It’s getting to the point where I have to reconsider my opinion of Wade Phillips.

I’ve already had to back off on my early season write-off of Tony Romo.  After he imploded in the early stadium-opening game against the Giants, I turned to my son and declared “Tony Romo is dead to me.  He’s in his third year as a starter now, and still makes the same goddam stupid errors he’s always made, and still doesn’t know how to protect the freaking football.  He is obviously incapable of advancing to the next level.”

My son, this Romo kid, he’s dead to me.

Ok, crow fricasseed and eaten on that one.  Romo has been pure greatness over the last 13 games, and has firmly established himself among the elite quarterbacks in the League.

Back to Wade.  I’ve gone through the last few years helplessly thinking that the Cowboys’ Head Coach really is as clueless as his consistently vacant sideline expression makes him appear to be.  But after the last four weeks, Cowboys’ fans now know differently.  That vacant stare is really just a part of Wade’s fox-like strategy to lull the opposing coaching staff into a false sense of security.  I mean, seriously, what self-respecting NFL coach could glance across the field, see Phillips vacantly staring up into the mezzanine section as all hell is breaking loose around him, and take the Cowboys seriously as an opponent?

The vacant stare of genius.

It’s pure genius, really.  It certainly fooled Cowboys’ fans, 99% of whom spent the first 3/4ths of this season writing this team off, assuming we’d have to wait until Owner Jerrah Jones made yet another coaching fire/hire before the Boys could have any hope of making the damn playoffs, much less advancing in them.  We’re now all agitating for a quick contract extension, before some other owner swoops in and steals our genius head coach away.

Ok, I’m kind of kidding on that last point, but think about it:  whatever you think of Wade as a Head Coach, can you think of a better Defensive Coordinator in the NFL?  I can’t, and if Jerrah has to fork over HC salary to keep Wade around as DC, I’m for it.  Hell, Jerrah has too damn much money anyway – the 4 or 5 mil he’s paying to Phillips is little more than walking around money to him.

Let’s go to the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly:

Good:  The 2008 Draft, the first after Bill Parcells left the premises.  Another reason why you might want to start shifting your opinion of Wade Phillips is this guy.  CB Mike Jenkins was a part of the 2008 draft, and a just world would have had him named to the NFC Pro Bowl team.  He is easily the best CB on the Cowboys’ team at this point.  The 2008 draft also brought the team Orlando Scandrick, Felix Jones, Martellus Bennett, and Tashard Choice, making it the single most successful Cowboys’ draft since the Jimmy Johnson era.

Good:  Felix Jones getting the preponderance of the carries in the run game.  Choice and Marion Barber are excellent NFL backs, but Jones is the real difference-maker in this run game, a guy with the potential to bust any given play for a TD.  The regular season strategy of limiting his carries to 10 or so per game was justified, given his proneness to injury, but now that the playoffs are here, it’s time to let the big dog eat, and Felix is the big dog.

Good:  Getting Roy Williams involved early.  Roy showed up with his game face on for the first time in a while, and made a real difference in the early going, forcing the Eagles to pay attention to him and thus helping open up the field for the other receivers.  He still got surprised on one slant route because he didn’t read a blitz and look for the ball soon enough, but all in all, this 5 catches for 59 yards was the best performance Roy has had in awhile.  This is definite progress.

Bad:  Jason Witten.  This was the worst game I can remember seeing Witten play.  He cost the team a first and goal at the 1 with an early block on a WR screen, and set the offense back several other times with dumb penalties and missed blocks.  You don’t see this kind of game from this guy often (I really can’t remember another time, actually), so the mistakes really stood out.  I’m sure he’ll come out breathing fire next week.

Bad:  Penalties in general.  This remains the most false start-prone OL in the League.  The scoreless first quarter was almost solely due to stupid penalties.  The one remaining legit criticism of Phillips is that his team still lacks discipline.  The good news here is that I’m pretty sure NONE of the penalties were called on Flozell Adams, which may well be a career first.

Good:  Flozell Adams was very studly in this game, shutting down the Eagles’ most dangerous pass rusher, and recording several devastating blocks in the run game.  He looked like he was playing on young legs out there.  Hell of a game, big guy.

Ugly:  Donovan McNabb.  For two straight weeks in Cowboys Stadium, he played like an untalented, raw rookie.  He was uniformly horrible.  Yes, he was under considerable pressure from what has become a great Cowboy defense, but that does not excuse this horrid performance.  McNabb is the most hot and cold quarterback in the League, and he went cold at the worst possible time.

Good:  Bobby Freaking Carpenter!  Dude recovered 2 fumbles – shit yeah!  I’ve been waiting to say something good about this guy ever since he came to the team.  :)

Good:  The Cowboys secondary.  The line and LBs get all the praise from the TV commentators for the pressure and sacks, but folks, a whole lot of that pressure came late in the play due to tremendous coverage by the secondary.  Jenkins, Hamlin, Scandrick, Sensabaugh,  and Newman have just become a bunch of true badasses back there.

Good:  The Cowboys kicking game.  Buehler has been a genius draft pick for the team.  His booming kickoffs mean that the opposing team almost never gets the football in any better position than the 20 yardline.  It’s tough to use a precious roster spot for a guy who does nothing but kick off, but in Buehler’s case, it is fully justified.  Suisham was 2 for 2 on field goals, and has yet to miss a kick in a Cowboys uniform.  He doesn’t have the greatest range in the world, but it sure is nice to get a guy out there who gives you a feeling of comfort on the short ones.  McBriar only averaged 38.2 yard per punt in this game, but that was because the Cowboys dominated field position and he was generally punting from outside his own 40.  Most importantly, he pinned the Eagles inside their 20 yardline five times.  No one in the League is better than McBriar.

Special Teams Player of the Game:  I’ll go with McBriar.

Defensive Player of the Game:  This one’s tough.  The whole defense was just nails in this game, and has been nails for the last four weeks, really.  I would go with Jenkins were it not for his giving up the long TD pass to Maclin.  Ware had two sacks, and created lots of disruption in the pocket, and deserves consideration.  But I think I’ll go with Bradie James, who had a sack, a defended pass, 2 QB hits and led the team in tackles, just because James does not get the credit he deserves.

Offensive Player of the Game:  Tony Romo.  Romo was pure greatness in this game – 23 of 35, 244 yards, 2 TDs, 0 INTs.  He protected the ball, made good decisions, consistently placed his throws where only his guys could catch them, and did it all while under great pressure from a blitzing Philly defense.  This is the guy the Cowboys have been waiting on for several years now, and he has arrived.  I still don’t understand how any male heterosexual human being could bring himself to break up with Jessica Simpson, but hey, if that’s what it took for Tony to focus on football, I’m for it.

Regardless of the hair color, it had to be hard for Tony to walk away from this.

The long, 13 years wandering in the wilderness are finally over.  Cowboys fans can now legitimately look at this team as a true contender.

I don’t want to start talking about Super Bowls just yet, but there is little doubt that the Cowboys are playing as well as any team in the NFC right now.  The Saints looked like world beaters for much of the season, but limped very weakly into the playoffs.  The Vikings, who the Cowboys will play next week in Minnesota, have somehow managed to lose their running game, even with Adrian Peterson at tailback.  Brett Favre has had a spectacular season in his 40^th year on earth, but even he will have a hard time attacking this Cowboys defense if his team cannot mount a respectable ground game.

The other two teams that have played well late in the NFC are the Packers and the Cardinals, who play today out in Arizona.  The Packers entered the playoffs in a real hot streak similar to the Cowboys, and if they can prevail today, it sets up a looming possibility that the Cowboys could actually host the NFC Championship Game at Jerry World in two weeks.

Site of the NFC Championship Game? 

Wouldn’t that be fun?

See you next week.