot tubs and some other stuff that rich people buy that he's gotta pay for. Those incentives and his desire to meet them is what scares me. Potential + Desire + Desperation = Badness for the Steelers Defense.
3. Where Barber worries me is when he comes out of the back field as a receiver. He has 47 catches and didn't have a quarterback for a month. He had a 70 yard reception for a touchdown against Steelers West this season. Remember how LaDanian Tomlinson hurt us? Remember how Clinton Portis hurt us? Think about that and add dreadlocks.
4. Terrell Owens, really, I don't think he'll be a big factor. He's someone that has to be game planned for. He's someone you need to keep an eye on. He's their big play guy in the passing game. He's talented, he's big, he's fast, and he does sit-ups in his driveway. He should scare me, but he doesn't. And, anyone that's read my stuff since 2004 (Bruddah, I'm looking at you) knows that Troy Polamalu shut Owens down when he was an Eagle. No matter where Owens lined up, Troy followed him. He had seven catches, but only 51 yards. And no touchdowns. That was four years ago on Heinz Field turf that hadn't yet been murdered by November. Now that Troy's back in top form, Owens is four years older, and he'll be trying to cut on sandy, crappy, cold grass, I just don't see him having a big game.
5. Here's the thing, though. That 2004 game was against the Eagles, not the Cowboys. Andy Reid doesn't know that the I Formation exists. He had 20 receivers on the field, so Troy could rove around and shadow Owens. Dallas will work primarily out of the I, or some other two back, one tight end, two wide receiver set. Does Ike Taylor cover Roy E. Willams (the other receiver)? Does he move to safety? Do you move gay to safety? Does Ryan Clark move into the box? Do they play straight defense and put Ike on Owens? Dick LeBeau is smarter than me, so I'm sure he's got something figured out. But, if we don't have the Troy-Owens match-up, then maybe Owens has a big game, unless we handcuff Troy and make him help over the top. Don't see that happening, either, though.
6. So, about Roy E. He's a talented dude. He was stuck in Detroit for the past few years (same draft class as Roethlisberger) and the Cowboys traded picks for him like he was Herschel Walker or something, so they must see something. He was a #1 receiver in his previous life with the Lions and he didn't just happen into that. Regardless of what Fantasy Football owners think of him (I got nailed, same as everyone), he's big, he's fast, he's in his home state of Texas, he's finally with a winning team, and he probably knows the offense by now. Someone that has all that going for him... you really want William Gay covering him?
7. The Cowboys also happen to have Patrick Crayton and Miles Austin. Austin has three touchdowns on 12 catches. Every fourth time he catches the ball, he scores. Crayton, working as the third guy most of the season, has 31 catches. That would put him third on the Steelers, ahead of Nate Washington and Heath Miller. They're both big, they're both fast. Sure, they might have Dwight Stone's hands, but they're still much better than our third and fourth guys. And, 43 catches and six touchdowns between those two guys (Crayton has three touchdowns, too)... I mentioned they didn't have a quarterback for a month, right? At least Deshea Townsend and Bryant McFadden should be back.
   
8. Nevermind that the Cowboys have all those guys, all that talent at running back and wide receiver. They also have Jason Witten, who, now that he's healthy, is pretty much the best tight end in the NFL. He can stretch the seam, he can go deep, he can run after the catch, they throw screens to him. Chances are, they'll line him up on the strong side opposite LaMarr Woodley, who is still learning the linebacker position from a coverage standpoint. Roy E. and Owens can tear us up on the perimeter and Witten can make us pay underneath. Which is awesome.
9. Here's what we need to do: Play Cover 1. Clark plays centerfield and shades to Roy E's side. Troy follows Owens to whatever side of the field he's on and plays in the box on that side. If he bites too hard on playaction, we're screwed, but he'll give deep help to Ike or McFadden otherwise, which will keep the big play guys in the passing game in check. Gay/Townsend/Fernando Bryant should be able to handle Crayton and Austin. With the linebackers in zone formation, that should equal a big pile of rolling death for anyone that catches anything underneath, with Lawrence Timmons, James Farrior, and Larry Foote acting as roving assassins against any poor schmuck that catches the ball. That still leaves the seam open for Witten, but the hope is that we'll be able to cover that the way we always cover the deficiencies in our pass coverage: By getting to the quarterback. And, per usual, how well we get to quarterback will go a long way towards determining how well we do on defense. That's James Harrison and Woodley territory. Go get 'em, guys.
10. On offense, we just need to be able to run the ball. I looked it up and I realized that we're 22nd in the league. Twenty. Second. I don't care if Mewelde Moore needs to pull a Billy Cole out there, we need to get some yards on the ground.
11. Their front three has two guys that I wanted the Steelers to draft at some point in ends Chris Canty and Marcus Spears. They also have Jay Ratliff, who's good, I guess, even though he's about 50 pounds lighter than Casey Hampton. He has six sacks, so it makes me think that he's going to blow by Justin Hartwig at least once. But, really, their front three isn't blowing my skirt up.
12. It's their linebackers, which are the foundation of any good 3-4 defense, that kinda make me a little skittish. DeMarcus Ware has 15 sacks, but he's a streaky kind of guy like Joey Porter. If he has a good match-up, he'll get a ton of sacks. If not, he'll disappear. I would like to take this opportunity to point out that Marvel Smith did not participate in practice and it looks like Max Starks will start once again. So... good match-up for Ware!
13. The Cowboys have 40 sacks this season. They blitz a lot. They're a high risk/high reward kind of a defense. Since they have enough guys in the secondary that they can afford to let Pacman Jones come and go as he pleases, they feel as though they can keep blitzing like there's no tomorrow and it won't come back to bite them. And, honestly, aside from that crazy-ass Eagles game in Week 2 and the bizzare Rams game in Week 7, it hasn't come back to bite them. This is actually a pretty damn good defense, they're just overshadowed by their offense.
14. Ben Roethlisberger does pretty well against the blitz and can often pull some miracle play out of his ass to get a huge first down or a touchdown, but I have a bad feeling like the Cowboys are going to bring a lot of guys early. If they get in too quick and Ben goes down too many times, it's going to end up like the Eagles game for us, which was not good. If we can beat the blitz early and hit some big plays, then we can get these guys on their heels. We can't have bad reads, we can't have mix-ups between Hines and Santonio and Ben, and we can't let them pile up a bunch of sacks and/or turnovers early in the game. They're going to be fired up, they've got a lot of momentum going their way given the success they've had since Romo's return. All they need is something to fan those flames. The fans will be fired up, too. So will the Steelers, but the last thing we need is for them to go up 14-0 early, take the crowd out of the game, and have the defense start to gamble and play stupid because they don't have faith in the offense. We've kept it together very well thus far. But this game has the potential to make everything unravel.
15. We need Fast Willie back. Ware's fast and a good run defender, but he plays on the weak side. If we can run to the strong side at Bradie James (c'mon, with a name like that, how tough can he be?) and Willie can bounce a couple to the outside, we've got a shot at making some big plays in the running game. Historically, Willie has gotten his yards in chunks. The reason we're 22nd in the league is because those chunks are coming this season. We need to get those chunks back. Their safeties are too aggressive and sometimes take bad angles and their cornerbacks don't tackle very well or support the run with all that much enthusiasm. This is a good situation for Willie to go off. And he really, really needs to so we can get some traction going into the postseason.
16. Wade Phillips gave a bunch of his veteran (read: old) guys the day off yesterday. No injuries, no real reason, he just gave them the day off. I just have this feeling that, early in the game, they're not going to be ready to get hit. So, from the first snap, we need to hit all the guys that got the day off, even if they're standing peacefully on the sidelines. The one BIG thing we have going for us is that we're a far more physical team than the Cowboys. The day off works in our favor and we need to take advantage of it.

It's a close call, so I was going to take the home team. But, we're 4-2 at home and 5-1 on the road, so that doesn't really work.

I was going to let my hatred of the Cowboys cloud my judgement and pick against them because I hate them. Couldn't do that in good conscience.

I was going to pick against Wade Phillips on the road versus Mike Tomlin because Phillips looks like someone's dumbass uncle and Tomlin's a smart guy. Didn't feel right.

Here's what felt right:

I have Romo and Witten on one of my fantasy teams. That team has a bye because I finished as the second seed in that league. I was very thankful about that in the wake of Thanksgiving, because I didn't want my fantasy season to hinge on Romo's and Witten's ability to score points against our defense.

Any time this season when we've faced an offense that was on a roll and looked unstoppable, we've stopped them. We even did a decent job against the Colts, but a couple of freak plays and three interceptions by Ben undid that.

I think we put this game on the defense. We're 9-3 and our offense is 24th overall, 19th in passing, and 22nd in rushing. Yep. That bad. And we're 9-3.

I give us one more week with the defense carrying us.

Prediction:

Steelers 23, Cowboys 14