Moore: Cowboys’ McGee engineers 24
ARLINGTON - When you are 221 days removed from your endure football game, when your caper spends its off-season in courtrooms as an alternative of on mode fields, this is what football looks like. Welcome back, NFL. The Cowboys and nine other teams kicked off the league’s preseason timetable Thursday night.
The quarry between the Cowboys and Denver Broncos went the behaviour pattern you would await - reduced initiative by the starters before it was turned over to reserves and players who will never set foot on the contestants for a regular-season game. For those who protect track of these things, the Cowboys won, 24-23, on a recent comeback engineered by quarterback Stephen McGee. It conspicuous the Cowboys’ following consecutive realize in their preseason opener.
But preseason openers don’t set the accent for the upcoming season. These affairs are cast-off to scrape the rust off the starters and compute the backups while the owner and coaches hold their stir that no key players are injured. Other than a thrust aside injury to backup safety Danny McCray, the Cowboys came out in one piece on the injury front. Rob Ryan’s defense gave up 74 yards and a tract object in the only series for the starters, and the second society made Broncos backup quarterback Tim Tebow mien like an aerial wizard. The portrayal was slightly more encouraging on the impudent side.
The Cowboys’ starters put together a 10-play, 56-yard interest goal propel in their only possession. Quarterback Tony Romo, competing in a also tourney for the first time since he broke his collarbone here at Cowboys Stadium more than nine months ago, completed three of five passes for 33 yards. "I was excited," Romo said. "It got my juices flowing a picayune bit.
"It was good, and I’m looking foster to my next opportunity." Dez Bryant played in his start with racket since he suffered a disintegrated ankle against Indianapolis on Dec. 5. The receiver has had an marvellous Dadaistic and moved well Thursday, but failed to kind a diving arrest on a third-down shelve pattern. The starter who looked the best was Felix Jones.
The management back picked up 23 yards on three carries. He showed a bust that wasn’t incontrovertible most of terminal season when he broke out of an arm attack and stung the Broncos for 18 yards. "This year I was a not enough more focused on my skills at premier and made the best of what I had with my ease this off-season," said Jones, who will start now that Marion Barber is gone. "I had a slight more metre to work on my craft.
I did a little more unstable work this off-season and put extra time into it." Jones then took a wall off pass and blew between two defenders for a 16-yard gain. "Felix is Felix," omnibus Jason Garrett said.
"I reckon he’s getting more and more smug being that every-down back, but he still has that explosiveness as a sprinter and when he catches the ball out of the backfield." McGee built on what he showed lately in the end season, throwing for 208 yards and three scores behind the third-team line. He scrambled and found sticky end Martin Rucker for the sweet two-point conversion with 15 seconds left.
In the kicking combat between David Buehler and rookie Dan Bailey, the coaching organization saying what it needed to see. Buehler drilled a 42-yard expertise objective on the opening drive. Bailey, an conscientious field-goal kicker whose leg soundness is suspect, sailed his first kickoff out of the end zone. His next three landed in the end zone.
All in all, it was a splendid eventide for the Cowboys. "Line one is irritating to win games," Garrett said. "You’re disquieting to teach your team how to win." Catch David Moore on The Ticket (KTCK-AM 1310) at 8:55 a.m. with The Musers and 4:50 p.m. with The Hardline every heyday during Cowboys training camp.
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August 12 2011 02:51 am | I read by admin
