A look ahead to the Cowboys

Romo out. Felix Jones out. Jason Witten with broken ribs and, if not out, probably somewhat limited.

On defense the Cowboys (highly overrated) defensive backfield has their 3 top CBs out.

Seems like we should have an advantage but somehow I'm nervous. Even though Romo is out, the Cowboys have the best skill position players in the NFL. The only pair of WRs that can compare to Cardinals Boldin and Fitzgerald are the Cowboys TO and Roy Williams. I know Brad Johnson is almost as old as I am, but at one time he was a very capable, accurate thrower. Maybe he needed a few games to get the cobwebs out and to oil up his rusty hinge/throwing arm, and he breaks out of it this week. Even with Brad Johnson at qb, you cannot underestimate the Cowboys offense. But you can assume that our defense, which is playing at a fairly high level will hold the Cowboys from exploding with tons of points. Cowboys weakness on offense this year, even when Romo was in there, seems to have been their OL. There is nothing that matches up better with our defense than a somewhat leaky OL. So I think we can assume that even if Johnson plays well, Cowboys won't put up a ton of points. My game plan if I were Cowboys would be to be fairly conservative on offense, try to shorten the game by getting Marion Barber running and hope he has a big game.

My question is - what should the Giants offensive game plan be? Should we assume that our defense will shut down Cowboys offense and the only way we could lose the game is if we make some mistakes and turnovers. That would argue for a fairly conservative game plan. Don't take too many chances, assume Cowboys will not score more than 14-17 points and we can play it safe assuming that even if we play conservatively we will score enough points to win.

Or - we could go for the throat, look at the Cowboys secondary, realize that it is the weak part of the defense when they are healthy and now that they are not, they are even more of a vulnerability. Frankly, I would go for the jugular and try to play aggressively. I have confidence in Eli that he will not make a lot of mistakes and he will be smart with the ball.

If I were the Cowboys, my defensive game plan would be to blitz and gamble all day long. With a beat up DB-field, if you play it straight and conservative, the only way to win is to take some chances. That's especially true when your offense is less likely to bail you out by scoring lots of points. So even though Giants should be appropriately aggressive, they have to watch out for an aggressive, attacking, blitzing game plan from the Cowboys.

That old Wade Phillips, he's a crafty defensive coach. You got to watch out for that guy.