The Dallas Cowboys lost on Sunday to the Chicago Bears and all is not right for America’s Team. Like the country, the Cowboys are licking their wounds and looking for reasons for their 0-2 start which Jerry Jones calls the “biggest disappointment of his ownership tenure”. I have some thoughts on what has gone wrong but I am not sure where to begin so I will begin at the top, the management of the organization.
When you want to figure out what’s wrong with a sports team, the answers usually lie somewhere in everyday life. We all have friends, family etc. who just don’t handle success very well. For some reason, some individuals do better climbing the mountain then when circumstances tell them that they “have arrived”. Well, the Dallas Cowboys are that friend you have who landed a good job and spent half his annual salary on a new Rolex.
The Cowboys have a tough enough task as it is, like a Notre Dame, a Duke basketball or the New York Yankees; if the Cowboys field a team they are usually one of the favorites to make the Super Bowl whether that expectation is realistic or not. Couple the teams overwhelming visibility, an owner who is the eternal optimist, a rabid fan base and you have the formula for disappointments of epic proportions.
What’s a bit ironic is that there is a consistent pattern of when the Cowboys have their biggest “failures” and the owner doesn’t even see that he helps contribute to his own unhappiness. Let’s do a quick rewind to 2007; the Cowboys were coming off the Romo fumble in Seattle which cost the Cowboys a potential game winning field goal attempt in their 2006 playoff loss. Bill Parcells had just left as head coach and the Cowboys had hired Wade Phillips to replace him. Cowboy Nation was in mourning, the team was picked 3rd in the NFC East and what happened? The Cowboys went out and won the division and produced the NFC’s best record 13-3. Despite a division playoff loss to the Giants (who would eventually win the Super Bowl), 21-17, the Cowboys went into 2008 as a favorite to win the Super Bowl.
Well 2008 rolled around and Jerry Jones did what Jerry can’t help doing, he loaded the boat with talent from PacMan Jones to Tank Johnson to Terrell Owens who was already in house. He signed the Cowboys up to be on HBO’s “Hard Knocks”; I mean after all if you’re going to win the Super Bowl, you might as well have training camp preserved for history. The only problem with Jerry’s master plan was that the Cowboys stumbled and bumbled their way to a 9-7 season which ended with a thud in Philadelphia, 44-6.
At the risk of being redundant, I will assume most of you know what happened last year and how the Cowboys rebounded to win the NFC East and a playoff game when nothing much was expected out of that bunch only to once again find themselves the NFC favorite to go to the Super Bowl and host the game in their own stadium this season. Once again, Jerry Jones couldn’t help himself and what did he do, he sent his team on a barnstorming run in training camp which saw Dallas travel more miles then most teams will travel in the first 6-weeks of the season. Jones oozed over his team saying “this is the most talented team I have been around since we were winning Super Bowls in the 1990s”. The Cowboys, devoid of a true vocal team leader among the players, ate cheese as Bill Parcells used to say and we sit here today two-weeks into the season wondering what went wrong?
Well, after a 0-2 start, it’s become evident to me that the Cowboys issues aren’t about talent; the Cowboys have a systemic problem that begins at the top and permeates its way throughout the organization. Jerry Jones is such an optimist, such good news junky, he has a difficult time dealing with reality. This attitude of always wanting to feel good about the team allows players and coaches to make excuses. Ultimately the Cowboys are a team that despite its bountiful talent, finds ways to lose games rather than to win them.
The Pittsburgh Steelers are coming off a 9-7 campaign and playing their 3rd String quarterback to start the season yet they are 2-0. The Steelers are a team that grinds and finds ways to win with defense, special teams you name it. One thing the Steeler organization doesn’t do is allow bad circumstances (their starting QB to be suspended for the first 4 games) to become a crutch for poor play.
The Cowboys have one of the games 6 or 7 most talented quarterbacks Tony Romo, one of the top 3 or 4 WRs in Miles Austin, one of the top 3 or 4 Tight Ends, Jason Witten and the game’s best and most feared defensive player in OLB Demarcus Ware. However because of Jones’ penchant for star players, the Cowboys have an organizational belief that you need 22 Pro Bowl players to win. This explains the difference between teams like the Colts who routinely lose an offensive lineman, a cornerback and some other key player yet they plug in a first or second year player and win 12 games.
If fixing the Cowboys was an X and O type of issue, the problem wouldn’t be that difficult to solve. However, the Cowboys problems begin with Jerry Jones who is the best owner in the NFL but one of its worst GMs. Until Jones cedes the GM job to his son Stephen who is a very solid football guy and hires a head coach who is really in charge of the football team; the Cowboys will continue to fall short of their expectations.
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