Cowboys 7 FishTips and Chips To London Win

By Mike Fisher | @fishsports

LONDON (105.3 THE FAN) --  On the eve of Sunday's Dallas-vs.-Jaguars game in London, coach Jason Garrett announced to a crowd that "it's important everybody here understands that the Dallas Cowboys are not only 'America's Team,' but they're 'Great Britain's Team,' too!''

It was a rousing moment. But on Sunday, the Cowboys didn't need to conquer Great Britain. They didn't need to conquer the United States. They simply needs to handle lowly Jacksonville -- which they did, by a score of 31-17.

The seven steps to get to the victory? They were available before the game, on 105.3 The Fan, in our new tradition known as "FishTips'' (or, this week, "Fish And Chips Tips):

Fishtip 1: Romo's hopefully-healing back would indeed impact the gamplan. I was told there would be some max protect. I observed at the Allianz Park Rugby pitch practices the use of bubble-screen and middle-screen passes. And logic told me Dallas would run DeMarco Murray and company at Jax' No. 24-ranked run D.

RESULT: Dallas ran early and Dallas used screen passes. But as the first half progressed, Romo got more and more loose - and also bought more and more time with his mobility. In the second quarter, he and Dez Bryant (six catches for 158 yards) poured it on with two spectacular TD hookups. Romo finished 20/27 for 246 yards and three TDs - and the greatest care taken with him was in the postgame locker room, when team COO Stephen Jones hugged him.

Carefully.

Fishtip 2: The rookies must shine. You get to a point in a season -- Dallas entered Sunday nine games into the year -- when the kids can't be kids anymore. Guard Zack Martin? Surely ready. End Demarcus Lawrence and middle linebacker Anthony Hitchens? They need to grow up NOW.

RESULT: Martin proved again he might be the NFL's best rookie. The Cowboys got clever with Lawrence, aligning him next to interior rushman Melton, and it worked. And Hitchens? Rolando McClain tested his knee but he couldn't go.
So the kid Hitchens handled the job -- and was terrific, with a game-high nine tackles.

FishTip 3: Hey, Anthony Spencer, care to share your thoughts with 105.3 The Fan regarding the UK?''

"I'm realizing how much I love America,'' Spence responded with a smile.

There's some homesickness here. Some threat of lost focus. Some tease away from this being a business trip. But to Garrett's credit, the Cowboys come in on a four-game road win streak. They handle business trips.

RESULT: Make it five straight road wins despite some mushroomed controversy from a national report insisting "20 Cowboys missed curfew on Friday" and that coaches were irate.

Some Cowboys folks are saying there wasn't even a curfew; that's not completely so, as Jason Garrett himself had told me of a midnight curfew.

Three coaches told me there were a few guys who came back to the hotel after midnight but as one said, "it's just not an issue."

Barry Church told me, "I never heard that. Coach Garrett never addressed it."

Dez told me he was in the group that straggled in a bit late.

"It was no problem," Bryant told me. "We really didn't know (about any curfew) because it was a Friday night.

We had a good time. We didn't think nothing about it. It's not an issue at all."

Later, at the hotel, Garrett told me, "We had one bed check all week. That was Saturday. There's nothing here."

What there is is a semantic game - but absolutely no indication of trouble between "irate" coaches and "disrespectful" players.

FishTip 4: The Cowboys offense, even after mediocre work in two straight losses to Washington and Arizona, still leads the NFL in third-down conversions at 53 percent. This is foundational, men-vs.-boys stuff. ... and for Dallas to stay good, that number needs to stay up there.

RESULT: The tone was set early. Thurs-and-1 run. First down on the way to a quick 10 points. Dallas did what it wished to after that.

FishTip 5: The defensive weak link? The Cowboys' foes are converting on third down at a HIGHER rate (44 percent) than they did in the awful 2013 defensive campaign. (Then they number was 43 percent). This is a secret "house-of-cards'' problem for Dallas. Hardly noticed. Barely discussed. Ready to cause a collapse if not fortified.

RESULT: No collapse here, with the D recording a pair of interceptions and ... sacks. The Cowboys defense allowed itself to play "downhill," if you will. Nothing like 2013.

FishTip 6: Playing against rookie QB Blake Bortles is easy, right? Not so fast. Since 2000, playing against rookie QB's, the Cowboys are a weirdly dismal 9-11.

The QB counter? Romo needs to be better than Bortles -- and the Dallas signal-caller is an NFL-best 25-4 in November.

RESULT: Maybe someday Bortles exceeds Romo; he certainly has the pedigree. But in Romovember? Now he's 26-4 and the best on two continents.

FishTip 7: There's no rain in the London forecast. But everyone needs to be ready for thick, loose, mucky Wembley. Dallas will roll out the 1/2-inch cleats, the cold-weather ground game (about to come in handy in upcoming visits to Philly, Chicago, New York and Washington), and a chance to register an eighth win in 12 NFL games for the "visiting team'' in London (against the usually inferior "home team'' that gets that privilege by giving up a home date back in the States).

RESULT: The "home team" lost but the Brits did seem taken by the likes of NFL leading rusher DeMarco Murray (19 totes for 100 yards) - so much so that a UK telly station asked him if he'd like to someday play for a London-based NFL team.
"I love playing for the Cowboys and I love Dallas," DeMarco said, and at 7-3 for the first time since 2009, there's a lot to like.

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