Imagine what Dallas Cowboys coach Wade Phillips is going to feel like tomorrow going over his checklist of things his team was supposed to do against the New England Patriots yesterday. First, of course, must have been “Stop the run.” (I don’t know that that was actually at the top of the list, but most NFL coaches usually start with that one.) The Cowboys did, stuffing the Patriots runners for a mere 75 yards in 29 carries. Keith Faulk had one run for nine yards; it was New England’s only gain on the ground longer than four yards.

Second must have been “Establish our run.” The Cowboys did, given the limited number of opportunities they had to run the ball: Julius Jones and Marion Barber ripped New England nine for 98 yards in 14 carries.

Then, “Put pressure on Brady.” They did, sort of, sacking him three times, which doesn’t sound like much, but it was as many times as Brady had been sacked in New England’s previous five games, and one of those caused a fumble and was returned by defensive end Jason Hatcher for a TD. And, needless to say, “Protect Tony Romo.” The Cowboys’ offensive line did a pretty good job of doing this, allowing just two sacks and three other hits on their quarterback.

I don’t know how close to the top it was, but “Cover Randy Moss” had to be a priority, and the Dallas secondary did that well, limiting him to only six catches for 59 yards, becoming the first team all year to hold him under 10 yards a catch.

So, Phillips must be scratching his head right about now and asking, “How did we do all those things and still get romped?” Well, the penalties — 12 for 98 yards, three of them negating plays that gained yardage — didn’t help. But you sort of had the feeling watching the game that if the Cowboys hadn’t drawn a single flag all day, it wouldn’t have changed the final score, 48–27, by a point.

The truth is that even without a running game and with Moss covered, New England was able to do pretty much what it wanted, when it wanted. Brady completed 18 passes to Donte’ Stallworth and Wes Welker for 260 yards and three touchdowns, and the way it looked on television was that if you told Brady he had to complete 11 more of those in order to win, he would have done it. Even when the Cowboys pulled ahead briefly in the third quarter, 24–21, it seemed as if all New England’s coaches had to do was interrupt Brady (who was sitting on the sidelines as calm as if he was reading a text message from his girlfriend) and remind him that it was the Patriots’ ball again.

This game was being billed as a Super Bowl preview, and it possibly was. The truly scary part for Dallas is that if they do face the Patriots again in the final game, they won’t even get to play it on their own home field.

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Brett Favre has accomplished some amazing things in his 17-year career with the Green Bay Packers, but nothing topped what he did in Sunday’s 17–14 win against the Washington Redskins. Favre won the game, while sitting on the bench.

Favre completed just 19 of 37 passes for only 188 yards, didn’t throw a touchdown pass, and was intercepted twice. The Packers made 13 first downs and gained a paltry 225 yards but won the game when, in the third quarter, defensive lineman Corey Williams knocked the ball out of the hands of Santana Mosson an end-around and defensive back Charles Woodson scooped it up and ran it back 57 yards for the winning TD. Yet the headline of the Associated Press’s game recap read “Favre leads Green Bay to 5–1 after win over Washington.”

For the season, Teflon Brett is averaging a mediocre 6.9 yards per throw with just nine touchdowns against six interceptions, but he is leading the league in Most Headlines Per Touchdown.

As for the Washington Redskins, it has to be a huge disappointment to lose a game in which they had a chance to go 4–1 and outgained their opponent by 80 yards, holding them to a single offensive touchdown. Washington was only 5–11 last year, but played more like a legitimate 8–8 or even 9–7 team on the rare occasions when their starting defensive unit were all in the lineup together. The Skins certainly couldn’t pin this loss on the defense, which in fact has allowed an average of just 14 points a game so far this season. They lost this one on careless penalties (seven of them for 53 yards, negating 40 yards in offense) and fumbles (four made and two lost, including Moss’s, while the Packers were lucky enough to recover all four of theirs).

Former Auburn star Jason Campbell is a better passer than his NFL passer rating would indicate; he was averaging 7.7 YPA before yesterday’s game but has managed only five TD passes this year, mostly because of atrocious pass blocking. In the crucial fourth quarter, for instance, he was sacked twice and knocked down four times on two consecutive possessions when the Redskins desperately tried to mount an offense. In all, he was knocked down 22 times.

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Speaking of quarterbacks who should sue their offensive line for lack of support, Cincinnati’s Carson Palmer has got to be the unluckiest passer in pro football. With yesterday’s 27–20 loss to the undistinguished Kansas City Chiefs, the Bengals are now 1–4 and probably out of serious contention for a playoff spot. But Palmer’s numbers, considered in the right context, are MVP-worthy. With 320 yards and two touchdowns against K.C., his numbers this year are 1,491 yards in five games with 12 TDs against eight interceptions. For his career, Palmer now has 90 TD passes in four seasons with only 51 interceptions, and a fine 7.4 YPA, excellent statistics for any passer but remarkable for one on a team this bad. Palmer was sacked “just” four times by K.C. to give him “only” nine for the year, but as he was knocked down at least 15 other times, he must rank among the league’s most battered QBs. That’s what he was last year when he was hit 56 times, highest in the league.

Quarterbacks traditionally have a longer shelf life than running backs, but not when they play behind this kind of pass protection. I’m not going to say that Carson Palmer is the best QB in the NFL, but I am suggesting that if he played behind the same kind of protection as Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, or Ben Roethlisberger, he might be.

Mr. Barra is the author of “The Last Coach: A Life of Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant.”