Cowboys aren’t same team we saw in September

GLENDALE, Ariz. — Three weeks ago, we thought they walked on water.

OK, they walked on Green Bay and Lake Erie, if nothing else.

Tony Romo and the Dallas Cowboys had humbled the Packers, slipped past the Philadelphia Eagles and overwhelmed the Cleveland Browns.

Marion Barber seemed unstoppable. Terrell Owens seemed uncatchable. And quarterback Romo was performing so well, changing water into wine weekly, that no one cared any more whether Jessica Simpson showed up at Texas Stadium or not.

Now look at them.

Owens can’t get open. Romo can’t seem to hold onto the football. And now even the Cardinals — once considered the Cowboys’ unofficial Arizona farm team — are having their way with the formerly odds-on Super Bowl-favorite Cowboys.

How did this happen? How did the NFC suddenly get turned so inside-out?

How could we have been so wrong about this Cowboys team that seemed so right?

Don’t ask the owner or head coach, of course.

When asked if his team, loser of two of its previous three games, is living up to the early season’s lofty expectations, owner Jerry Jones said unwaveringly, "Absolutely."

"I wouldn’t have thought that we’d be sitting here, 6-and-0," Jones said. "I like 4-and-2 [the Cowboys’ won-loss record after Sunday’s 30-24 overtime defeat]. I really do."

Jones went as far as to suggest that even a cursory analysis could have seen this coming.

"We played a real good team today at their home," Jones went on. "And anybody who doesn’t think you can lose a game like this doesn’t understand reality."

Ah, the old, trite Life on the NFL Road argument.

But these were the Cardinals, and a week ago’s struggle came against the winless Cincinnati Bengals. And before that, the Cowboys were beaten conclusively by the division rival Washington Redskins.

What’s happened to the ’Boys of September?

The opinions coming from the locker room Sunday ran the gamut of simplicity, from receiver Patrick Crayton saying that the Cowboys need an old-fashioned posterior-chewing to veteran linebacker Zach Thomas’ unvarnished reply, "We just have to win."

The numbers show the symptoms. During the three-game sweep to start the season, running back Barber gained 285 yards and had a 4.6-yard rushing average. In the three games since, Barber has 110 yards and a 3.2-yard average. He had four rushing touchdowns to begin the season, and none since.

Circumstances turned Barber into a prolific short-route receiver Sunday, as the Cowboys struggled to grasp for any semblance of an upper hand.

But when the offensive line isn’t consistently doing its job, and when Romo is having to fox-trot his way around and away from the pocket, the Cowboys’ offense seems to settle into a blur of draw plays, dump-offs to the running back and third-down throws to tight end Jason Witten.

This offense is supposed to be better than that. Romo, who signed for six years and $67.5 million, is being paid to be better than that.

At the least, he needs to take better care of the football.

Sundry premature whistles and fortuitous rules interpretations were the only things Sunday that separated Golden Boy from being charged with five fumbles.

Romo’s passing numbers were good, as they tend to be. But he was as culpable a reason why the Cowboys lost Sunday as anybody.

He, too, hasn’t had a good game in three weeks.

Yet, there was Owner Jones on Sunday, standing by his quarterback.

"Romo is Romo," Jerry said. "We’ve got a chance as long as he’s playing like he’s been playing."

In the first three games, the Cowboys had 17 runs of 10 or more yards. In the three games after that, they had six.

Better opposition these past three weeks? No question.

But the first few weeks of the season promised much better.

"We need to finish it off," head coach Wade Phillips said.

As receiver Crayton noted, however, "Our thing isn’t finishing. It’s execution."

Six games into the season, the Cowboys’ offense is having trouble with penalties and missed assignments. Romo didn’t seem to have the time Sunday to survey his passing options, nor the stomach for finding them.

Maybe what some other teams reportedly were saying about Romo is true — that if you can pressure him and rough him up early, he’s not quite the scrambler and gambler for the rest of the game.

Theories about the Cowboys are plentiful these days.

Phillips was right. His defense asserted itself early Sunday. The Cardinals only mustered two first downs in the first half.

But in the final two quarters, Arizona’s Kurt Warner completed 15 of 19. He was sacked only once all day.

Between the mistakes and the fumbles, it was a tough game to watch for most of the opening 58 minutes. It hardly deserved the exciting finish that transpired.

You could make a convincing argument, though, that the most deserving team won.

An argument, frankly, that sounded much more convincing than Owner Jones’ "life on the NFL road" answer.

We were wrong about the Cowboys, as it turns out. They aren’t the team that we saw in September.

They have 10 weeks to prove that they aren’t what we’ve seen in October, either.