Silver and BlueBlood

A Father-Son Moment

Raise your hand if you have ever dog-cussed Jason Garrett or said Wade Phillips should be fired (or worse).

God bless you. I see that hand. Yes, and yours too. Oh, and yours, way back in the corner. And yes…my hand is raised, as well. Guilty. All over the vast expanse of Jerry’s magnificent, shiny football Mecca, hands are raised.

Four weeks ago, when the Cowboys were fresh off stumbling into December with back-to-back losses to the San Diego Chargers and the New York Giants, most who bleed silver and blue were sighing, cussing, cramping, complaining, puking, bleeding out the ears…and convinced this team was going nowhere as long as Jerry Jones was the General Manager, Wade Phillips was the head coach, and Jason Garrett was the offensive coordinator.

My, how our tune has changed. Now, we have this 11-5 team that has, for the first time in the illustrious history of the franchise, shut out opponents in back-to-back games. Division opponents, no less. We have this team that is roaring into the playoffs by winning the final three games of the season, clinching a division title, and serving notice to the rest of the NFC that the Dallas Cowboys are a team you just don’t want any part of, thank you very much.

We know the what. But do we know why? Why did this team do what last year’s team could not? Why is the feeling around this team even better than in 2007, when they were 13-3? We always know who to blame for the failures around here. But whom do we credit for the success?

Glad you asked. I have some candidates. In fact, I have the top twelve people most responsible for this team’s turn-around. We could call them the Twelve Apostles of the About Face, or the Not-So-Dirty Dozen.

Here they are…

Number Twelve: Jason Witten

It isn’t that Witten wasn’t great last year. He was. He always is. But never has he been more clutch than this year. Whenever you absolutely, positively must have a first down, throw it to Witten. It usually works out. Just ask Tony Romo. When has a receiver only scored two touchdowns in a season and had a more positive impact on his team?

Number Eleven: Mike Jenkins

By the first week in the regular season, Wade Phillips had not been able to decide between Jenkins and Orlando Scandrick as to which one would start opposite Terrence Newman. Newman, it was assumed, was the best corner on the team, and one of these young guys would have to step up and claim that second spot. By season’s end, Jenkins had asserted himself as a Pro Bowl-caliber corner, the best on the team, and one of the better corners in the league.

Number Ten: DeMarcus Ware

Sure, Ware was phenomenal a year ago and probably should have been named the NFL Defensive Player of the Year. But what about this year? What about being carted off the field one week on a stretcher and coming back the next to get two sacks, force two turnovers, and seal the victory over the previously undefeated Saints? DeMarcus on the field makes every other Cowboys defender’s job easier.

Number Nine: Jay Ratliff

He is too small to be a nose tackle. He is also too quick, too tenacious, and too talented to be handled by most centers or guards or centers plus guards. The Ratliff motor is always humming. He creates havoc and helps set a tone for Phillips’ aggressive 3-4 defense.

Number Eight: The Offensive Line

They play so well as a unit, may as well treat them as one. From tackle to tackle, the Cowboys’ line has done a superb job of protecting the quarterback and gashing defenses for one of the league’s most potent ground attacks. Even when Marc Colombo, who was playing lights out, went down, the line never missed a beat. They plugged in Doug Free, and he has been more than serviceable as a replacement. (Witness the block Free threw forty yards downfield on Felix Jones’ 49-yard scamper last Sunday.)

Number Seven: Anthony Spencer

Did anyone else notice that Peter King selected both Spencer and DeMarcus Ware for his All-Pro team? And why not? Spencer has been a force, a monster, a whirling dervish, disrupting plays, harassing passers, corralling runners, and complementing Ware so well that no one misses Greg Ellis for a minute. Spencer had 50 tackles, 17 assists, six sacks, two forced fumbles, and an interception during the 2009 regular season.

But numbers only tell part of the story. Anyone watching the Cowboys this year saw how Spencer influenced plays on almost every series.

Number Six: Keith Brooking

Brooking did not crack the Pro Bowl lineup in 2009, but he became the heart and soul of the Dallas Cowboys defense. He was the spiritual leader. His on-field play was as effective and impressive as the leadership he provided. Without Brooking, the Cowboys defense is a very different unit altogether.

Number Five: Miles Austin

Roy Williams was supposed to be the guy here. He got the fat contract. He cost the team all those draft picks. He was going to pick up the slack for the departed Terrell Owens. Right?

Wrong.

Miles Austin began the season as the number three receiver. But in Kansas City, with Williams hurt, he asserted himself, had one of the best days ever for a Cowboys receiver and began his dash to the Pro Bowl. He has been the big-time receiver, making the big plays at crunch time, torching defenses, snatching balls from the grasp of defensive backs, shaking off would-be tacklers, running past people, running over people.

Austin has done everything Owens did and managed to remain a team player. Imagine that.

Number Four: Jason Garrett

Granted, third down or fourth down and a yard to go has been a bit of a sticky wicket. Sure, the point production (ranked 14th in the league)  isn’t on par with the yardage this team racks up (second most in the NFL). But have you not seen steady—and marked—improvement in this offense over the course of the year?

No longer saddled with the burden of getting the ball to T.O., whether it makes sense to do so or not, Garrett has devised a sophisticated offense that features a dynamite running game and a lethal passing attack. If he could just make those catches for Roy Williams and Martellus Bennett, he would be the genius he was touted to be a couple years ago.

Number Three: Wade Phillips

Yes. You read that right. I said Wade Phillips. I know I have been a rather vocal critic of the man. I dislike plenty of things about his leadership style. But you cannot argue with the results. The man has won 68% of the games he has coached in Dallas (record: 33-15). He has now won two division titles in three years. He has put together a defense that is on the best roll of any team going into the postseason.

And his players believe in him. They genuinely like him. They want to win for him. (Of course, if they really like him and want to keep him around, they might try winning at least one more game, just to be safe.)

Number Two: Tony Romo

From the first time he stepped on the field as the team’s starter, Romo has shown flashes of utter brilliance. He has made plays few others could have made. Unfortunately, he was also prone to making the worst possible mistakes at the worst possible times, costing his team scoring chances, giving up points to opposing defenses, and contributing to the team’s failure to achieve postseason success.

But Tony has turned a corner. He has gotten his gun-slinger propensity under control, and he has done so without diminishing his play-making prowess. Consider that in 2009, he threw for more yards—4,483—than ever before. He threw just nine interceptions, after having thrown 13, 19, and 14 the previous three seasons.  He threw 26 touchdown passes this year and finished with a quarterback rating of 97.6, his highest ever.

More importantly, he has asserted himself as the undisputed leader of the offense.

Number one: Jerry and Stephen Jones

I picked Jerry Jones number one because this season’s success was predicated on his off-season moves. It was, far and away, Jerry’s best off-season for signing the right players and cutting the right ones loose.

I include Stephen because word has it that it was Stephen Jones who convinced daddy to cut ties with T.O. It was not an easy decision for Jerry Jones to make, not an easy thing to do. Not just because of his own ego, but because, I believe, he genuinely had a warm feeling for the receiver.

Jones did it. he pulled the trigger and Terrell Owens, PacMan Jones, and Tank Johnson were— *poof* —gone. Equally important, he let Greg  Ellis, the so-called team leader who had become a broken record for whining about his contract and generally sowing discord on the team, go.

Then, Jones set about signing key people. He got Igor Olshansky to replace Christ Canty, the departed defensive end overpaid by the Giants. He signed Gerald Sensabaugh to shore up the defensive backfield, which had long been vulnerable due to the diminishing skills of safety Roy Williams. Best of all, he signed Keith Brooking, the five-time Pro Bowler who still had plenty in his tank…and the kind of salt and savvy this team so desperately needed in a locker room leader.

Sure, there is the whole Roy Williams (the receiver) debacle. But wasn’t it Jones who first told us that Miles Austin would be the deep threat the team needed in Terrell Owens’ absence? Didn’t we giggle…or snicker…or roll our collective eyes?

Wasn’t he right?

He’s been right about a good many things lately. And that is a good thing for a team that has been all wrong for way too long.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Give Yourself a Hand

This space has often been used to take Jerry Jones to task for his meddling ways. The Cowboys’ lightening rod owner does and says more than enough to earn it. However, not every move the hands-on owner/general manager of America’s team is bad.

In, fact, this past off-season is proving to be one of his better ones. While a couple of key injuries mandate that we table any real analysis of the Cowboys’ ‘09 draft (besides, you never really know about drafts until two to four years later), the free agent signings are looking like strokes of pure football genius.

For me, it begins with Keith Brooking. Jerry and so-called head coach Wade Phillips were right in their belief that the veteran linebacker has more than a little gas in his tank. He has turned in close to Pro Bowl caliber play through the first seven games of the season.

But Brooking is even more important to the team because he is a leader. He is passionate, committed, and team oriented. He has a vibrant personality, and it is infectious. He has already asserted himself as a team leader.

Brooking is just the beginning. Gerald Sensabaugh, wounded hand and all, is helping to turn a suspect secondary into a stellar one. He can cover. He delivers big hits. He plays smart. And he takes pressure off the cornerbacks, enabling them to play their positions with more confidence and daring.

Then there is Igor the Terrible. Olshansky, the choice to replace the departed Chris Canty is a run-stopping, gap-filling, brute on the defensive line. He has surpassed the “serviceable” tag some wanted to place on him.

Finally, we have to mention the trade that brought Jon Kitna to the Cowboys. No intelligent fan of the team wants to find out just how much of an addition Kitna is to the team, since that would mean Romo is somehow incapacitated, but last year taught Mr. Jones the value of having a quality player holding that clipboard.

With these key additions and Wade’s attention to the defense (no one ever accused the man of not being a great defensive coordinator), and with time to gel, the defensive unit is looking like one of the team’s greatest strengths.

So, Mr. Jones, you may be your own worst enemy when it comes to building and sustaining a championship caliber team, but you are not as inept a “football” man as your harshest critics would like to make us all believe. You do get it right at least as often as you get it wrong.

Locking up Demarcus Ware. Backing Tony Romo when he was under intense fire. Building the great Football Cathedral. Cutting Terrell Owens. Getting way more than a little bang for your bucks this off-season. Good moves, all of them.

Good job, Jerry.

Popularity: 4% [?]

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.

Popularity: 12% [?]

OK, Blue Bloods. Nobody likes to lose…not even in the preseason. But if you are going to lose, that is a better time than any to do it. Games that don’t count don’t count.

Losing 31-10, you might think would indicate that there were few positives to be taken from the game. That just isn’t so. I saw plenty to smile about last night. Here are some things that come immediately to mind:

Martellus Bennett and Felix Jones

The Cat!

Marty B and Felix are not your typical back ups. They are frontline talents whose skills will – or should – be prominently displayed all season long. If The sight of Martellus catching a short pass in the flat, scooting past one defender, and bowling over another for a first down doesn’t get you stoked, then your stoker is broken.

And Felix…wow!

In the 1970s the Cowboys were the best team in the NFL at running the screen pass. Why? Because of Tony Dorsett. His vision, burst, patience, and speed made him a threat to score at any time. The screen pass got him outside the tackles, on the corner, where it often became mano y mano, catch me if you can.

They frequently could not.

Say hello to Felix Jones. The Cowboys haven’t had the combination of burst, vision and break away speed that he brings to the team since the great Dorsett. He showed again last night that if he can stay healthy, he is a weapon every opposing defensive coordinator will have to account for…and the screen pass will live again in Big D.

David Beuhler

After getting the jitters out, the linebacker-size kickoff specialist sent a kick eight yards deep into the end zone. Touchback! Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? Especially since the Cowboys were the NFL’s only team not to record a single touchback in 2008.

He also pegged a 35-yard field goal, which is just icing really.

Tony Romo

For all the haters out there (and there are plenty of them), Romo remains one of the league’s top playmakers at the most important position (by far) on the field. Witness the touchdown pass to Jason Witten. Pump, move those feet, dip that shoulder, he’s open..fire!

Quickest release in the league? If not, it’s within milliseconds of whomever is faster.

Jason Garrett

That TD drive was a nice display of mixing things up, spreading the ball around, and using all of his weapons. And did anyone besides me notice how much more “presidential” on the sideline Garrett looks than the Pillsbury Doughboy, aw shucks, so-called head coach?

Keith Brooking

Yes, it was only one sack, but…nice!

Jon Kitna

He’ll do, won’t he? Nice to have a backup QB who could probably start for about half of the league.

Concerns? Sure! Plenty of them, but most of them have to do with reserves rather than starters. I would say the biggest concern at the moment is the injury bug. If the wrong people go down, it could be a long season. If the Cowboys stay relatively healthy, they won’t be losing to the Raiders 31-10 come Thanksgiving.

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