The Dallas Cowboys’ season ended with a heartbreaking loss to the New York Giants in the final game of the 2011 NFL regular season. Here is a look at how the offensive stars finished the game for the Cowboys.

Dez Bryant, Dallas Cowboys
Wikimedia Commons

Tony Romo

Tony Romo came into the Week 17 game with the New York Giants with a bruised hand and seemed like the biggest question mark on the field. However, out of all the players in the game, Romo was the one who came to play. He completed 29-of-37 of his passes for 289 yards and two touchdowns. He also threw an interception and fumbled the ball, but a lot of his problems had to do with bad offensive line play.

Laurent Robinson

Out of all the stars on the Dallas Cowboys’ roster, it is newcomer Laurent Robinson who leads the team in touchdowns with 11. In the final game of the season, while Dallas had few stars step up, it was Robinson who caught both touchdown passes from Romo. Robinson was the Cowboys’ best offensive weapon this season.

Felix Jones

When DeMarco Murray went down with a season ending injury, Felix Jones got his chance to prove he could help the team win. He did fine but it is obvious that the Cowboys need Murray back next year bad. Jones ran for 30 yards and caught seven passes for 47 yards in Week 17. It wasn’t horrible but Dallas needs a better rushing attack in 2012.

Dez Bryant / Miles Austin

Dez Bryant led the team with 70 receiving yards in the game on six receptions in the game. Miles Austin did not do anything of note, with two receptions for 20 yards. Neither man was a solid weapon in this game because Romo had little time to wait for routes to develop before the pass rush reached him.

Jason Witten

Jason Witten finally had a decent game but fell short of the 1000 yard mark for the first time since 2008. He finished the game with seven receptions for 69 yards.

Author Shawn S. Lealos has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma (2000) and has been a Dallas Cowboys’ fan since he was a child. His favorite players range from Roger Staubach and Tony Dorsett to the Triplets of the 90s and he enjoys talking about all Cowboys’ related news, good or bad

Source: dallascowboys.com

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Dallas Cowboys’ tight end Jason Witten missed the Pro Bowl in 2011, his first time to miss the big game in eight years. Witten played in the Pro Bowl from 2004-2010, but in 2011, it is Tony Gonzalez and Jimmy Graham getting the call instead.

Jason Witten, Dallas Cowboys
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While Dallas fans might complain about his omission, the fact is that Witten, once the best tight end in the NFL, is now realistically not even the third best in the NFC.

Jimmy Graham has given the New Orleans Saints something they have not had, a tight end who can contribute major stats for the team’s offense. Heading into the final week of the season, Graham has 91 receptions for 1,213 yards and ten touchdowns. Graham is also only 25 and looks to be the next generation’s Jason Witten.

Tony Gonzalez is at the other end of the spectrum, 35 years old but enjoying his best season since he played for the Kansas City Chiefs in 2008. Heading into the final game of 2011, Gonzalez has 79 receptions for 867 yards and seven touchdowns. The Pro-Bowl loves rewarding legendary comeback players.

Unless Jason Witten has his best game of the 2011 season, he will miss out on 1,000 yards for the first time since 2008. He has 72 receptions for 873 yards and five touchdowns. There is a chance he will have his lowest yardage totals and receptions since 2006.

In the first two games of the season, it looked like Witten was going to have another great season. He had 13 receptions for 113 yards in those first two games. He has not gained 100 yards in a game since. Since pulling down eight receptions in Week 4, he has not caught more than five balls in a game. Over the past three weeks, heading into the season finale, Witten has two games with under 25 receiving yards.

This is not the same Jason Witten that Dallas Cowboys’ fans are used to. He is still a solid player but is a step below what he once was. In 2011, he definitely wasn’t a Pro Bowl tight end.

Author Shawn S. Lealos has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma (2000) and has been a Dallas Cowboys’ fan since he was a child. His favorite players range from Roger Staubach and Tony Dorsett to the Triplets of the 90s and he enjoys talking about all Cowboys’ related news, good or bad

Source: Yahoo! Sports

Note: This article was written by a Yahoo! contributor. Sign up here to start publishing your own sports content.

The Dallas Cowboys have to be concerned heading into the Saturday night game with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 15 of the NFL season. DeMarcus Ware suffered a neck stinger in the loss to Arizona and spent much of the final quarter of the game on the sidelines, as the Cardinals came from behind, to win. He then was in and out of the Giants game, and without him in key moments, Dallas fell again.

Ware missed practice heading into the short week game but should be ready for the Buccaneers’ game.

Ware said that missing a lot of the Giants game, despite the Cowboys losing, was better for him because now he is ready to go. That is good news for the Dallas Cowboys and bad news for Josh Freeman and the Bucs.

On the 2011 season, Ware sits at 15 sacks on the season, tied for second in the NFL. He took the lead two weeks ago but Jared Allen roared back with three sacks in Week 14. Of course, Ware has four double-digit sack games in the year, so don’t count him out.

Don’t look at Ware’s game against the Giants, with his four tackles, two solo, and no sacks for his status this week. There have been four games this season he did not record a sack but he has never gone back-to-back games without a sack this season. The Buccaneers are decent protecting their quarterback, only allowing 24 sacks on the season, but Ware is pretty good as well.

At one point this season, DeMarcus Ware was on pace to break Michael Strahan’s record of 22.5 sacks in a season. However, Ware now needs 7.5 sacks in the final three games, which is not likely. What is possible is Allen’s chance to break the record, needing only five in three games. You can bet Ware wants to keep his name in the race.

Over seven seasons, Ware has never missed a game with an injury. He didn’t miss the Giants game, although he was ineffective. Ware should definitely be ready to make up for it against the Buccaneers.

Author Shawn S. Lealos has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma (2000) and has been a Dallas Cowboys’ fan since he was a child. His favorite players range from Roger Staubach and Tony Dorsett to the Triplets of the 90s and he enjoys talking about all Cowboys’ related news, good or bad

Source: dallascowboys.com

Note: This article was written by a Yahoo! contributor. Sign up here to start publishing your own sports content.

IRVING, Texas – The Dallas Cowboys did everything expected from them in November. They played four games and won them all.

They didn’t exactly get better as they went along, and they didn’t exactly face the toughest foes in the toughest circumstances. Yet they always found a way to win, and there’s something to be said about that.

It remains to be seen whether this group led by Tony Romo, DeMarcus Ware and rookie sensations DeMarco Murray and Dan Bailey can consistently beat winning teams in high-stakes games. But the bottom line on this recent surge is that they’ve put themselves in position to find out.

The Cowboys (7-4) will head into the final five weeks of the season atop the NFC East. They’ll either be tied with the Giants or a game ahead of them, depending on what happens when New York plays in New Orleans on Monday night.

“We needed to get going,” Romo said. “We had some tough losses earlier in the year, and we were in position to win some games. At some point you’ve got to get on a roll and stack the wins together. Getting these four wins was very big.”

Dallas and New York still have two meetings left, including the finale on the road on New Year’s Day. The Cowboys’ other three games are all against teams with losing records, but none are gimmes. They’ll be on the road against Arizona and Tampa Bay, and both are .500 at home, and they will play host to Philadelphia on Christmas Eve.

The Eagles were the last team to beat the Cowboys, and they spanked them 34-7 in the most lopsided loss of coach Jason Garrett’s tenure. Philadelphia also is coming off a victory over the Giants and could be back in the division race by then.

Thus, it all comes back to how Dallas plays down the stretch. Do well, and the Cowboys will make the playoffs. Struggle, and they’ll give Garrett and owner-GM Jerry Jones a better idea of which players are and aren’t keepers in 2012 and beyond.

“We’re trying not to think of it in the overall big-picture yet,” Romo said. “It’s strictly about the week-to-week and the process. … At the end of the year, those things will add up and that’s what will be talked about.”

Romo laughed as he said that, admitting he was parroting some of Garrett’s pet phrases. He knows that over the three-day weekend — the reward for having played three times in 12 days — everyone will be analysing how far they’ve come and what they have left to return to the playoffs after a bottoming-out season last year.

“We’ll come back to work on Monday and hopefully everybody gets a chance to decompress a little bit, take a breath, get refreshed and ready to go and we’ll get … going again,” Garrett said.

The Cowboys wouldn’t be in such great shape without the emergence of Murray and Bailey.

Murray was a third-round pick who was expected to help complement Felix Jones. The lockout and a hamstring injury slowed him so much that when Jones went out with an injury, Dallas didn’t immediately hand him the job. Then he ran for 253 yards in a game he didn’t start and there was no doubt they had a special player.

Dallas is 5-1 since Murray became the featured runner. He’s gained 761 yards over those six games, which is more than NFL rushing king Emmitt Smith, fellow Hall of Famer Tony Dorsett or any other Cowboys running back has ever had.

Against Miami on Thursday, he showed he can be a closer, the kind of guy who grinds out yards and burns the clock even when everyone knows that he’s coming. On five straight carries, he gained between three and nine yards. He nearly broke one of those into a longer gain but had the presence of mind to fall down in bounds rather than risk getting shoved out of bounds and stopping the clock.

“I’m still growing,” Murray said.

Bailey won a pre-season kicking competition that included a fellow rookie, the incumbent and two veterans. But he didn’t exactly win the job outright as incumbent David Buehler was kept for kickoffs and rookie Kai Forbath went on the non-football injury list, giving Dallas a pair of options just in case.

Buehler is now on injured reserve and Forbath isn’t likely to get a chance here.

Bailey has made 26 straight field goals, one shy of matching the club record and 12 more than any rookie in NFL history. The last two games ended with him making a field goal, and he’s won four games this season with a kick in the final two minutes of regulation or in overtime. No kicker in NFL history had ever done that more than three times.

“Knock on wood, he’s been pretty automatic,” Garrett said. “He’s a very consistent guy, both in his personality and his temperament. … He seems to go out there and kick it through the pipes every time we ask him to do it.”

That’s what the Cowboys have done for the last month. They pulled away from Seattle in the second half, crushed Buffalo and eeked out wins over Washington and Miami. The Redskins and Dolphins each have only three wins, so consider that a potential warning sign.

Or maybe it’s a sign of a team that simply does what it takes to win.

The answer will be revealed over the next five weeks.

IRVING, Texas (AP)—The Dallas Cowboys did everything expected from them in
November. They played four games and won them all.

They didn’t exactly get better as they went along, and they didn’t exactly
face the toughest foes in the toughest circumstances. Yet they always found a
way to win, and there’s something to be said about that.

It remains to be seen whether this group led by Tony Romo(notes), DeMarcus Ware(notes) and
rookie sensations DeMarco Murray(notes) and Dan Bailey(notes) can consistently beat winning
teams in high-stakes games. But the bottom line on this recent surge is that
they’ve put themselves in position to find out.

The Cowboys (7-4) will head into the final five weeks of the season atop the
NFC East. They’ll either be tied with the Giants or a game ahead of them,
depending on what happens when New York plays in New Orleans on Monday night.

“We needed to get going,” Romo said. “We had some tough losses earlier in
the year, and we were in position to win some games. At some point you’ve got to
get on a roll and stack the wins together. Getting these four wins was very
big.”

Dallas and New York still have two meetings left, including the finale on
the road on New Year’s Day. The Cowboys’ other three games are all against teams
with losing records, but none are gimmes. They’ll be on the road against Arizona
and Tampa Bay, and both are .500 at home, and they will play host to
Philadelphia on Christmas Eve.

The Eagles were the last team to beat the Cowboys, and they spanked them
34-7 in the most lopsided loss of coach Jason Garrett’s tenure. Philadelphia
also is coming off a victory over the Giants and could be back in the division
race by then.

Thus, it all comes back to how Dallas plays down the stretch. Do well, and
the Cowboys will make the playoffs. Struggle, and they’ll give Garrett and
owner-GM Jerry Jones a better idea of which players are and aren’t keepers in
2012 and beyond.

“We’re trying not to think of it in the overall big-picture yet,” Romo
said. “It’s strictly about the week-to-week and the process. … At the end of
the year, those things will add up and that’s what will be talked about.”

Romo laughed as he said that, admitting he was parroting some of Garrett’s
pet phrases. He knows that over the three-day weekend—the reward for having
played three times in 12 days—everyone will be analyzing how far they’ve come
and what they have left to return to the playoffs after a bottoming-out season
last year.

“We’ll come back to work on Monday and hopefully everybody gets a chance to
decompress a little bit, take a breath, get refreshed and ready to go and we’ll
get … going again,” Garrett said.

The Cowboys wouldn’t be in such great shape without the emergence of Murray
and Bailey.

Murray was a third-round pick who was expected to help complement Felix
Jones(notes). The lockout and a hamstring injury slowed him so much that when Jones
went out with an injury, Dallas didn’t immediately hand him the job. Then he ran
for 253 yards in a game he didn’t start and there was no doubt they had a
special player.

Dallas is 5-1 since Murray became the featured runner. He’s gained 761 yards
over those six games, which is more than NFL rushing king Emmitt Smith, fellow
Hall of Famer Tony Dorsett or any other Cowboys running back has ever had.

Against Miami on Thursday, he showed he can be a closer, the kind of guy who
grinds out yards and burns the clock even when everyone knows that he’s coming.
On five straight carries, he gained between 3 and 9 yards. He nearly broke one
of those into a longer gain but had the presence of mind to fall down in bounds
rather than risk getting shoved out of bounds and stopping the clock.

“I’m still growing,” Murray said.

Bailey won a preseason kicking competition that included a fellow rookie,
the incumbent and two veterans. But he didn’t exactly win the job outright as
incumbent David Buehler(notes) was kept for kickoffs and rookie Kai Forbath(notes) went on the
non-football injury list, giving Dallas a pair of options just in case.

Buehler is now on injured reserve and Forbath isn’t likely to get a chance
here.

Bailey has made 26 straight field goals, one shy of matching the club record
and 12 more than any rookie in NFL history. The last two games ended with him
making a field goal, and he’s won four games this season with a kick in the
final 2 minutes of regulation or in overtime. No kicker in NFL history had ever
done that more than three times.

“Knock on wood, he’s been pretty automatic,” Garrett said. “He’s a very
consistent guy, both in his personality and his temperament. … He seems to go
out there and kick it through the pipes every time we ask him to do it.”

That’s what the Cowboys have done for the last month. They pulled away from
Seattle in the second half, crushed Buffalo and eeked out wins over Washington
and Miami. The Redskins and Dolphins each have only three wins, so consider that
a potential warning sign.

Or maybe it’s a sign of a team that simply does what it takes to win.

The answer will be revealed over the next five weeks.