It's Monday morning, after the Cowboys/Saints game where the New Orleans Saints came into Texas Stadium and absolutely humiliated the Dallas Cowboys. 42-17 was the score, in case you might have been held incommunicado somewhere in Bangladesh and didn't hear.
Crown Prince Romo was discovered to have soiled his pants during that drubbing. Two interceptions and not enough production to play Pop Warner football, much less in the National Football League. Drew Brees showed why experience matters. Tony Romo showed why inexperience matters.
The offensive line for the Dallas Cowboys should simply be marked absent for the game. So should the Dallas secondary on defense. Automatica became Cosmetica, shanking one to the right as good as Vanderjagt ever did. How much more humiliating could it be for the Cowboy to watch Brees begin kneeling down to let the clock run out with three minutes left in the game? Coach Sean Peyton took mercy on his former mentor, but that mercy had its own form of humiliation.
Terrell Owens had a break out game. Everything thrown to him broke. Out, In, Up Down. It didn't matter. It just broke. One touchdown pass and a bunch of opportunities is all he had. Perhaps he was still too sensitive and just couldn't get into it. Perhaps we should be more understanding and not hurt his little multi-million dollar feelings.
And the fans. How many jumped off that Romo bandwagon last night? Fickle is such an ugly color on a Cowboys fan. I actually saw some folks online last night wanting to see Bledsoe in the game. The pretense was to protect Romo from injury. I suspect that many just couldn't bare to see the reality that Romo is after all, human. I did see a couple messages online from folks who have been diehard Romo fans. You know the type. The ones that get almost violently angry when one even mentions the remote possibility that Romo isn't quite ready for induction into the Hall of Fame. Those messages eluded to all the problems the Cowboys had last night. . . offensive line play, receivers screwing up, defense just not there, special teams screwing up, Gramatica, etc. But no mention of the two interceptions. Apparently, that's now allowed in LaLa Land.
I predicted a win by the Cowboys last night. As I stated last night, I am now officially out of the prophecy business. I'll talk statistics, tendencies, whatever. But you're not going to get a prediction out of me. But you will get opinions. Lord knows I have a lot of them this morning.
Speaking of statistics, here's a little fact I dug up this morning. These are stats on the final 5 games played in the past 10 years.
2006 1-1 (three games left to play)
2005 2-3
2004 2-3
2003 2-3
2002 1-4
2001 2-3
2000 1-4
1999 2-3
1998 2-3
1997 0-5
1996 3-2
Stats from http://www.pro-football-reference.c...ms/dalindex.htm
You might have heard me mention that the Cowboys haven't had what you'd call a banner December in years. Well, the facts are they haven't had a winning record in their final 5 regular season games for 10 years. And after last night's fiasco, this December might match that. It isn't a long reach to see this team implode like many, including me, were claiming the Giants were going to do. Getting absolutely humiliated like they did last night could have a serious psychological effect on the Cowboys. It could also work as a rallying cry to boost their play. Based on statistics, the reasonable assumption is to look for bad news.
Of course, in LaLa Land, today's buzzword is "everyone has a bad day, it'll be all right". Unlike before yesterday's game, when the buzzword was "he can do no wrong, he will lead us to the promise land". I guess they forgot the promise land is full of Saints.
Before any of you start typing responses telling me how happy I am because I was right about not seeing how Romo handled adversity and dealing with massive pressure, let me tell you emphatically how I feel about this situation. I would revel in having been wrong. I am almost sick at my stomach over watching Romo look like he was a high schooler who made a wrong turn and wound up in Texas Stadium with the big boys. I would much rather see him throwing 5 touchdown passes, while the Dallas defense had a field day with the Saints offense. It didn't happen. Romo sucked, along with the rest of the team, coaches included. I wouldn't be surprised if the towel boys didn't screw up something, too. This was an absolute total meltdown of the entire team. No one escapes blame for this one.
Now, the question remains, will they snap back and get the much more difficult job done. Who knows. You can bet your hiney that every team facing the Cowboys will be dissecting the film from last night to see what it takes to disrupt the Dallas Cowboys. If they follow history, they'll finish 9-7, maybe 10-6 and a wildcard berth. One and Done is another buzzword I'm hearing this morning. One playoff game, losing it, and watching the rest of the playoffs from home is what that one means, if you don't know. Sounds very Quincy Carterish doesn't it?
Last night was bad. Really, really bad. This morning, not only does the emperor have no clothes, but the whole empire has no clothes. The Cajun Cowboys turned this place into a nudist camp. And there's no Jessica Simpson around to make it even somewhat palatable.
Anyone else want to argue with me that we have seen enough of Tony Romo to vote him into the Hall of Fame? I say we haven't. But then, I don't get my mail at the LaLa Land Post Office.
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