This Is So Much More Fun

I originally started this blog so I would have a place to rant and rave about whatever was making me mad about the Dallas Cowboys.  Somewhere along the way I mellowed out ( I think it must have started right after Bill Parcells left, sorry but I just couldn’t bring myself to like him even though I respect his football credentials.)

It could also be that I have matured ( its possible !), I have not kicked a coffee table after a loss in many many years.  It might be that I realized that every week has the potential to be good or bad.

I don’t know for sure but its probably just because this team, this year just seems different.  I know there is one regular season game left and I could end up in here next Monday screaming my fool head off.  I just don’t think I will. 

I could be griping about Barber not gaining yards on short yardage, or Roy 11 dropping balls or trick plays that don’t trick.  I just decided I would judge on the season results and not be so fretful about every single play.  It seems to have increased my enjoyment of the Good Guys tremendously.

Awww who am I kidding, it’s because they have been winning and they are in the playoffs and have a chance to win the division and The Super Bowl.  Yep that’s it.  Man this introspective stuff really works. later Poke

I Hate Having To Be The Guy…

who reminds everybody that while the redskins look like they are going to implode, who looked so terribly bad against the gints, whose coach has resorted to trick plays , that they are the redskins and they would love nothing more than to make us Cowboys miserable by messing up our shot at the playoffs.

I have seen it too many times, when one of these teams is down they always seem to play up and throw a wrench in the other teams plans.

Sure they sent a star player home from practice this week.  Sure they hired a guy who was calling numbers at a BINGO game to call their plays.  There is a reason Cowboy fans hate the redskins.  They always seem to play us hard.  Sometimes they beat us, sometimes they beat us when we really can’t afford for them too.

This week we find out if they have anything left, we also find out if our Heroes can rise above it and build off last weeks great game.  Time for Coach Wade to show us he can get his team ready even though it was Christmas week.

Time for these players to show us they get it, that they understand that last weeks game was last weeks game.  I really like this group of guys, they seem to be a good bunch, a team.  This week we see if all that means anything or not.

I am expecting our guys to come out just like last week and score early while shutting down the redskins offense.  In reality it doesn’t matter what I think.  The only thing that matters is which version of the Dallas Cowboys 2009 shows up. 

I hope everybody had a Merry Christmas, now it’s up to the Boys to give us a Happy New Year. later Poke

Ramblings

That was fun.  A little bit too much fun towards the end, but fun nevertheless.  That’s what we fans have been wanting to see all year.  A Cowboys team that played smart, hard, hit em in the mouth football from the git go. 

You could see the writing on the wall almost.  This is the NFL, the big boy league.  Any time a team gets that much positive publicity, that many glowing accolades on that many channels from that many experts you can just about beat they are headed for a fall.

The aint’s appeared to show up thinking that all they had to do was holler Who Dat enough times and the other team would concede the game and everybody could boogie-woogie all night in the French Quarter.  It almost never works out well for the team in the midst of all the hoopla.  (refer to last years last game at Texas Stadium and the first game this year at Cowboys Stadium). 

Sure those guys are professionals.  They are also human.  They hear, read and see a lot of the stuff they say they never hear, see, or read.  Saturday night our Heroes showed up more ready to play than the guys with flowers on their hats.  It happens.  That’s the reason you never really know who might beat who.  Did anyone think Oakland was gonna beat Denver Sunday ?

Right now as I type this, there is a coach in a dark room, in an empty stadium watching film.  Studying to see what he can do to beat next weeks opponent.  Many more hours will be spent searching for a weakness he can use against this weeks team.  Then in practice this week there will be moments where he tries to get that info drilled into his players heads so they recognize what they see come Sunday.  It may be a small thing, a foot placed a certain way on running plays, a gesture a player makes if the ball is coming to him.  There are so many ways to win or lose a game.  Attitude is one of them.

I think this past week the coaches of the Good Guys just did a better job of getting them ready to play than the aints coaches.  I don’t care if a team is 16-0, nothing has been decided yet.  The job now is not look back but ahead at the redskins.  You can’t decide that since you beat the aints, all you have to do is roll into DC and you automatically win versus the skins.  Shouldnt be too hard to teach your players that after what just happened to New Orleans, should it?  later Poke

ya gotta Believe !!

Busy time of year, shopping and parties to go to.  Travel.

Don’t have time to say much.

I think the Cowboys beat the aint’s this Saturday.

Crazy ? probably.  Possible ? absolutely.

How ? who knows.  It could be a run-away, a nail-biter or anything in between.  It could be a last second field goal from a kicker who is having an off year.

I have always told ya’ll, don’t make bets on what I say.  It’s my job to always pick the Cowboys and thats what I am doing.

later Poke  (dont let me down Santa, Romo, Williams, Newman, Wade, Jason G, Jason W, Brooking, James, Ratliff and Barber.)

My Christmas List This Year

One thing I always hated about Christmas, besides the dry turkey and having to eat dressing was when the bestest toy you got let you down.  The one at the top of every list you wrote to ole Santa broke or didn’t quite work the way you imagined it would.  Ya’ll all know what I am talking about.  Heartbreaking to say the least.  It made the next few months miserable until you could either scrape enough money together to buy the next Great Toy that came out or be lucky enough to have a birthday so you could get something to replace it.

That’s kind of how I feel right now about our beloved Boys of the Blue Star Commune.  They looked all shiny and bright this year, even the loss to open the new Crystal Cathedral didn’t damper my excitement.  Then they put together enough wins to be at 8-3 and I got that happy feeling thinking about a Super Bowl run.  Much like tearing the wrapping paper off that shiny new toy I watched as Miles Austin dazzled us.  Even when Roy 11 wasn’t having good games I was certain it would all work out, just like I thought that shiny new electric football game I got back in 1967 or 68 would eventually teach me how to be the best football player ever instead of just vibrating all the players into a big circle.  (maybe they should re-name that electric rugby because now that i think about it isn’t that what they do in rugby ? ) 

Sadly, much like my new football game this years version of the Boys has taken a dramatic turn for the worse.  In the case of my electric football set, it was the big butt of a friend of mine that landed right in the middle of that pristine field when he slipped on our freshly waxed wood floors.  The efforts to straighten the bent field never really payed off and the players tended to all congregate on the 50 yard line no matter what superb plays we designed.

Diagnosing the Cowboys failings may be a bit harder to pinpoint.  As I type this there are people saying its Jerry’s fault, Wade’s fault, Jason Garrett’s fault, Romo’s fault, Roy 11’s fault, Flozell’s fault, Newmans fault, the Stadium’s fault, and on and on.  Take your pick.

I prefer to think of it as team game so I lean toward the “team fault” theory.  Honestly to this point all of the above and more have not done their jobs to their utmost potential.  One group has had a good day and the other groups wouldn’t.  Some games none of the groups did good. 

Luckily there are 3 games left, sadly 2 of those 3 are against teams playing better right now than we are.  2 of those games are away games which never makes it easier.  The other team is a division rival that would love to beat the Good Guys cause their season has been horrible.  It don’t look good for the Heroes of Our Youth.

But hey, it’s Christmas time.  I have wished for stranger things.  For years I actually thought I had a shot at getting a horse for Christmas even though we lived in the city on a city lot.  I still believe in miracles.  I gotta go now, I need to get started on that letter to Santa.  later Poke

Almost Perfect…subtitled 2 out of 3 ain’t Bad.

So yeah it’s Wednesday and I am just now blogging about the past week.  That was a big disappointment to me and it took me a couple of days to think about it.  I had a great football weekend, first I went and saw UT beat Nebraska and that was great.  I mean where else can you see a football and THIS ???

Sunday morning I had a chance to tour the Stadium with my son and that was GREAT. 

We got to punt, pass and kick footballs on the field.  I kicked a 25 yard field goal through these goal posts.  My punt came nowhere near the big screen TV over our heads.  They fed us, gave us stuff to drink, had old players there to sign autographs…FREE. Life was good.

Rushed home to watch our Heroes beat them yankee Giants.  It started out great, 10-0.  Then the wheels fell off.  Flag football defense, a fumble by a player whose heart I have never doubted.  A mistake by a young linebacker who let his guy catch a 4 yard pass and turn it into a 74 yard TD.  A punt return for another TD because Patrick Watkins forgot how to tackle.  An offensive line that misses Columbo more than we realized.  A field goal kicker who missed more field goals than a fat 53 yr old man did on this day.

Luckily I still see the big picture.  It aint over till its over.  (yogi berra).  That loss just opened up the whole can’t win in December can of worms.  Sometimes it’s hard to get them worms back in that can.  I think the Cowboys will do just that  but remember I grew up losing my school ice cream money betting on the Boys.

Every week is different.  Who would have dreamed the Saints would need OT to beat the redskins ?  Or that Oakland would beat Pittsburgh ?  There is still plenty of time to panic or meltdown.  I am just not there yet.  See me after this Sunday.  later Poke

This Is What We Been Waiting For

Its been a long time coming.  Ever since Baltimore ripped our hearts out and stomped them flat at the closing of Texas Stadium.  Ever since our Heroes turned in a gutless performance in the last game of the year in Filthydelphia. 

Sure the first 11 games counted, the ugly wins, the fugly losses, the pretty wins, the heartbreaking opening game of the year.  In reality they all count the same in the standings.

But, after Thanksgiving the spotlight shines brighter, tension mounts, people start figuring out playoff scenarios.  It feels different.  Unless you are 11-0 or 10-1 like a few teams you don’t have much wiggle room to punch your ticket to the tournament.

Reality says the 7-6 win over Washington counts just as much as game played this week.  Reality may be technically correct.  Cowboys fans worldwide know better.  A December trip to the Meadowlands to play the giants offers the Boys of the Blue Star a shot at rinsing that nasty taste of last year out of thousands of mouths.  A road victory, late in the year, against a division rival that is fighting for their own playoff chances would be stronger than minty Listerine.

This is the next big game.  Win this one and even though it guarantees you nothing it makes people think that maybe, just maybe these guys aren’t the same team from last year. 

I understand that the game after this one will be the next big game.  But not until Monday.  For now it’s whoever's next in line.  The guys with Stars on their helmets need to win this week.  Stop all the talk about past failures before it snowballs. 

I think they will.  I like this team.  This is exactly what I have been waiting for.  Buckle up them chinstraps .  Later Poke