NFL – Dallas Cowboys have their first feel-good game of the season

The Dallas Cowboys made a few changes during the week. And it seemed as if that made all the difference. First, they got rid of head coach Wade Phillips, who had managed to bring the Cowboys to its second worst ever season start. At 7-1 and after 5 consecutive losses, it was time to make a change. And that’s when we must give it up for interim head coach Jason Garret. And that’s the start of the second change of the week. Garret managed to turn around this team and guide it to a very significant 33-20 victory in the road against the New York Giants.

On February 8, 2007, the Dallas Cowboys’ owner, Jerry Jones, announced that Wade Phillips was coming to Dallas to become the new Head Coach. That year the Dallas Cowboys lost in the first playoffs game. On January 9th  2010, Wade Phillips lead the Cowboys to their first playoffs victory in the last 12 years. The Cowboys defeated the Philadelphia Eagles in the wild card round, thus earning Phillips’ first playoffs win.

Wade Phillips was expected to bring this team up and into another winning season. But he couldn’t.  A 45-7 lost at Green Bay was enough to set off the panic alarm at Jerry Jones’ office and Wade Phillips was fired.

Jerry Jones is well aware that this is not a complete makeover. There is still a very significant amount of work to be done with the team.  At 7-2, the Cowboys are still somewhat of a disappointment, and even though for the first time in a very long while the Cowboys played like a top-notch team, this latest win is no omen of better things to come.

Let’s be realistic with the expectations we can set upon this team. Yes, they defeated the Giants at home, and yes, they broke their 5 consecutive defeats streak, and sure, the Cowboys ended Eli Manninig’s and Co. 5 consecutive win record. But, if you kept a close eye at what happened in the previous  8 games, you can’t help but to notices that removing Wade Phillips was nothing but cleaning up the top of a iceberg.

Jon Kitna was 13 of 22 for 327 yards, three touchdown passes, one interception and one heck of a game. Kitna was able to complete a 13 yard touchdown passes for Dez Bryant, 71 yard pass to Felix Jones and a 24 yard missile to Miles Austin. In other words, Jon Kitna finally gave up a good game while replacing the injured Tony Romo.

Eli Manning had a good game, but it was just not enough to keep the Cowboys from taking over. Manning completed 33 of 48 for 373 yards, but the two interceptions he suffered, particularly the last one of the fourth period, took away the little chances the Giants had to make an impressive comeback in the fourth quarter.

The sun was finally shinning a bit for Jon Kitna. Depsite the two blackouts in the new 1.6$ billion stadium which deleayed the game for eleven minutes and left over 80,000 fans in complete darkness for a couple of seconds, Kitna won his first game as a starter since 2007. Thats what the NFL is all about.