Silver and BlueBlood

"Yo! Ice Cream Man. Over here!"

The Dallas Cowboys beat the Giants Sunday. If you do not believe me, just ask head coach Wade Phillips. He will delight in telling you all of the good things his team did that day. He will outline all of the ways his team won.

It was, after all, a record-setting day for Tony Romo and a record-tying day for Jason Witten. The defense played well…well, if you don’t count that ridiculous 74-yard Brandon Jacobs “scamper” (if a play that lasts long enough for you to order and receive a Papa John’s pizza can be called a scamper) on a simple swing pass. Special teams were special except for that one little breakdown on the 78-yard punt return for a TD. You know, the one where every Cowboy on the field and half the ones on the sideline had their hands on him, but couldn’t get him to the ground.

Being a Dallas Cowboys fan these days can create enough mixed emotions to cause internal bleeding. On the one hand, of course, you want your team to succeed. You want them to bury the Ghost of Christmases Past and finally show up for December football.

On the other hand, however, you are desperate – desperate - to be rid of a head coach that just doesn’t get it…and never will. Wade Phillips will always have an excuse. He will always take consolation in statistics. He will always defend himself. He will never accept responsibility. He will never demand excellence of his players. He will never command respect.

He will, however, remain the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys if Jerry Jones can find the least excuse to keep him around.

So, as a Cowboys fan, you want success in December, sure. You want your team to finally get a playoff win after thirteen embarrassing years of mediocrity, underachievement, excuses, and disappointment.

But is it worth it?

A conundrum is what it is. Does any football fan want to hear the coach of his favorite team whine like a middle school girl to a room full of media types?

“I coach them the way I want to coach them,” Phillips said in response to a question about whether he ever gets as angry with his players as he does reporters, “And you can report the way you want to report.”

We will, Wade. We will call it like we see it. And what we see is a team that lost an important divisional game because of mental breakdowns and give-ups on four huge plays Sunday. What we see is a team that went into the game against the Giants with sole possession of first place in the NFC East, and came out tied with the Eagles. What we see is the Giants nipping at your heels, a season sweep of your Cowboys in their hip pockets.

What we see is the calendar, Wade. It reads, “December.” What we see is another late-season loss. What we see is you down-playing the loss, defending your team and demanding nothing (well, nothing except the respect you so desperately want from the media).

What we see is a light at the end of a thirteen-year long tunnel and we hope it is an oncoming train…and that it carries you away…far, far away, to a place where Decembers don’t matter, where early season wins are just as important as playoff victories, where stat sheets are equal to scoreboards, where reporters never badger beleaguered coaches, and where “ifs and buts” really are candy and nuts.

It is a wonderful place where all of your dreams can come true, Wade. It is just too bad that Dallas Cowboys fans will be forced to endure one more nightmare just so you can dream.

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Head Cheerleader

Wade Phillips has his Dallas Cowboys sitting rather pretty: They are 8-3 after eleven games and leading the NFC East by one game over the Philadelphia Eagles. After a slow start, their defense has come on strong, proving themselves to be among the best in the league. The offense has sputtered here and there, but has found a spark with Miles Austin as the featured receiver and a stout three-headed running game.

All of that is good. It may not be good enough for Phillips to keep his job with the Cowboys come the 2010 season. His boss, owner and general manager of the Cowboys Jerry Jones, said when asked whether it was important for Phillips’ team to finally post a successful December campaign and finish well, answered:

“I don’t know that it’s any more so for Wade than it is for anybody else on this team. You’re in coaching and then there’s a lot of pressure to win, so that’s there. But what we do here and how we get into these playoffs and get in with an advantage, have a game here [Cowboys Stadium], get a bye, all of those are things that look good for Wade.”

Granted, Jones did not out-and-out admit that if the Cowboys fold like a cheap lawn chair Wade is canned. He did, however, seem to send a less-than-subtle message that goes something like this: “Hey, Wade. You like pretending to be the coach of the Dallas Cowboys? Win a playoff game or playtime is over for you.”

Confronted with Jones’ comments at his daily press conference, Phillips tried to laugh it off at first, but then, more than a little irritated, he gave this response, according to David Moore of the Dallas Morning News:

“If you want to go on records, I don’t know what the determining factor is, I’ve never known. I didn’t know when I was in Buffalo and we were 29-19 in three years that I was going to get fired. I thought I did a heck of a job.

“All I do is try to do the best I can as a coach. I work hard at that. I don’t think I get a lot of respect for that, but that’s the way it goes.”

I know. Sounds like a Rodney Dangerfield quote. “I tell you, I get no respect. My only friend is a dog. I told my wife a man needs at least two friends. She bought me another dog.”

Wade’s insistence on always defending himself – every move, every decision, every loss, every little controversy – gets annoying and sounds like nothing more than a good deal of whining. He feels he never got a fair shake anywhere.

Nobody loves me. Everybody hates me. I am going to eat worms.

People say Wade Phillips is a nice guy. I guess. Nice guys are a dime a dozen.

Great NFL head coaches are few and very far between. Wade does have a nice record as a head coach. He has a nice 30-13 record with the Cowboys. Obviously, he is as good a defensive tactician as there is in the game. But that step between great coordinator and greatness as the main man is a treacherous one. Just ask Cam Cameron, or Butch Johnson, or Charlie Weis, or…

Wade Phillips is good. He is not great. The reason he is not great is that he lacks the leadership skills to be great.

Bill Parcells defends himself at a press conference and the questioner looks and feels silly. Jimmy Johnson would deflect tough questions with a stare that seemed to ask, “Did your mother have any children that lived?”

Phillips, on the other hand, defends himself and it’s like he yanked his own arm off to fend off bloodthirsty sharks. It becomes a feeding frenzy.

It seems that everyone Wade Phillips meets has a stronger constitution than he does. That doesn’t bode well for a man who would lead a band of hardened warriors through treacherous battles, devastating setbacks, debilitating injuries, nay-saying critics, and on to glory.

I think Jerry’s message could be summed up as follows:

Stop whining. Start winning the games that matter most; i.e., late-season, deal-sealing and playoff games. Or…start packing.

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A leaderless locker room is a rudderless ship.

The Dallas Cowboys are a team needing compensation. The absence of sideline leadership under Wade Phillips has led to frequent chaos. The Patrick Clayton flap is just the most recent evidence that there is poor communication between the coaching staff and the men in the trenches. Crayton said he did not even know he had been demoted. No one told him.

I believe him.

A weak head coach heightens the need for players to step forward and become the vocal and spiritual leaders of the team. What exists in the Cowboys organization today is not unlike the Barry Switzer era. That team managed to overcome the absence of a strong head coach, primarily because there were established leaders on both sides of the ball. Michael Irvin, Troy Aikman and Darren Woodson did what Switzer could not – would not – do: they inspired their teammates to rise to every challenge, to meet adversity with single-minded determination, to excel, to exceed expectations.

It didn’t hurt that they happened to be stacked with talented players at practically every position. But history has proven that the most talented team is not always the last team standing. Winning a Super Bowl takes more than talent.

It takes a team.

And a team needs leadership. It needs people confident and strong enough to stand up and say, “Follow me. I know the way.”

It is a mistake to assume that a great soldier will automatically make a great General. The current crop of Cowboys have some great performers. DeMarcus Ware, Jason Witten, Jay Ratliff, and others have proven they have the talent to do their jobs at the highest level. They have yet to prove they can inspire their teammates to do the same.

Enter Keith Brooking.

Brooking is proving himself to be the best off-season move the Cowboys have made in some time…and it isn’t just the quality of his play on the field. Watch him in the defensive huddle. Keep an eye on him when he is on the sideline. Listen to him in interviews. The man has assumed a leadership role on a team in desperate need of a natural born leader.

Brooking hasn’t bullied his way into his new-found role. Nor has he been officially appointed to be the leader of the Dallas defense. He has just been himself. Leaders lead. It is inherent in their nature. Born leaders are the most effective kind.

The idea that a professional football team doesn’t require on-field leaders is just wrong. It is more important at that level than any other. In college, high school, or Pop Warner, the leadership is almost always provided by the coaching staff. But these are grown men, playing their game at the highest level in the world. The rah-rah coach may inspire them, sure. The intellectual football genius coach may instruct them. But it takes a peer with skins on the wall, with a proven track record of his own, and with the innate ability to lead men to truly galvanize them on the field.

Otherwise, you have fifty-four individuals performing. One team will always trump fifty-four individuals.

The Cowboys are just another Brooking or two away from finding themselves in spite of their milk toast head coach.

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