Not many good things to say about the Cowboys in their opener.

The glaring problem was the amount of times Dallas managed to shoot themselves in the foot. Every time they seemed to have something going offensively, mistakes would kill the drive:

Wade Phillips called a timeout on a toss to Marion Barber that looked like it was going a long way. Alex Barron was called for multiple holding penalties, including on the game winning touchdown pass to Roy Williams. For some reason, they kept throwing quick passes to Dez Bryant, which netted maybe 3 yards total…. and then of course…. the mistake that blew those all away. The play call before the half that resulted in a touchdown for the Redskins was far and away the biggest mistake of the game.

I don’t blame Tashard Choice for fumbling the ball. Of course he should never fumble, but he should never have been in that position to begin with. I blame Jason Garrett for making that call, Wade Phillips for not overruling the call and Tony Romo for dishing it to Choice instead of just throwing it into the stands, or falling on it, or putting it inside his jersey and pretending he’s pregnant. Anything else would’ve been better than what happened.

There were some good things that are worth mentioning:

Miles Austin played really well, 10 catches for 146 yards and a touchdown. Dez Bryant also had a nice debut, 8 catches for 56 yards. Tony Romo played a solid game, 31/47, 282 yards and 1 touchdown, 0 interceptions. The running game looked better than it did in any of the preseason games. The three backs combined for 22 rushes and 103 yards.

If you look at the statistics, Dallas owned Washington. They outgained the ‘Skins by more than 100 yards, held Washington to under 100 rushing yards and had the ball 9 minutes longer. They also dominated penalty yardage 12-91 yards. When you dominate every statistical category and lose the game, it means you beat yourself.

Chicago comes to Dallas next week after hanging on to beat Detroit in week 1.

Blake out