Yesterday, the Cowboys not only lost a game, they lost their grip of first place in the NFC East. And most importantly, their offense lost some respect. Their lack of offensive production yesterday may have given the rest of the league a recipe for beating the Cowboys.

Here’s my advice to the teams that remain on the Cowboys schedule (Kansas City, Carolina, St. Louis, Washington): DON’T WORRY ABOUT THE RUN. The Cowboys are not going to break any long runs. And until they prove that they will, if I’m a defensive coordinator, I simply ignore the Cowboys running game. That is, if you can ignore something that does not exist.

The loss leaves the Cowboys at 7-5 and scrambling with a lot of other teams in the mix for a Wildcard. The Cowboys have 3 very difficult games left. I can see them losing all 3 of those games. By, the way, I can also see them winning all 3 of them.

The offense did not move at all yesterday. They were particularly awful in the first half. The first half, I believe was the most inept offensive performance I can remember in a long time. The Cowboys generated 37 yards on 28 plays in the first half. That’s 4 feet per play! 4 feet!

When an offensive performs poorly, the QB seems to always be the man who gets the blame. Yesterday Drew Bledsoe was chum. He was shark meat. Now he added to problems by not making good decisions. But constantly being under pressure will force a QB to make bad decisions.

I believe the root of the Cowboys problem is their inability of their running game. We are through 12 weeks of the football season and the Cowboys have 26 runs of more than 10 yards. They had runs of 10 and 12 yards yesterday. That is simply unacceptable.

This club does not explode. It does not make a big play.

When an opposing defense never has to worry about you breaking a play, you are in serious trouble as an offensive unit. Right now, Cowboys opponents can basically ignore the running game. If a defense doesn’t have to respect your running game, it is going to be practically impossible to throw the ball effectively.

Yes, the offensive line is hurt. Yes, they are young. And, yes they are lacking in experience. But, it seems like they are getting worse as the year goes on. I don’t want to take anything away from the performance of the Giants defense yesterday. They were definitely dominant. But, the Cowboys needed to break a play at some point in the game.

Things would be much easier for the Cowboys offense if the opposing defense was forced to respect the Cowboys running game.

At this moment, the good and hearty football people of Buffalo, N.Y., are:

1) Chomping wings.

2) Guzzling Molson.

3) Saying "I told you so'' regarding Drew Bledsoe's second-half struggles.

In 2002, Bledsoe moved to the Bills, and was stellar for the first half of the season. In the blue-chip quarterback's first eight games with Buffalo in '02, he was 5-3 and the team was thinking playoffs. How first-half lights-out was Drew in '02? he threw for 16 touchdowns and just five interceptions and averaged 313 yards passing.

Then came the second half. How faded-out was Drew in the last eight games of '02? He threw for eight touchdowns and 10 interceptions and averaged 232 yards passing. The team won just three of its final eight.

See any parallels between Bledsoe's first season in Buffalo and his first season in Dallas?

Dallas began this year with that same 5-3 mark, with Bledsoe playing at a Pro Bowl level. But now the second half is here. The temperature is down. The breathing room is down. And with Sunday's 17-10 loss at New York, Bledsoe's numbers are plunging.

Consider: Dallas beat Philly 21-20 in Game 9, but not because of Bledsoe's dazzling numbers: He was 17-of-24 for 196 yards, with one zany interception and one clutch late-game TD toss.

In Game 10, Dallas beat Detroit 20-7, but Bledsoe was a lousy 12-of-23 for 110 yards.

In Game 11, Dallas played well but lost to Denver, 24-21 in OT. Bledsoe had his ups and downs, completing 29 of 44 passes for 232 yards. He passed for two TDs and ran for another, but also threw a pair of interceptions, including one that was returned for a Broncos TD.

And then yesterday at Giants Stadium in Game 12, Bledoe had no ups. He finished the critical 17-10 loss with crummy numbers (15 of 39 for 146 yards and two interceptions), but they didn't tell the whole story. In the first half, Drew was 4 of 13 for 17 yards. The Cowboys had four turnovers, and Bledsoe had a hand in all of them. Dallas' defense allowed almost nothing. ... and Dallas' offense simply didn't pitch in.

"There are a couple of throws I'll look at on film and want back,'' said Bledsoe, classily addressing the media after a second straight loss. "There are some plays I'd like to do over again.''

This is a quarterback's game. If the QB doesn't play well, the team doesn't do well. Consider again: Bledsoe's four-game numbers to start the second half of the season include 73-of-130 passing for a not-good-enough 56 percent, a paltry 153 yards per game, and a 4-to-5 interceptions-to-TDs ratio.

In the first four games of the second half of the season, Dallas has yet to play well and win.

"If we don't play better offensively," coach Bill Parcells said, "we're not going to do anything."

"Anything'' translates as "qualifying for the playoffs.''

All of this sounds familiar to the Bills fan, who spent the '90's getting slapped around by the Cowboys in Super Bowls and now want Dallas to share in some woe. Get a load of this: During his three years in Buffalo, Bledsoe started 14 road games against teams that finished with winning records. His record was 2-12. He was 99-15 on the road against all opponents, and 23-25 overall.

With the second halves of seasons serving as Drew Bledsoe's albatross.

Bills fans are wrong to put all that on one guy. And I'm not putting a prospective collapse all on Bledsoe; the Cowboys are 7-5, and Drew is a positive reason for a positive record. It's also notable that teammates don't put it on him, either. From the moment he walked into Valley Ranch, he was viewed by other Cowboys as a quality guy and a leader, and he's done nothing to take away from that.

But. ...

When Parcells, talking of the NFC East race, says the Giants now "have a good advantage, but I told the team before the game, the first team to 11 will win it"? Well, with this offense right now, I'm not sure if he means 11 wins or 11 points.

And another but. ...

If you want to worry about the Cowboys and their quarterback, you've picked the right day. The right week. The right month. And the right half of a season.

And the miserable football fans of Buffalo, N.Y., bellies full of wings and Molson and bitterness, love your company.

It’s the biggest game of the season.  It’s the most anticipated regular season Cowboy game in recent history.  It could be called the Cowboy game of the 21^st Century. Today at noon, the Cowboys take on the New York Giants to determine who’s in the NFC East driver’s seat. It’s simply a huge game.

Over the past 45 years, the Cowboys have played in some of the biggest games in the history of the NFL. Some of these games took on their own identity and became NFL Classics… The Ice Bowl…The Hail Mary Game…The Catch….That’s not to mention all the Super Bowl appearances. The Cowboys are no strangers to the NFL spotlight.

Believe me, I’m not going to try to convince you that this game is as important as The Ice Bowl or a Super Bowl. But, I will tell you that this game can make or break the identity of this team. And, it could go a long way to help determine the near future of this organization.

No, a loss would not be devastating. A loss would put the Cowboys 1 game behind the Giants in the division and right in the middle of a gaggle of NFC Wildcard hopefuls. Lose this game and The Cowboys would then have a couple of must wins to close out the season in order to see post-season action.

While a loss wouldn’t kill the Cowboys, a win would not only put them in the driver’s seat in the NFC East, it would also legitimize this team as one of the top teams in the NFC. And that is simply HUGE.

Champions are built during games like this. It’s games like this that Super Bowl Champions look back on and say, “…that’s where I knew we could do it…”

The NFL is about turning points. Sometimes individual games are simply individual games. But sometimes individual games are turning points. When a team is on its way up, they may not realize that they are playing in such games. But when a dynasty looks back on its history they certainly can point to the turning point games.

Look at the Cowboys last dynasty. In the early 1990’s the Cowboys built one of the strongest dynasties in the history of the modern NFL. In 1991 the Cowboys entered week 12 of the season with a record of 6-5. They had just lost 2 in a row and were about to travel to Washington to face the division leading Redskins. The Cowboys won the game 24-21.

At the time, everyone knew it was a huge win for the Cowboys. It was an upset on the road. It was a win against a division rival. And it was a win against the most dominant team in the league.

But, at the time, no one realized just exactly how big that win was. Even though it was a great victory, it only put the Cowboys at 7-5 and a good 4 games behind the division leader. There was still work to do. The team finished out the season with 4 more victories and won their first playoff game in a decade. Not too bad for a team that started the season 6-5. But that’s not the end of the story.

In the 5 years that followed that game against Washington, the Cowboys went 63-21. They appeared in 4 NFC Championship Games and won 3 Super Bowls. They became a dynasty.

Now, all of this may have still happened had the Cowboys lost that ’91 game against the Redskins. But, it is very clear to me that, while no one realized it at the time,  this one game was a turning point for a dynasty.

Today’s game against the Giants on the road could be the same type of game. A loss wouldn’t kill the team…But just think of the possibilities if the Cowboys win.

As the Baseball Winter Meetings approach next week in Dallas, the Rangers are making some very curious comments and decisions. We’ve already questioned the extension that Tom Hicks gave John Hart last week. We’ve already dealt with the unsuccessful attempt to acquire Florida ace Josh Beckett. But now, Jon Daniels has been quoted as saying that Hank Blalock is not on the trading block.

What?!

I hope that this is just political attempt to keep Hank happy in case they don’t trade him. And, please don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that the Rangers need to get rid of Blalock. I am saying that, if the Rangers aren’t willing to trade Blalock then who are they willing to trade.

If the Rangers are serious about acquiring talent through trade, they are going to have to be willing to give up talent in return. To me that means that there is not a man on the roster that the Rangers should consider untouchable. They should be listen to offers for all of their players including Blalock, Soriano, Young, Teixiera and prospects like Danks and Diamond.

The Rangers are in a very precarious position here. I honestly believe that the Rangers will listen to trade offers for any of their players. But, can they really say that publicly? I don’t think so and I don’t expect them to.

It is unfortunate that Blalock’s name was mentioned in the failed Beckett deal. I’m sure that it caused some stress on him and his family. But, you know what? That’s baseball. And Hank’s a big boy. He can take it. No matter what they say publicly, I can only hope that the Rangers are open to listening to all possible trade scenarios.

I believe it is unfair, but, right now the Rangers have a credibility problem with their fans. Ranger fans are under the notion that the team is not really serious about acquiring players. When it comes to off season deals, Ranger fans think that the only thing that is coming out of Arlington is talk.

And, while I believe that perception is inaccurate, I will admit that there is plenty of evidence pointing to that side. Do you remember last year when the Rangers supposedly went after Carlos Delgado? The Rangers were reportedly willing to pay him as much as the Marlins (close to $12 million/yr). But, the deal disintegrated when Delgado refused to be a DH. In the court of public opinion, the Rangers are still paying for deals (or non-deals) like this one.