The sensitive Dallas Cowboys can’t handle the truth
By JENNIFER FLOYD ENGEL
jenfloyd@star-telegram.com
The word from Valley Ranch this week was the sky is not falling, which only counts as news if you thought it was.
Knee-jerking is an art form among Cowboys watchers, as well as a personal specialty, and I honestly did not hear anything close to a real good knee jerk, like, say, "Fire Coach Wade" or "we will never win a playoff game" from any precinct.
Cowboys players had their feelings hurt anyway, defensive about what they considered unfair and negative reactions from us mean, mean, meanies.
"It’s always an atom bomb drop when we lose," defensive end Marcus Spears noted.
He hasn’t seen an atom bomb, at least not recently. Wait and see what happens if this Cowboys team again fails to win a playoff game. This week barely qualifies as a sparkler.
And rightfully so, considering this was a September loss, to a pretty good team, to wrap up a month that ended with a 3-1 Cowboys record.
What is troublesome going forward is how this team seems to have taken on the personality of its coach. It does not do well with criticism. Its instinct is to become defensive, rather than, say, admit that a few problems areas need fixing.
One guess as to where this attitude trickles down from?
A Cowboys player recently told me "we are not really afraid of film session." Used to be, under Big Bill, players dreaded Mondays after a loss. He tore into guys for mistakes such as biting on a stutter step, or holding, or being the 12th man on the field after a timeout.
The idea was not so much humiliation as it was to make sure that next time everybody was counting lest they be that guy being excoriated on Monday.
And just ask guys such as Nate Newton and Troy Aikman what film was like under Jimmy Johnson. Losing made The Jimster miserable and he made everybody else miserable, again not for giggles but rather so losing was uncomfortable.
I kind of want to see somebody mad. I want to see somebody point a finger at themselves, beat themselves up a little or, most importantly, just admit "this was not good" so they can get to the business of making it better.
Instead, what we heard from Cowboysland was it’s just a loss, or just a September loss, or why are you picking on us?
They seem unable to handle the obvious.
They did not stop the run. Their secondary did struggle. They did abandon the running game too early. T.O. did border on selfish with his whine about only having 19 plays called for him. The game plan was flawed, if you can check out of basically using your two best weapons hardly at all. They did not adjust in-game well.
Bring this up at Valley Ranch, though, and you get a plateful of Wade-isms:
"Mistakes are on me."
"We won 14-9 in the second half."
"I’m not going to pick out individual players and say this guy didn’t do this or didn’t do that."
About the only thing Coach Wade didn’t resort to was trotting out how they were 13-3 last year or their first-round bye or their 13 Pro Bowlers. Thank goodness that has finally run its course.
And not to be outdone, Owner Jones jumped in to defend T.O. on Friday, using his Ticket radio show to say why his receiver is justified in being miffed. "We’ll overly try to get him the ball," Jerry said. "There’s no question about that. We should."
Have fun with all of that, Romo. Already facing criticism for throwing an interception a game dating to last December, or whatever the silly stat is, now the owner is demanding not only that Tony Romo force the ball but he force it to a specific spot.
Of course, if he does and it fails, it will not be Romo’s fault.
It is the best part of this team. Nobody is ever to blame for anything except the coach. Then we blame him and he gets all sensitive.
Is it any wonder why this team has a history of struggling down the stretch and in the playoffs? Or why it was never able to pick itself up, dust itself off and regroup last December despite plenty of time and warning signs?
To do so requires admitting there is a problem in the first place.
We all know these Cowboys are not good at doing that, nor did they improve on this area in the off-season. And this is a problem because the Cowboys are the best team in football. They have a very good chance to win a Super Bowl.
The best teams, though, the ones who actually win rather than just being favored to do so all season, the ones who can stare their flaws in the face and improve. The ones who can handle the truth.
The Cowboys are not there.
But they’d be wise to get there or they will see what an atom bomb of knee-jerking really feels like.
jenfloyd@star-telegram.com
The word from Valley Ranch this week was the sky is not falling, which only counts as news if you thought it was.
Knee-jerking is an art form among Cowboys watchers, as well as a personal specialty, and I honestly did not hear anything close to a real good knee jerk, like, say, "Fire Coach Wade" or "we will never win a playoff game" from any precinct.
Cowboys players had their feelings hurt anyway, defensive about what they considered unfair and negative reactions from us mean, mean, meanies.
"It’s always an atom bomb drop when we lose," defensive end Marcus Spears noted.
He hasn’t seen an atom bomb, at least not recently. Wait and see what happens if this Cowboys team again fails to win a playoff game. This week barely qualifies as a sparkler.
And rightfully so, considering this was a September loss, to a pretty good team, to wrap up a month that ended with a 3-1 Cowboys record.
What is troublesome going forward is how this team seems to have taken on the personality of its coach. It does not do well with criticism. Its instinct is to become defensive, rather than, say, admit that a few problems areas need fixing.
One guess as to where this attitude trickles down from?
A Cowboys player recently told me "we are not really afraid of film session." Used to be, under Big Bill, players dreaded Mondays after a loss. He tore into guys for mistakes such as biting on a stutter step, or holding, or being the 12th man on the field after a timeout.
The idea was not so much humiliation as it was to make sure that next time everybody was counting lest they be that guy being excoriated on Monday.
And just ask guys such as Nate Newton and Troy Aikman what film was like under Jimmy Johnson. Losing made The Jimster miserable and he made everybody else miserable, again not for giggles but rather so losing was uncomfortable.
I kind of want to see somebody mad. I want to see somebody point a finger at themselves, beat themselves up a little or, most importantly, just admit "this was not good" so they can get to the business of making it better.
Instead, what we heard from Cowboysland was it’s just a loss, or just a September loss, or why are you picking on us?
They seem unable to handle the obvious.
They did not stop the run. Their secondary did struggle. They did abandon the running game too early. T.O. did border on selfish with his whine about only having 19 plays called for him. The game plan was flawed, if you can check out of basically using your two best weapons hardly at all. They did not adjust in-game well.
Bring this up at Valley Ranch, though, and you get a plateful of Wade-isms:
"Mistakes are on me."
"We won 14-9 in the second half."
"I’m not going to pick out individual players and say this guy didn’t do this or didn’t do that."
About the only thing Coach Wade didn’t resort to was trotting out how they were 13-3 last year or their first-round bye or their 13 Pro Bowlers. Thank goodness that has finally run its course.
And not to be outdone, Owner Jones jumped in to defend T.O. on Friday, using his Ticket radio show to say why his receiver is justified in being miffed. "We’ll overly try to get him the ball," Jerry said. "There’s no question about that. We should."
Have fun with all of that, Romo. Already facing criticism for throwing an interception a game dating to last December, or whatever the silly stat is, now the owner is demanding not only that Tony Romo force the ball but he force it to a specific spot.
Of course, if he does and it fails, it will not be Romo’s fault.
It is the best part of this team. Nobody is ever to blame for anything except the coach. Then we blame him and he gets all sensitive.
Is it any wonder why this team has a history of struggling down the stretch and in the playoffs? Or why it was never able to pick itself up, dust itself off and regroup last December despite plenty of time and warning signs?
To do so requires admitting there is a problem in the first place.
We all know these Cowboys are not good at doing that, nor did they improve on this area in the off-season. And this is a problem because the Cowboys are the best team in football. They have a very good chance to win a Super Bowl.
The best teams, though, the ones who actually win rather than just being favored to do so all season, the ones who can stare their flaws in the face and improve. The ones who can handle the truth.
The Cowboys are not there.
But they’d be wise to get there or they will see what an atom bomb of knee-jerking really feels like.
posted by The Gryphon at 9:43 AM
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