Cowboys Win Governor’s Cup

The Dallas Cowboys won back the all-important Governor’s cup as they downed the visiting Texans, 23-22. The one-point margin hardly represented the dominance displayed by the home team, as Dallas’ starters pushed around the Texans for much of the game.

“Well, offensively, we struggled early in the game,” Gary Kubiak told reporters. “We missed some throws, and we go as our quarterback goes. But he did settle down and end up playing pretty dang good. Defensively, it looked like we struggled all night to stop them. Other than the turnovers, I don’t know that we really stopped them. Special teams, we did a good job with our field position. I think some of our coverage looked not as good as you would want it to be. But they’re a good football team, and we knew that.”

Although Matt Schaub was a little erratic early on, he responded in the second quarter and made some nice throws. Schaub finished the game 15/27, for 166 yards and a touchdown pass to Kevin Walter. Schaub finished with an 86.3 quarterback rating.

As for the rest of the offense, Houston struggled with the Dallas pass rush, and although the Cowboys didn’t register a sack, they were able to put pressure on both Schaub and Rosenfels consistently. The final stats for the rushing game looked solid, as the Texans ran for 114 yards on 28 attempts, led by Chris Taylor and Steve Slaton who combined for 91 yards on 21 carries. Still, much of the yards gained on the ground came after the Cowboys first-team defense left the field.

“Well, I thought Chris (Taylor) and (Steve) Slaton both did some good things,” Gary Kubiak said in his postgame press conference. “I thought that Darius (Walker), he hasn’t had a lot of work, I thought he ran hard there in the fourth quarter. It’s encouraging to know that those three young guys are coming along. That was a good defense they were running against, so depending on where Ahman’s (Green) at and where Chris Brown is at, it’s nice to know that these guys have had that work.”

The most glaring issue with the Texans on Friday night was their lack of a pass rush. With defensive end Mario Williams double-teamed for much of the night, no one else on the line could beat one-on-one blocking, thus the Dallas quarterbacks had as much time as they needed to throw the football. Tony Romo and Brad Johnson combined to go 24/32 for 273 yards, one touchdown and one interception.

The Houston secondary struggled covering for most of the night, especially free agent acquisition Jacques Reeves. Reeves seemed to be targeted by his former team, and he gave up several big plays. The struggles of the secondary can be pointed back to the lack of pass rush.

The only real bright spot for the Texans came in special teams, and even their fine returns were overshadowed by a horrible injury to Harry Williams. Williams went down early on while covering a kickoff, and had to be carted off the field as he’s said to have a neck injury.

“Harry Williams is doing well,” according to his head coach. “He’s got movement throughout his body, feeling throughout his body. The last report I got is that everything looked good. We’ll of course leave him here overnight, but all the feedback I’m getting right now is that Harry’s going to be fine.”

Overall, the only thing that kept the game close was the three Dallas turnovers that led to 13 Houston points. The Texans were simply outclassed by a much better Cowboys team for much of the evening.

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Charlie Bernstein is the Editor-in-Chief of Sports Media Interactive, covering multiple teams in the National Football League, NCAA, and National Basketball Association. Charlie is a regular syndicated contributor to FoxSports and Sirius NFL Radio, and has been featured on the NFL Network. Charlie is also a member of the Pro Football Writers of America. Feel free to contact him -HERE- with questions or comments.

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