The New York Giants are preparing for an NFC Wild-Card game Sunday against the Atlanta Falcons. The Dallas Cowboys have already begun another long, unhappy offseason in Valley Ranch. A big part of the reason for that, of course, is the two victories by the Giants over the Cowboys this season -- including the title-deciding one on Sunday night.
Cowboys owner Jerry Jones can do little now except talk about what went wrong. He did that this week during an appearance on 105.3 The Fan in Dallas with Shan and RJ. The Dallas owner could not, as you might expect, bring himself to admit that the Giants were better in 2011, saying only "what it is what it is."
Sports Radio Interviews has the full transcript. Below are a couple of excerpts:
Q: So much expectations. Everything on the line. What went wrong against the Giants?
Jones: "First of all and this can be a familiar story too: We get behind 21 points. We have to move away from a more balanced attack that we would have preferred with running a little more. We obviously didn't get many yards in the game and most of it through the air, but we had to get off our mark a little bit there because of the early mistakes that we made. That again will happen and when it does you are behind the 8-ball immediately and that was a shame because we all saw what those plays were. In general I thought that was the wrong way to start the game and ultimately kept us from being as successful as we had all dreamed would be."
Q: Do you believe the Giants were truly the better team?
Jones: "Well I must say what it is what it is. They won the two games. One here and one there. We think when you look at match ups across the board - I was looking at some things this morning. Of course it is so disappointing to have... [Tony] Romo was the actual fourth-rated passer in the entire NFL and to not be in that playoff? That's terribly disappointing. I wouldn't have thought that would happen. Defensively we had some things we would like to do over again, but still we were 16th in the NFL. You look at the teams - we look at that are going to be in these playoffs. You see New Orleans is the number one offense. New England is second. Green Bay. Then you have Philadelphia. Detroit. San Francisco. Green Bay is 32nd on defense. New England is 31st on defense. The Giants are 27th. We show up well enough to be in this playoff. That is frustrating."
What it is, Jerry, is that the Cowboys are home early for the sixth time in the last eight seasons. Oh, and Dallas has one playoff victory since 1996. The Giants have had the upper hand for a long time, whether JJ can admit it or not.