One Mans trash is another mans Treasure

okay so i have been waiting patiently for preseason to end so i can get excited
about the Cowboys season. i am running out of patience so i decided to write
something..anything here just to clear my mind.
First things first..we played houston saturday night, beat them..nobody got hurt.
i didnt even watch the game because i was in galveston and i couldnt stand
listening to the houston announcers, plus there was a lighting storm going on
and the waves were getting bigger due to Hurricane Katrina so i just sat back
and enjoyed the moment with my wife.
Now...about THE TEAM. its cut time in the NFL. all the teams have started making
up their minds about who stays and who goes. So far the Boys havent really surprised
me with any of their cuts because mostly they got rid of guys i expected them to
except for a couple, Rogers and Cundiff, OT and PK. both of them were hurt so
even that was no surprise.
Here comes the fun part...looking at the other teams and seeing who they released
and deciding if they let anybody go that might help us. hey its a crapshoot for sure
but sometimes a change of scenery really does make a difference. and its a numbers
game, maybe a team is overloaded with lineman and you need one. maybe their castoff
is better than your 3rd team guy. heck maybe their castoff is bettter than your
1st team guy...i surely hope not but after a 6-10 season its possible.
i mean look closely, our entire starting backfield from last years, and the year
before that, and i think the year before that is TOTALLY out of the league.
gone..cut..not signed..by anybody !! of course that doesnt count Julius Jones but
he was not our starter on opening day (injured ).
its like taking a load of junk to the dumpyard, emptying out your trailer...then spotting like some totally perfect half sheets of plywood that you just know you
can use to make something out of..and hey those bricks in that pile over there
would make a perfect walkway if you can just knock the mortar off. surely i am not
the only person to ever come home with more junk than i left with am i ??
hmmm that might be the redneck in me peeking out... but why else would there be
all these yard sales ???
Maybe, just maybe the ole Jock Whisperer Bill Parcells can get something out of
one of these guys that their previous coach couldnt. anyway it gives me something
to watch for until 9-8 when thankfully the real season starts. i feel better already.
later Poke

exhibition games

yeah so i am probably dating myself a bit here. when i was a kid that is what
these games were called. they werent "preseason " , they didnt count for much
and you were lucky if they put one on TV. then the owners decided they could sell
their tickets ( for the same stinking price as a regular game ) and the networks
figured out they could sell ads and lo and behold now these games are " important ".
i gripe about them, im sure the players gripe about them ( they dont get their regular paychecks for these games ) and even though the coaches dont gripe about
them in public i just bet you that they would prefer to just keep having practices instead of having to disrupt their practicing to "game plan " for an exhibition . anyway...the cowboys played the seahawks monday night in one of these "games ". our first team offense and defense looked better this week than last week. thats what you want to see. then about halfway thru the 2nd quarter both teams started putting in 2nd team players.
after that it gets a little harder to tell just who is doing great or if they are just beating up somebody who will be looking for a job this fall . if you really want
to know just how great some of our players are, and how bad some of our players are and how smart our coach is or how dumb our coach is then go to one of the many
"message boards " or "fan forums " that the Cowboys have. there you will find
so many experts and genuises that know so much about this team you will wonder
why Jerry Jones doesnt just read them, and run the team using their analysis and
save all that money he pays out for training camp,coaches, scouts, film teams
and all that other stuff.
to be honest there are great fans there, but thats all we are....fans ( short for fanatics by the way ) . you just have to keep telling yourself that those people
actually associated with the team might..just might know a little bit more than we do. anyway the Cowboys beat the Seahawks on the scoreboard 18-10. The cowboys
didnt suffer any serious injuries that i can find out about. it was fun to watch.
but it was still just an exhibition game to me. later Poke

keeping my promise

you see..i am already falling into my old habits. i havent posted here
in 10 whole days. i do that to keep from boring ya'll with unimportant
thoughts and ideas. good stuff that actually deserves to be written down
doesnt pop into my brain all that often.
okay so i promised i would tell you whats important in Cowboys world as it
develops. i wont go into how bad our offense looked because its the 1st
preseason game. i wont go into how weak our pass rush looked against
those mighty cardinals from arizona. i wont mention that Bledsoe did
look a little slow getting rid of the ball. i wouldnt dare remind any of
you who are old enough to remember that our right tackle (torrin tucker)
brought back so many memories of that fan favorite (Phil holding # 75 Pozderak).
see all those things dont bother me at all because its our 1ST PRESEASON GAME !
SO..PAY ATTENTION HERE..THIS IS THE IMPORTANT THING FROM SATURDAYS GAME
Nobody that is going to make this team and contribute got HURT !

there it is..real simple..NFL football is as much about attrition as it is X's and O's. Since nobody got hurt ( actually a safety we just picked up did mess up his shoulder but i didnt think he would make much impact anyway ..) i chalk up Saturday
as a good game. Now Coach Parcells can take the team back to camp, chew their butts
off, work them really hard and they cant complain much because they know that
saturday night in arizona they played like crap.

So there you go..nothing to worry about..things will get better..time heals all wounds..what doesnt kill you makes you stronger..save those Prozacs for the regular season. later Poke

Out of the Closet

hah !!!! got you with that title i bet. different closet though.
i just cant stand it any longer, i have a secret to tell.
i want to get it off my chest before the season starts because it really
has nothing to do with wins and losses. okay...here it goes.
I DONT LIKE BILL PARCELLS. Ahhhhhh i feel so much better now.
sure he's the coach of my favorite football team. sure i even think he is
the best coach for us right now. after years of incompetence and yes men
jerry jones had to get a real coach. bill parcells is definitely a real coach.
until jones proved he could butt out and let a coach be the coach we were not
ever going to get anybody here worth a dern. parcells is a good coach, a winning
coach, a smart coach....but it still doesnt make me like him. Im not sure why.
it probably comes from the fact that for years he was the coach of the NY Giants
and we played them twice a year and sometimes they beat us. or it could be that its
because he is a yankee..you know..the whole speech, mannerism attitude thing. just rubs me the wrong way. for too many years we had coaches who at least acted like they
wanted to keep the fans happy, the media informed and project a whole "one big happy family " theme. he doesnt do that. or at least not very well.
do i wish him ill will ?? of course not, i am pulling for him all the way, i hope he
gets us to another super bowl win....soon really soon. and then i hope he takes his
grumpy, sarcastic, joisey sounding , condescending , smart aleck butt back up there.
its just a personal thing , if you dont agree i understand completely..later Poke

Important Stuff

okay so i promised i would let you know anything you really needed to know.
im sure all you computer geniuses could find a schedule for the Cowboys but hey
if im doing public service work i may as well make it easy for everybody. so here is
the schedule, tv stations, times.......post season games ( which we will be involved in ).

2005 Preseason Schedule

DATE OPPONENT (TV BROADCAST) TIME

Sat 8/13 @ Arizona (KTVT/CBS 11) 9:00 p.m.
Mon 8/22 @ Seattle (ABC) 7:00 p.m.
Sat 8/27 Houston (KTVT/CBS 11) 7:00 p.m.
Thur 9/1 Jacksonville (KTVT/CBS 11) 7:00 p.m.

2005 Regular Season Schedule
DATE OPPONENT (TV BROADCAST) TIME

9/11 @ San Diego (FOX) 3:15 p.m.
Mon 9/19 Washington (ABC) 8:00 p.m.
Sun 9/25 @ San Francisco (FOX) 3:05 p.m.
Sun 10/2 @ Oakland (FOX) 3:15 p.m.
Sun 10/9 Philadelphia (FOX) 3:15 p.m.
Sun 10/16 N.Y. Giants (FOX) Noon
Sun 10/23 @ Seattle (FOX) 3:05 p.m.
Sun 10/30 Arizona (FOX) Noon
Sun 11/6 BYE
Mon 11/14 @ Philadelphia (ABC) 8:00 p.m.
Sun 11/20 Detroit (FOX) Noon
Thur 11/24 Denver (CBS) 3:15 p.m.
Sun 12/4 @ N.Y. Giants (FOX) Noon
Sun 12/11 Kansas City (CBS) 3:15 p.m.
Sun 12/18 @ Washington (FOX) Noon
Sat 12/24 @ Carolina (FOX) Noon
Sun 1/1 St. Louis (ESPN) 7:30 p.m.

Post Season
Jan 7-8 Wild Card Weekend
Jan 14-15 Divisional Playoffs
Jan 22 Conference Championships
Feb 5 Super Bowl XL (Detroit, MI)
Feb 12 Pro Bowl (Honolulu, HI)

Training Camp Predictions

ok here goes nothing. this year i predict :

at least one player we are counting on will get hurt.
at least one player will get released that surprises us.
at least one player will make the team that didnt have much of a chance at the beginning.
bill parcells will throw a fit at least once a day.
jerry jones will get on TV at least once a day.
the 4 networks and 2 newspapers from the DFW metroplex will barrage us with insights
that aren't insightful .
players will have ups and downs throughout camp and us fans will freak out or jump up and down
when each event is reported.
none of it will matter when the first play comes in the regular season because then it all boils
down to each player whipping the opposite player on the other team .
i keep telling myself this so i dont get too crazy waiting for 9-11.....when once again we get to
watch football on TV . ( i dont count preseason games as "real " football.

if this is helpful to your mental state make a donation to something in my honor. later Poke