One of the things I am now struggling with regarding this team is how we are going to get to the next level. It seems as though teams that win super bowls or contend to win super bowls will have one aspect of their team in which they are dominant.

• Pittsburgh had a dominating defense which led to their recent Super Bowl victory.
• The New York Giants turned an above average team in every regard into a Super Bowl winner by basically coming up with a completely dominating pass rush in the last part of the season.
• The Indianapolis Colts had a dominant passing game - and on and on...

When I look at the current version of our Dallas Cowboys I see some areas where we could be dominant - I used to think the passing game but that no longer leaps to mind. Here are the things, in my opinion of course, that could propel us to be a Super Bowl contender:

1) the pass rush - we led the league in sacks - we have the talent to be a dominant pass rushing team.

To take full advantage of our pass rush, we need to make sure we cannot be beaten on the ground. We need some run stuffing on the line to get us to third down where we can attack. This may seem obvious but not necessarily if we do not make it a priority to get some size on the line to move the pile back on 1st and second down. This means a true noseguard for starters - I have not seen this addressed via free agency and I am now worried we don't find this a priority at all because of the play of Jay Ratliff. Jay needs help...

Brooking will help at ILB but again we need more depth and talent here...we are loaded at OLB but need some help inside...

Lastly we need a safety to help patrol the deep passing lanes to make our pass rush even deadlier...

2) the running game - with our offensive line and the trio of talented and diverse backs we now have we need to become a run-first team. This is where a Parcells-style coordinator and attack would flourish - this was the offense he was trying to build - 2 TEs to balance the formation and explosive backs to keep teams off balance. Now that we have this unit in place if we spend all game long trying to spread the ball all over the field with passes we will be missing out on a real opportunity...

I am not trying to make Romo a bus driver but I do think we need to bring the offense in a bit. We especially need to shorten the pass routes - Romo spent a lot of timing scrambling last season when WRs were still running deep corner routes, etc with their backs to him. Witten was his only blanket and teams knew it - we cannot have that this season.

Keep it short, quick and pull teams in and then you can burn them later with a play action deep pass...

3) Special Teams - by this I mean our specialty kickers not our coverage units. We have two very solid weapons in McBriar and Folk - we need to use them to help us manage the game. We need a complete overhaul of our coverage units however and this needs to be a major focus in the offseason...

If we play smart and limit our liabilities we may go far this season. Some people may think it is boring. I am of the camp that winning is never boring - you must play to your strengths or you will take yourself out of games you should be winning. In my opinion this happened way too many times last season which is why we fell short of the playoffs yet again...