Home > News > Cowboys loose preseason opener 18 - 0 to Texans.

For those of us Cowboy fans not living in the metro area, I love the idea of the NFL Network rebroadcasting all the non national broadcast preseason NFL Games this summer. What I don't like is WHEN they are rebroadcasting the games. The Cowboys Texans game, originally played Saturday (8/14/04) night was rebroadcast on Monday (8/16/04) at 1pm. Even I know that the majority of NFL fans are 9-5 blue collar guys and none will be at home to watch at that time. So the only option the fan has is to record the game. Hopefully most of you have invested in a TiVO or DVR type of recording device versus the old VCR. In my case, the old VCR would have been just fine because I FORGOT to record the game on my Direct TV TiVO system!

As it turns out, I didn't miss much as the Cowboys lost their preseason opener to the Houston Texans 18-0. Crap, Crap, mega Crap! (one of my favorite movie lines, see Spiderman). I don't put much weight on preseason games and rightfully so. Starters play very little and the coaches focus more on personel than situational plays. That being said, I think it is still VERY important to develope some confidence and rythm (hopefully coming soon).

As with any Cowboy loss, I look for bright spots in an ever present dark cloud of doom. Statistics don't always give a good picture, since I did not get to watch the game, I have to use stats along with other writers comments to derive a plausable silver lining. I'm not overly concerned about Vinny and the Jets (I mean Cowboys). Vinny will be servicable at best and might even make us quickly forget Quincy Carter. What I am more concerned with is the Cowboys future, Drew Henson and Julius Jones. Besides the interception Henson threw in the 2nd quarter, his stats look really good. He moved the team into scoring position 2 times, one time he threw the pic and the 2nd time Billy Cundiff missed a field goal. The Cowboys passing and rushing stats look like this;

Add to that Julius Jones 57 yards on only 8 carries and it doesn't appear to be a bad outing for either one. Be sure to make note that these numbers came against backups and players trying to make the team, but that would just cloud up the silver lining again.. so never mind that.

Other players to note, ReShard Lee got some work running the ball (25 yards on 4 carries) plus he returned one Kickoff for 24 yards. Jason Witten caught 3 passes for 18 yards. Mat McBriar averaged 47 yards on 3 punts (something the Cowboys were terrible at last season). Randall Williams caught one pass for 27 yards (the big Cowboys play of the game). Patrick Clayton returned 4 punts, one for 26 yards. Pete Hunter had 4 tackles and 1 forced fumble. Bradie James had 4 tackles and 2 assists. As a team the Cowboys had 16 first downs compared to the Texans 15. The Cowboy had a total of 260 (120 rushing, 140 passing) yards compared to the Texans 272 (129 rushing, 143 passing). The Cowboys were only 3-12 on 3rd downs, the Texans were not much better with 5-14. The Cowboys were not able to record a sack, the Texans had 4 and a safety. The Cowboys had 10 penalties and 5 turnovers compared to only 1 turnover for the Texans and inevitably that is what done them in. It was a very poor showing for Cowboys but then again, it is just preseason.