Fast start to season is crucial for Tony Romo and Cowboys

DALLAS - If it’s possible for the Cowboys to begin a season with limited fanfare, this is it. News of "America’s Team" in Dallas has taken a back seat to the latest on the "Dream Team" in Philadelphia while the first Super Bowl winner (and the last) appears to rule the NFC from Green Bay.
To return the Cowboys to relevance, the man who must own the first quarter - of the season, not just Sunday night’s season opener against the New York Jets [team stats] - is Tony Romo
Super Bowls aren’t won in September, even if Green Bay still looked reasonably super Thursday night. Honestly, that’s not what the Cowboys are about these days, anyway. Nineteen teams have been to Super Bowls - some of them multiple times - since Dallas made its last visit 16 seasons ago.
For the Cowboys, after a disastrous 6-10 season that featured that rarest of NFL admission-to-failures - a midseason coaching change - it’s about finding that .500 level and then getting back into the playoff picture.
The Cowboys aren’t hosting a Super Bowl this year and no one outside the organization thinks much of their chances in visiting one. They just want to become a team that’s still part of the postseason hunt when we get to December.
For that reason, Romo has to be at his best right away. The Cowboys won’t play a game against a quarterback who would be ranked superior (not at the moment, anyway) in the season’s first four games.
Romo has to outperform the Jets’ Mark Sanchez, Washington’s Rex Grossman, San Francisco’s Alex Smith and Detroit’s Matthew Stafford to get this team on track before it has to deal with the likes of New England’s Tom Brady [stats], the Eagles’ Michael Vick or even the Giants’ Super Bowl-winning Eli Manning on down the road.
Some of you may point out that the Jets’ young Sanchez already has four playoff victories, which just happen to beat Romo’s total by three. While that’s true, the Jets haven’t done much postseason winning while riding Sanchez’s arm.
He hasn’t passed for 200 yards in any of those playoff wins. Only in last year’s upset of New England - Sanchez’s fourth playoff victory - did he throw more touchdowns than interceptions.
The first three quarterbacks the Cowboys are scheduled to face fall more into the "caretaker" category. These are players who are supposed to manage games and not lose them. Detroit’s Stafford, who has fought injuries his first two seasons, is the only one who, like Romo, is expected to go out and win games with his arm while the running game and defense take secondary roles.
You might guess by my prediction of a 5-11 record for this team that I don’t really like Romo’s chances of being able to do this. That’s true, but it has less to do with perceived limitations on his part than on the Cowboys having sketched together a paper-thin roster that can’t afford injuries of any consequence.
In addition, while it seems Romo’s backside will get ample protection from Doug Free, the rest of the offensive line is all newcomers or players in new positions. Two rookies and another player with one NFL start are slated to open the season in the lineup.
That should make this a better team in 2012 but it’s an invitation to immediate disaster for a team that struggled to run the ball with efficiency a year ago. You can’t put too much of a burden on Felix Jones. He has never been a featured back in this league (he wasn’t at Arkansas, either), and it appears that if he builds up the strength to handle a heavy workload, he loses the elusive quality that made him a first-round pick to begin with.
No, if the Cowboys are to provide surprises of the opposite variety than those they managed in 2010, it’s on Romo’s ability to connect with Miles Austin, Dez Bryant and Jason Witten. With protection, this can be a formidable passing team, although it will face some challenging defenses early, starting with Rex Ryan’s New York Jets.
.

Cowboys Vs. Jets Score: Miles Austin Fights For Ball, Gains Touchdown

Read More: Miles Austin (WR - DAL), Tony Romo (QB - DAL), Dez Bryant (WR - DAL), New York Jets, Dallas Cowboys

The Dallas Cowboys saw Dez Bryant leave the field on their latest drive, but that changed little for the Cowboys, who put a touchdown on the board. The Miles Austin touchdown grab has the Cowboys in the lead, 17-10.
Tony Romo relied on Felix Jones and Kevin Ogletree on the drive, but received some big help from DeMarco Murray on a 13-yard pass. That play set up Romo for a 36-yard pass to Miles Austin in the end zone. It was a touch catch for Miles as he tussled with a Jets defensive back for possession of the ball. The officials signaled a touchdown and stayed that way after a second look on replay.
The Jets tacked on a field goal during the next drive, bring the game to a touchdown (plus extra point) difference at 17-10.
For more on the Cowboys, check out the SB Nation blog Blogging the Boys. For more on Rex Ryan and the Jets be sure to head over to Gang Green Nation. Follow the rest of the Week 1 action at SB Nation NFL.

Source: Drew Brees, Saints far apart

The New Orleans Saints will not have a new contract done for Drew Brees before the start of the season and the two sides remain far apart on a new deal, a source familiar with the talks told ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter on Thursday.
Brees, who is in the final year of the six-year, $60 million contract he signed with the Saints as a free agent in 2006, had said his agent Tom Condon and Saints officials have been in talks about an extension.
Brees led the Saints to the 2009 Super Bowl championship. He threw for 4,620 yards and 33 touchdowns last season as the Saints returned to the playoffs as a wild card, losing at Seattle in the first round.
Brees joined the Saints in 2006, leading the team to the NFC Championship Game the year after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city and raised doubts about whether the team would remain in Louisiana.
The Saints have made the playoffs three times in Brees' five seasons in New Orleans.

Aaron Rodgers Disses Mark Sanchez GQ Photos

Jets player, Mark Sanchez was featured on the cover of GQ’s September issue. He spoke candidly about wanting to fight his own coach, shared his recently watched television shows including Justin Beiber’s movie and posed for a spread of sexy photos.
The spread didn’t sit well with a fellow NFL quarterback, who dissed his moonlighting as a model.
“Look at this,” NFL player, Aaron Rodgers told ESPN of Sanchez’s spread in an interview Wednesday. “That’s embarrassing. Page 94 of the GQ thing here. That’s terrible.”
“It’s just not really my style,” Rodgers said. “I like my anonymity. I like my privacy. I like being able to be the quarterback during the week and in the offseason just be able to do what I want to do and not have to be in the public eye.”
Since the public diss, Sanchez responded and made light of the situation.
“I think he was, obviously, making a joke out of it, and that’s fine, giving me a good ribbing like the guys on our team,” said Sanchez in a statement released by the New York Jets. “That’s totally understandable, but I’m just happy that it ended up working out for a good cause and we got to partner with two great companies and one great charity, with Hugo Boss and Tuesday’s Children. It worked out for the better and I can take a little razzing for the way it ended up. I know he’s just joking around, so that’s totally fine.”
In the new issue of GQ, which wasn’t his first time gracing the pages (he posed back in June 2009 too) Sanchez can be seen without a shirt on the field and in a bubble bath but one of the most talked about shots is of him wearing an extra tight pair of white pants inside of a football stadium.
To go with the sexy snaps, was a sizzling interview in which, Sanchez talked to GQ about an incident with his coach, Rex Ryan. Ryan had commented that he would consider benching the star athlete, to which Sanchez said he wished Ryan wouldn’t have been so honest. “I wanted to fight him,” Sanchez told the magazine. “I was really mad.” Sanchez also revealed his love for Broadway shows, even comparing the Broadway performers to himself. “Their life is so regimented—like mine. They have eight shows a week. They have to take care of their bodies, stretch, eat right, take care of their voices. You know, their voice is like my arm.”