Julius Jones & Marion Barber gave the Cowboys great production in the running game.  Julius Jones started all 16 games and he carried the ball 267 times for 1,084 yards (4.1 ypc) with 4 TD runs.  He also caught 9 passes for 142 yards (15.8 avg).  For his career, Jones has played in 37 games (35 starts) and he’s carried the ball 721 times for 2,896 yards (4.0 ypc) with 16 TD runs.  He also has caught 61 passes for 469 yards (7.7 avg), but has never caught a TD pass.

Marion Barber had a great season for the Cowboys.  He played in all 16 games and carried the ball 135 times for 654 yards (4.8 ypc) with 14 TD runs.  He also has caught 23 passes for 196 yards (8.5 avg) with 2 TD catches.  For his career, Barber has played in 29 games (3 starts) and he’s carried the ball 273 times for 1,192 yards (4.4 ypc) with 19 TD runs.  He also has caught 41 passes for 311 yards (7.6 avg) with 2 TD catches.

Tyson Thompson had his season cut short due to injury.  He played in 7 games this season and carried the ball 13 times for 30 yards (2.3 ypc) with 1 TD run.  For his career, Thompson has played in 22 games and has carried the ball 59 times for 212 yards (3.6 ypc) with 1 TD run.  He also has caught 3 passes for 16 yards (5.3 avg).

Lousaka Polite didn’t do much this season.  He played in 12 games this season and carried the ball 7 times for 18 yards (2.6 ypc) and he caught 2 passes for 21 yards (10.5 avg).  For his career, Polite has played in 27 games (3 starts) and he’s carried the ball 9 times for 26 yards (2.9 ypc).  He also has caught 12 passes for 97 yards (8.1 avg) with 1 TD grab.

I must have had a crystal ball as Bill Parcells called it quits after I predicted it.  It really wasn’t hard to figure out.  Jones brought in Parcells to win playoff games and he never did that in Dallas.  Parcells also didn’t want to coach another season with Terrell Owens on his team and who could blame him. 

I have a feeling that Jerry Jones over ruled Coach Parcells about adding T.O. and about changing the QB.  Drew Bledsoe was brought to Dallas because he was one of Parcells’ boys and I have a hard time believing that Parcells would bench a veteran for essentially an undrafted free-agent.  Parcells likes to make all the decisions when it comes to picking the players and I think Jones doesn’t like to let him have that power.  The Cowboys made the playoffs, but they lost a disappointing game to the Seahawks and only finished 9-7 on the season.  For his career, Parcells now has a record of 172-130 (57%) during the regular season and 11-8 in the post season.  In his four years for the Cowboys, Parcells record now stands at 34-30 (53.1%) in the regular season and 0-2 in the post season.

As frustrating as it was to see Tony Romo screw up the snap in the playoff game, the Cowboys would have never gotten the chance to play in that game without Romo’s play at QB.  Romo played in all 16 games (started 10 at QB) and completed 220 of 337 passes (65.3%) for 2,903 yards with 19 TD passes and 13 interceptions (95.1 QB Rating).  He also carried the ball 34 times for 102 yards (3.0 ypc).  The only difference between last year’s stats and his career numbers are that he’s carried the ball 36 times in his career for 100 yards (2.8 ypc).

Drew Bledsoe started the first 6 games of the season and didn’t play too well before Parcells benched him in favor of Tony Romo.  Bledsoe completed 90 of 169 passes (53.3%) for 1,164 yards with 7 TD passes and 8 interceptions (69.2 QB Rating).  He also carried the ball 8 times for 28 yards (3.5 ypc) with 2 TD runs.  For his career, Bledsoe has played in 194 games (193 starts) and has completed 3,839 of 6,717 passes (57.2%) for 44,611 yards with 251 TD passes and 206 interceptions (77.1 QB Rating).  He also has run the ball 385 times for 764 yards (2.0 ypc) with 10 TD runs.

Everyone will always remember Tony Romo mis-handling a snap on a game-winning FG attempt, but their were many other factors that led to this awful loss that ended the Cowboys season.  The play that also sticks out in my mind is when Terry Glenn fumbled deep in Cowboys territory and the ball went out of the endzone for a safety to cut the Cowboys lead to 20-15 in the 4th quarter.  Then the defense, that had played well most of the game, lost track of TE Jerramy Stevens who got loose for a 37 yard TD in the 4th quarter to give the Seahawks a 21-20 lead.  That set up Tony Romo to lead the offense right down the field at the end of the game to give Martin Gramatica a chance to win the game….but he couldn’t handle the snap.

Julius Jones had a great game for the Cowboys as he carried the ball 22 times for 112 yards (5.1 ypc).  Tony Romo had a decent game as he completed 17 of 29 passes for 189 yards with a TD.  Terrell Owens and Terry Glenn both dropped alot of passes in this game and that really hurt the Cowboys cause in this football game.

The defense was led by linebackers Bradie James (11 tackles) and Akin Ayodele (10 tackles) who bottled up Shaun Alexander (24 car, 69 yards, 2.9 ypc) and took the running game away from the Seahawks offense.  But, the Cowboys didn’t look prepared for the Seahawks to be throwing the ball alot to TE Jerramy Stevens and that hurt them badly as Stevens wound up with 5 receptions for 77 yards with 2 TD grabs.

Miles Austin also had a huge play in the 3rd quarter as he returned a kick-off 93 yards for a TD right after Hasselbeck’s first TD strike to Stevens to give the Cowboys the lead at the time 17-13.

The Cowboys deserved to win this football game, but, they made a couple of huge errors that doomed them and will have the whole off-season to think of what might have been.

http://scores.espn.go.com/nfl/boxscore?gameId=270106026