If's and December and Lunacy. . .

It's 5:38 on the Monday morning after the Cowboys lost the NFC Divisional game. Their 13-3 regular season record now looks meaningless. Had they not done so well during the regular season, they'd be drafting higher, so in some ways it actually hurt the team.

For the first 12 games, I watched and cheered and remained hopeful that this was the real deal. But one thing was sure. There was no way I was going to start talking smack about the Cowboys until I saw what they did in December. When they went into December beginning to lose games and being less productive, all those uneasy feelings started flooding in. I voiced my opinion and was called a hater, not a fan, etc. Well I'm a big ole boy. I can take the name calling. What I can't take is another season of this crap. You can talk until you're blue in the face and you're not going to convince me of how well the Cowboys played in December. You're not going to convince me that this team had a snowball's chance in hell (yes, i said it again) of going anywhere in the playoffs with their twelfth December Meltdown in a row freshly behind them.

Here are the numbers for the last 5 games of each season going back to '95.

2007 3-2 Playoff game (1 loss)
2006 2-3 Playoff game (1 loss)
2005 2-3
2004 2-3
2003 2-3 Playoff game (1 loss)
2002 1-4
2001 2-3
2000 1-4
1999 2-3 Playoff game (1 loss)
1998 2-3 Playoff game (1 loss)
1997 0-5
1996 2-3 Playoff games (1 win, 1 loss)
1995 3-2 SuperBowl win

We're talking back to the Barry Switzer regime (what's that? 5 coaches ago???) before the Cowboys accomplished something of meaning. The one playoff win in '96 looks good on paper. A 40--15 tromping of the Vikings. But then Carolina shut down that mighty offense and sent the Cowboys home the following weekend with a 26-17 loss. How many of us back then would have believed that 12 years later, we would still be waiting for our next NFC Divisional win? For that matter, any playoff win!

Look at that list above again. That's 12 years since a playoff win. For the first time in 12 years, the Cowboys won more of that last 5 regular season games than they lost. But look back at this season's play in December. They were not the juggernaut that everyone feared. They barely beat Detroit. Philadelphia slapped them around. They played fairly well against Carolina and won by one touchdown. Then the Redskins manhandled them. Yes, they won more games than they lost in the final 5 of this past season, but they weren't building momentum, they were losing it.

Oh sure, there will be those that will say the Redskins game was meaningless. It's not so meaningless that they've removed it from the team statistics. It's not so meaningless that we can't look and easily see similarities in how the team played in that game and yesterday's game.

This December Meltdown thing is the most bizarre phenomena I've ever seen anywhere. With coaching changes every few years, quarterback changes, running back changes, wide receiver changes, linebacker changes, cornerback changes, kicker/punter changes, over a 12 year period virtually a completely new team with the exception of Jerry and Stephen Jones, and it's the same results, year after year after year.

They've tried going easy in training camp so they're not so tired towards the end of the season. That didn't work. They tried the 100+ degree temperature days in San Antonio for training camp to toughen the guys up. That didn't work. We won't talk about the coaching and quarterback carousel that's been going on in Dallas for 12 years. Those didn't work either.

As the season progressed this year and the Cowboys started stacking up wins, I got enthusiastic. They were looking like champions again. The "Cowboys rule" and "Fear the Cowboys" proclamations were rampant amongst fans of various message boards. "Romo rules" was readily available.

Well, neither the Cowboys, nor Romo, rule today.

While much can be said for individual and team records this year, how many Cowboys fans can say they're happy with the outcome right now. Damned few, I'd imagine. Put me down in the Not Satisfied column, just for the record.

Now, this season is history. It will be well recorded history. Next year, when everyone is trying to prove to you that we didn't have that bad of a December and they point to the last Washington game as being meaningless, the stats will still show that game as a Loss. When everyone starts with the "if Crayton had made his cut quicker on that last play, the Cowboys would have won the Divisional Playoff game", the stats will still show that game as a Loss.

It's over for this year. Finished, kaput, in the bag, whatever. Finality is a bitch sometimes.

It's a bitch today.

Now, it starts anew.

There are contracts that have to be dealt with, free agents to be hired, draft picks to be had, etc. Perhaps some coaching changes. Here are my suggestions, for what they're worth.

Draft a running back with one of the #1 picks. Stop playing around with these late rounders and let's get some talent at this position finally. This means Julius Jones goes. There are not enough roster positions on this team to justify keeping him. He simply isn't productive enough to be playing running back for the Dallas Cowboys. Barber's performance yesterday was incredible. He proved again that he's a great running back. For half a game. Unfortunately, he proved that he's not an every-down back. Maybe it was conditioning, who knows. Barber should stay and be used as that 2nd half back that's fresh when defenses are getting tired. It worked last year and this year. We have reason to believe it will work again. We do not have reason to believe Julius Jones will be anything other than what he's been in the past.

Re-sign Terrell Owens. I can't believe I'm actually saying that, but the guy is a playmaker. And he's becoming a true leader.

Jacque Reeves and Roy Williams need to go. Take the hit on Roy Williams salary and trade him, give him away, pay someone to take him or whatever. He's costing the Cowboys wayyyyyyy more money playing than he will gone. Reeves simply isn't talented enough to trust on the field other than situational plays, and damned few of those.

Crayton isn't good enough to be running his mouth. While we all know it was poor play from many different players yesterday that cost the Cowboys their shot at the SuperBowl, Crayton's mistakes were just so visible that he'll get plenty of blame from many sources. Someone shut him up, please. He's an embarassment.

Romo needs to go back to Mexico. And tell Jessica Simpson what a lucky man he is. Lucky that he got his contract signed while the Cowboys were in their winning streak. Had Jerry Jones waited until today to start negotiations, he could have saved himself a lot of money. Romo didn't play like a $60+ million dollar quarterback in his past 5 games. It looked to me like the fire that defined Romo was just gone towards the end of the season.

Jason Garrett's chances at a head coaching job have probably diminished considerably in the last month. That coaching genius wasn't able to come up with an answer to the December Meltdown. Knowing that the defense just wasn't getting the job done, the offensive coordinator needed to step the offense up so they could go into the playoffs on a roll. Well, it was a downhill roll unfortunately. And history repeated itself. Another meltdown and another one and done in the playoffs.

Coach Phillips is and should remain the head coach. There is no doubt that his coaching methods worked better than his predecessors going back to '97, anyway. His much-mentioned defense didn't appear to get the job done most of the year. Perhaps it's personnel and that can be rectified. The offense carried the team through most of the season. A good defense would have made the difference in yesterday's game.

Now, I do believe there should be a change in Coach Phillips' contract. There should be an addendum to the existing one that says for each time he says to anyone "I just didn't have the team ready for the game", he should be fined $50,000. I don't know about you, but that statement was wearing awfully thin towards late December. If he was going through that many games without getting them ready for the game, why is he the head coach? Was he simply not doing his job, or what?

I know he was just wanting to accept blame in lieu of the team, but at a point, humility becomes arrogance. Fine his ass $50,000 and maybe he'll have them ready for the next one or at least stop with the false humility thing.

While I'm on the subject, let me say this. I think Parcells had some really good methods. I also think he had some really lousy ones. Making players accountable is an excellent practice. Belittling them is not.

I like the laid back attitude of Phillips most of the time. But when Roy Williams screws the pooch over and over and over, it's time to climb into someone's ass and the head coach is the one that needs to do it. Anyone not producing should be subject to being benched. That includes coaches, players, waterboys, whomever.

Draft another good wide receiver. Or grab a good free agent. TO and Glenn aren't getting any younger. Crayton is making me older faster than I want to go there. Austin and Hurd are works in progress.

Make it a part of contracts, coaches and players, that for games after Thanksgiving, they get extra incentives when the team wins.

Make it a part of contracts that penalties during games mean penalties in their paychecks. Make it a sliding scale penalty. The more stupid the penalty, the higher the chunk taken from their paycheck becomes. Have Columbo and Flozell initial their new contracts twice at that point.

Missed tackles should be dealt with the same way. Miss a tackle, lose $5,000. All of this will help the salary cap, of course.

Dropped passes should cost the wide receivers in their paycheck, too. Let each dropped pass cost them $5000 or so and at some point, you'll get someone's attention. Make it a $10,000 penalty for each one dropped after Thanksgiving in a season. It's a simple logic, really. They're hired to catch balls. They should be paid for catching them. When they drop one, they should pay the Cowboys to waste a roster spot on someone who drops balls.

OK, some of this is lunacy, of course. Can you tell I'm frustrated? I just want someone to do something constructive that is pointed directly at putting an end to this December Meltdown phenomena. Something. Someone! Please!!!

This year's Cowboys team had a shot at the brass ring. It's doubtful they could have gotten past the Patriots who appear unbeatable, but they had a shot at trying, anyway. And they quite simply pissed it away. Yesterday, there were dropped passes, poor special teams play, poor blocking by the offensive line, poor quarterback decisions, poor route running by receivers, poor coverage by cornerbacks and safeties, and stupid penalties. About the only player on the team who didn't look stupid at some point in time was the punter.

Quite simply, the Cowboys lost because they didn't deserve to win. Not with the way they played, as individuals or as a team. They just didn't do their job.

It's over for this year. Who knows when the next opportunity will come. Will it be twelve more years? Can we, as fans, hang in there that long?

Now we can look ahead to next season. Just remember, as you're getting all hyped up in September, October and November, that December is coming. And December is what decides on what kind of team the Cowboys truly are. As we've seen this year, their 11-1 record going into December didn't get them any further in the playoffs than they've gotten in the prior 11 seasons. You have to watch 16 games before you know what kind of team the Cowboys put on the field.

December rules the Cowboys. For the Cowboys to rule anything, they first have to rule December. This year, they didn't. It's over. . . . finished.

Finality is a bitch.

Rod


PS: If you're going to respond to this, try doing it without using the "if" word. Because "if" all the other teams had just forfeited their games, the Cowboys would have had a perfect season. You can "if" all day long and get nowhere. For every "if" you can come up with, I can come up with a better one. Deal with reality. It bites today, but it's what will be remembered.