Silver and BlueBlood

Choice run

I am sure NBC’s stellar broadcast crew hoped for a better game to close out Chris Collinsworth’s inaugural season in the catbird seat. They would have loved a nail-biter, a classic, one for the ages.

They didn’t get a nail-biter or a classic. They did get one for the ages. They got the game that finally put an end to so many sorry moments and haunting memories for the Dallas Cowboys, their coach, their quarterback, their owner, and their fans. They got the game that made the D in Dallas big again.

So, welcome to Big D, where the D stands for…

Determination

All year, there was a different look and feel about this team. Stung by his post-game comments a year ago, after his team suffered one of the most humiliating losses in team history— a 44-6 rout at the hands of the Philadelphia Eagles— when he said, “If this is the worst thing that ever happens to me, I have had a pretty good life,” Tony Romo changed his tune. Read the rest of this entry »

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Here's your sign!

“What is crude, crass, classless, Alex.”

(Answer to the Jeopardy question: “What are the three best words to describe a typical Philadelphia Eagles fan?”)

So, Pulitzer candidate and editor of PhiladelphiaEagles.com Dave Spadaro hocked a loogie on the hallowed midfield Star at Cowboys Stadium before last Sunday afternoon’s game, recorded it on his web cam, and posted it to the Eagles’ website, thus forever endearing himself to the City of Brotherly Lust-For-Just-One-Super Bowl-Win-Please.

This from a representative of the organization whose classless coach Buddy Ryan once ordered to fake taking a knee in a game they had well in hand, and then fire a touchdown pass, adding insult to injury. This from the team whose fans gathered in mind-numbing temperatures in that toilet known as Veteran’s stadium to spit on opposing teams and pelt their players and coaches with everything from snowballs to batteries. Read the rest of this entry »

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Ha! You missed!

Cowboys 7, Redskins 6.

One could almost stop there and declare, “Enough said.” But it isn’t enough to repeat the shocking score from the Redskins’ first ever visit to the new Jerry World (aka, Cowboys’ Stadium).

No, we need to dig a little deeper if any lessons are to be learned from a 6-3 Cowboys team barely surviving against a 3-6 Washington squad. So, let us dig.

Lesson One is for Jason Garrett.

Hey, Red! Neither the media, nor the fans, nor a delusional owner are really qualified to hammer out a game plan. We know you took so much flak from all quarters after the Green Bay bit-spitting, that you decided you would show everyone and just run, run, run the ball.

Come on, man. Be a man. Plan your work and work your plan. Tell Jerry that he hired you to do a job and he can either allow you to do it or quit beating around the bush and do what he always dreamed of doing anyway: Namely, put on the headset and call the plays himself.

Granted, the plan Jason Garrett rolled out looked like it might work until the Marion Barber fumble deep in Redskins’ territory stalled the maiden drive. Still, Garrett ran and ran and ran some more. He ran so much that the passing game never really got untracked until desperation set in late in the fourth quarter, when it became eminently obvious that an upset was not only possible, but increasingly likely.

Everyone clamoring for more “balance” in the Cowboys’ attack might check the numbers from yesterday’s game. The running and passing were almost dead even. And the offense managed but seven points against a team that is contending for exactly nothing in 2009.

Lesson Two is for Wade Phillips.

Wade, you physical specimen, you. I cannot tell you how ridiculous you look when, after your defense has allowed the opponent to march into field goal range, only to have their kicker misfire, and you start fist-pumping and high-kicking like your team just accomplished something.

Please note that an unforced error by your opponent is not validation of your team’s prowess. Your defense was stellar and gave you plenty of opportunities and reasons to celebrate. Capitalize on those, if you must. Do cartwheels when they sack the quarterback, force a fumble, or get a pick to seal the deal (as they did yesterday). Just, please, for the sake of dignity, stop waving your pom poms on missed field goals.

Lesson Three is for Roy Williams.

Dear Roy, you are not in Midland anymore. You are not even in Austin. This is the NFL. You will not be able to put yourself on cruise control and rely on your natural talent to elevate you to the heights you envision for yourself. Everyone here is talented. And most of them are determined.

Get yourself some of that determination.

Lesson Four is for the Dallas Cowboys fan.

Your team is good, not great. They are talented, but not singularly talented.

The Dallas Cowboys have enough talent on the field to do some real damage in the playoffs, but the head coach is weak and the owner/general manager is…well, he’s Jerry. Enthusiasm for the team’s progress must be tempered by the knowledge that a weak head coach winning a Super Bowl title is an extremely rare occurrence in NFL history.

Lesson Five is for all of us.

This is the NFL. There are no Florida Internationals or Tennessee-Chattanoogas on the schedule. A win is a win…and it is precious.

“So, Good job everybody…?”

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Rival Coaches

There was a time when the Dallas Cowboys and Washington Redskins comprised one of the NFL’s fiercest and most notable rivalries. All of the cliches about “throw the records out the window when these two hook up” really did apply.

There was no love lost between the teams. Cowboys players like Staubach and Lilly really did despise those Redskins. The coaches didn’t like them either. And the feeling was mutual. It was, most fans thought, a rivalry for the ages.

Great stories exist between the two franchises, stories that date back to the very birth of the Dallas Cowboys. While original Cowboys’ owner Clint Murchison was trying to bring the NFL to Dallas, he bought the rights to the Redskins’ anthem, “Hail to the Redskins.” Murchison threatened to prevent the Redskins from using the song unless Redskins’ owner, George Preston Marshall agreed to back Murchison’s bid to land an NFL franchise. Marshall agreed to back the bid and Murchison returned the rights to the song to Marshall.

Then there was the flap over the original NFL “spy gate.” Before George Allen became the head coach of the Redskins, he was with the Los Angeles Rams. Dallas Cowboys’ General manager Tex Schramm claimed that Allen had sent his head scout to spy on a Cowboys’ practice. Schramm even filed an official complaint with the league that never went anywhere.

The unflappable Allen countered by claiming they had spotted Cowboys’ scout Frank “Bucko” Kilroy spying on their practice from the limb of a Eucalyptus tree. Kilroy was a 300 pounder. It was a good joke on Schramm and his Cowboys and it would later serve to fuel the Cowboys – Redskins rivary when Allen was named the ‘Skins’ head coach.

Then there was those classic games. From Clint Longley’s incredible comeback victory over the Redskins on Thanksgiving Day, 1974 to Staubach’s miraculous fourth quarter comeback victory in 1979 (final score: 35-34), Cowboys fans have many fond memories of this storied rivalry.

But so do Redskins’ fans. In the 1972 NFC Championship Game, the Redskins defeated the Cowboys, earning the right to play Miami in the Super Bowl. The Redskins would win their first Lombardi trophy that year.

The two teams have combined for 31 NFC East division titles and eight Super Bowl victories. Yes, it is a rivalry for the ages.

Or is it?

These days, it seems it is mostly just a rivalry for the aged.Only those fans with enough snow on the roof to remember the glories of the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s can really appreciate the significance of Cowboys – Redskins.

For the Dallas Cowboys fan, the Redskins today are but a blip on the radar. Much more angst and ire are reserved for the hated Filthadelphia Eagles and the New York Giant-Pains-In-The-Arse. Those teams, year in and year out, represent a genuine threat to ruin any Cowboys’ hopes of winning the division.

The reason for the shift, one might think, is simple enough. The two teams just aren’t what they were. Neither the Cowboys nor the Redskins have fielded legitimate Super Bowl contending teams in a decade or more. When one has been decent, the other has been horrid. Just simple math.

Mere win-loss records, however, are not enough by themselves to shoot a good rivalry in the foot. It takes more. And we got it.

For the Cowboys fan, the trouble started when the Redskins hired Joe Gibbs. Here is the likable, upstanding, Christian coach who does everything the right way and never stirs the pot of controversy with ridiculous claims or incendiary remarks. Now, how is the Cowboy nation supposed to hate a man who reminds them so much of their beloved Tom Landry?

Then, there is that thing that has diluted all NFL rivalries: namely, Free Agency. Gone are the days when players spent their entire careers with the same team and played twice per year against the same divisional rivals. The players and coaches could really build up some animosity.

Not now. It’s just laundry. You play against the same uniforms every year (well, sort of; they are subject to frequent changes, too), but not the same team.

It isn’t just a problem of player movement, though. It is also the coaching carousel. The Cowboys had one coach patrolling the sideline for 28 years. In the last twenty years, they have had six. Not even the coaches have enough time to get really tired of losing to the same team every year.

So, when the Cowboys and Redskins line up against each other today, it won’t be to renew a rivalry. They will just be getting acquainted.

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