jeffreymark

FROM AMERICA'S TEAM TO AMERICA'S BOZOS

I couldn't agree with Dallas Morning News' Michael Wilbon more who rightly labeled the Dallas Cowboys America's most overrated team:

The Dallas Cowboys could be the single most overrated team in football ... maybe the single most overrated team in all of professional sports in America. The franchise has won one playoff game since 1996. Every acquisition they make, every game they win is overstated. Their players are overly praised. They haven't mattered in a decade nearly as much as the New England Patriots or Pittsburgh Steelers or Indianapolis Colts or even the New York Giants or Philadelphia Eagles in their own division.

Every single thing about the Cowboys, in recent years anyway, has been overdone. They come into every season being picked to win something between a division and the Super Bowl but limp out to great disappointment annually.

This season the hype has been attached, most specifically, to the Cowboy's offense, to the supposed damage Romo and Miles Austin, Dez Bryant and Felix Jones are going to do, blah, blah, blah. Yet, the Cowboys looked like a bunch of stumblebums in the preseason, and pretty much the same through three quarters of the regular season opener Sunday night.

And no part of the evening was more humiliating for Dallas than the final play of the second quarter, the one that gift-wrapped a 10-0 lead for the Redskins, a play that should never, ever happen beyond high school.

(via Professor Bainbridge)

 

COWBOYS STINK IT UP II

Dallas Cowboy's looked so bad they earned a spot on the Drudge Report with the headline "D Is For Disaster and this link to the Dallas Morning News.

DALLAS COWBOYS STINK IT UP

After today's shellacking from the Philadelphia Eagles, plenty of finger pointing emerged from the fan base. Yet, Jerry Jones promised to keep Wade Phillips . Terrance Newman blamed the miserable season on the players. Tony Romo, who in my opinion is a flash in the pan and part of the problem, (I don't like dimwits who blame quarterbacks for a team's ills) implicated Jason Garret as a weak link:

T.O.'s frustration with Jason Garrett's offense is old news that gets rehashed on a weekly basis. But you can't just dismiss T.O.'s concerns because of his history of battling coaches.
Especially since Tony Romo agrees that the league has caught up with a lot of what Garrett calls.
Romo didn't call out Garrett by name after the loss to the Eagles. But the Cowboys' two highest-profile playmakers made it clear that Garrett should shoulder a large share of the blame for the Cowboys' offensive woes.
"They exposed us," Romo said. "It's something that we do fundamentally offensively. So give them credit. Give [Eagles defensive coordinator] Jim Johnson credit."
Romo, who completed 21 of 39 passes for 183 yards and committed three turnovers, specifically pointed to the way the Eagles attacked the Cowboys' pass protection. He said the Eagles were able to get blitzers free while taking away the "hot" receivers by playing tight man coverage.
It's the second consecutive week Romo mentioned that the Cowboys were outschemed, particularly in pass protection. That doesn't shine a favorable light on the job done by Garrett and offensive line coach Hudson Houck, who was a major downgrade from Tony Sparano.
"Scheme is a major, major part of it that the normal fan or writer doesn't understand sometimes," said Romo, who promised that the Cowboys would be better next season. "If you're put in a really good situation, it really allows your team to be successful a lot. That's why I think some games, it's easy to say, 'Well, he didn't play good.' A lot of it is scheme."

Obviously the talent base did not play up to its potential. And I must admit, Romo looked like his back hurt him every time he went down. I don't think he felt well. Romo's erratic play, however, is quickly becoming institutionalized. Looks like some difficult analysis must take place during the off season. A blind hunch tells me that injuries and the lack of corporate cohesiveness led to the Cowboy's demise this season. I guess time will tell. 

DALLAS COWBOY'S WOES

The Dallas Cowboy's, a team Troy Aikman called the best in the NFL, must now enter emergency mode. Today's shellacking at the hands of the St. Louis Rams looks like a joint effort between the defense and a Romo-less offense. Stats were dead even except for Cowboy turnovers and Ram's running back Steven Jackson's 160 yards rushing on 25 carries. A more intangible problem exists, however, with the Cowboy's demise. First of all, dissension infects the camp. Last week several key players in television interviews displayed their disgust with the direction of the team. Coupled with Pacman Jone's latest kerfluffle we may be looking at a cancer in the organization. Furthermore, while I hesitate to initially blame a team's woes on the coach, I remain skeptical of Wade Phillips' expertise. As a head coach Phillips has yet to prove he is a champion. Phillips sports a mere .572 career winning percentage. In 1993 Phillips replaced Dan Reeves as the Denver Bronco's head coach. The following year they fired Phillips stating a loss of control of the team as the primary reason. Except for last year's playoffs Phillips managed to direct his teams to 3 wild-card games, losing all three. Two years out from the Parcells' era the Phillips' character may be taking hold of the team. And, judging by the past, things might not look so rosy in the future for a Phillips' lead Dallas Cowboys.

DALLAS COWBOY'S STADIUM NAMING RIGHTS

Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys possess the right to feel a bit feel picky about naming rights. They're only the world's most valuable sports franchise worth about $1.5 billion. Read the story and take a video tour of this new state of the art stadium here.

JASON WITTEN A MAN'S MAN

My college age boys love Dallas Cowboys' star tight end Jason Witten. He provides a covert sort of leadership to the team that few know little about. Jason Witten truly follows the Gospel mandate to not let the right hand know what the left is doing. Today in Phoenix, professional football will honor Witten as one of the four finalists for the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Award. The award recognizes players for their work off the field. Read this man's remarkable story and discover why I call him a genuine man's man.

TOM BRADY SPEAKS THE TRUTH

After the Dallas Cowboy's disastrous second half Sunday the the old Romoniacs turned maniacal. The fair-haired darling turned into a pumpkin. Our scapegoat society must always find its sacrificial lamb, and Cowboy fans readily discovered theirs in Tony Romo. A legion of Cowboyites even go so far as to put the blame on blond movie stars. Tom Brady, a man who knows a thing or two about partying, quickly defended Romo:

Other little treats from the weekly Tom-a-thon included Brady calling the Tony Romo-Jessica Simpson blame game “absurd.” (Fans are incensed that Tony, who lost to Eli’s Giants Sunday, spent his off week cavorting in Mexico with the dim-bulb pop star.)

“Everybody has lives,” said Tom. “We work seven months, eight months, out of the year. You still have a life to live. On the weekends you do whatever you do to relax and rejuvenate. It’s not like they can go to the local eatery in Dallas and hang out.”

Like, say Tom and galpal Gisele Bundchen at Extra Virgin in NYC . . . .

“If they caught the ball in the end zone at the end, nobody makes any mention (of the Mexican trip),” said the QB/QT who spent his bye week in the Apple with Gi because, you know, he’s a “homebody.”

“You alleviate a lot of criticism by winning,” said Brady. “That’s what I’ve realized for eight years.”

Romo can't block, play special teams, or catch passes, skills that apparently elude the entire team. And pro athletes notoriously carry on with questionable people. Most of the time they seem to separate their private life from their performance on the field. I once heard Phil Simms mention that a quarterback usually reaches his potential by his third year. This was Romo's first full year. Cut the man some slack and gauge his performance over the next two years. Then come back to the bargaining table.

WITH FRIENDS LIKE TERRELL OWENS...

...who needs any more friends? And T.O.'s right. The Cowboys lost as a team. They dropped passes, stunk it up on special teams, and failed miserably as an offensive line. Watch T.O. speak the truth.

P.S.
He talks like he discovered God. One must admit that T.O. seems a bit different this year. I know a lot of athletes who play in Dallas find God through the Potter's House.

DALLAS COWBOY'S MAKE NEEDED STRATEGIC DECISION

I say get rid of Julius Jones. Who needs him:

The Cowboys coaches are down on Jones, who averaged a career-low 3.6 yards per carry.

In addition, Jones had a sideline outburst in the regular season-finale against Washington. After he was taken out during the middle of a drive, he yelled at the offensive coaches, threw a towel and kicked a piece of equipment. Jones was so mad he walked away from the coaches to the far end of the sideline.

"Well, he didn't make 1,000 yards this year, and there are circumstances involved, and we can't get into all of that," Phillips said. "Marion's had a great year, and you put them both together, and you're talking about a lot of yards from that tailback position."

ROMO GAME CONTROL TIME

With 4:57 left in the game the brilliant Romo must now exercise ball control. Look for Barber to run over and over again. Witten is living up to his reputation as the best tight end in the league. Barber hits the line, turning the lights out on Green Bay. Favre goes back into the locker room. It's all over but the crying. The fat lady's warming up the old pipes. Dandy Don Meredith is singing "Turn Out The Lights The Party's Over," and I'm running out of battery. The Boys are on their way to an exciting rematch with New England. See you guys in the Super Bowl.