hilarious take on dallas
Fractals are never-ending patterns created by repeating a simple process over and over in an ongoing feedback loop. Dallas' come-from-ahead loss to a mediocre Chargers team* was a perfect fractal of the one step forward, one step back, fill a hole and open another, load for bear and then blow your own foot off approach that's yielded a 130-130 record for the Cowboys since 1997.
After a Sean Lee interception return staked Dallas to an 11-point lead, the team never scored again. Against the league's 32nd-ranked secondary. With Dez M.F. Bryant on the field the entire time. As is immutably required by the Cowboys' pattern, they mixed in a little failure from a lot of places.
Scrub receivers dropped balls early, while mainstays Bryant and Jason Witten dropped them late.
Their latest bargain-bin stopgap at guard, Ron Leary, committed a brutal hold that killed a third-quarter drive.
A last-gasp drive in the fourth was snuffed when rookie receiver Terrance Williams showed mind-bendingly poor awareness of his position on the field and started stretching the ball out from the 3-yard line, handing the Chargers a game-icing fumble.
Dallas' offense might have had even more opportunities for foot shots had the defense been able to get off the field.
In surrendering four straight scores, the Dallas defenders showed their offensive counterparts that they too had mastered the "spread the fail around" strategy.
Former sixth overall pick Morris Claiborne was consistently abused on short and intermediate throws to rookie Keenan Allen -- and just about anyone else San Diego sent his way.
Dallas' star linebacker duo of Bruce Carter and Sean Lee -- the guys whose coverage skills the ENTIRE DEFENSIVE SCHEME was selected to highlight -- got roasted by Antonio Gates, 33, and Danny Woodhead, who is Danny Woodhead.
Dallas' safeties have to play with their heels almost planted on the goal line to not get beat deep, and are useless in filling the intermediate voids that can kill a Cover 2.
And after some early successes, Dallas' pass rushers -- including future Hall of Famer DeMarcus Ware -- spent the second half on a milk carton against the Chargers' lack-tastic OL.
One interesting thing about the Cowboys' pattern over the last few seasons has been their tendency to beat top-end teams when all their talent rows in the same direction, as they did with the undefeated Colts in '06 and the 13-0 Saints in 2009. Dallas could pull off a similar upset against Denver ... and then blow its own foot off a week later en route to another 8-8 campaign.
The pattern is undeniable.
, but the same goes for teams that just try to run it all the time and not pass, defences are so good these days if you want to win consistently you have to keep them guessing.
