Post by prossman on Dec 10, 2009 10:19:26 GMT -7
StrTgram JFE:Wade Phillips makes the media his message
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LINK
By JENNIFER FLOYD ENGEL
jenfloyd@star-telegram
IRVING — Sports’ greatest villain, the mean bottom-feeding Dallas Cowboys media, again has been put in its place.
"Where is the guy who called us losers? Get out," a couple of players screamed and yelled Wednesday.
Boom to the power of boom. Price check on aisle boom.
Marcy, get me boom. Boom, boom.
This anger came, fortuitously, just as locker room availability ended so no player actually had to confront the nefarious media member who dared to ask the coach of a team without a playoff victory in better than a decade: "What exactly have you won?"
WTG, Ken Hamlin and Marion Barber.
Always good to hear from an injured safety whose missed tackles barely have been missed and a running back who refused to be accountable for his game-changing fumble in the latest NYG debacle.
Say this for your Dallas Cowboys under Coach Wade, nobody rallies against the media like they do. ESPN’s Ed Werder united them a year ago and now Steve Dennis of CBS11 fame has his turn.
By now, everybody has heard his little verbal throwdown with Coach Wade from Monday. A scaled-down breakdown:
BFM: Why do you think this year is different, blah, blah, blah?
CW: We are winners, blah, blah, blah.
BFM: What have you ever won?
CW: What would you call them, blah, blah?
Always thinking, Coach Wade used this exchange in his Monday meeting with players, firing them up by saying The BFM called them losers. We did not actually do any such thing, but I am happy to do my part motivationally. At least we saw a little bit of fire from this group, however generated.
And let’s be fair, Coach Wade does have Steve on a technicality.
Eight wins and four losses is, in fact, a winning record. The question is fair, though. What exactly have the Cowboys won? Does the NFL give out Week 12 Lombardis? Does anybody except for Coach Wade?
Of course, not. What matters are playoffs.
And I’d give Coach Wade the benefit of the doubt except this is the same guy who said the bye week was like a playoff win and the better team lost and argues the December record is made up and cluelessly touts his overall record here while ignoring the elephant in the room. He was not hired, instead of San Diego’s Norv Turner, mind you, to accumulate a lot of pretty regular-season stats.
To go down in Cowboys lore, to be Ring of Honor-worthy, to walk into this locker room and command respect years later like Nate Newton did Wednesday, requires rings in Dallas. Or at very least a playoff win, not simply to have more wins than losses coming into December.
Bad news: Coach Wade is too busy with semantics and fighting PR battles to fix what’s broken.
Good news: A good many of his players do understand. If this December indeed is different, and that had to start with a victory Sunday, thank the players.
"It starts now ... we have to get some type of burst where we get motivated, we get on track," linebacker DeMarcus Ware said. "Usually the good teams that make it to the playoffs and make it to the end get that end-of-the-year burst going into the second half."
Guys like Ware and Jason Witten, and plenty more named James and Crayton and Ratliff, have been around a while and have tired of failing to accomplish what is ultimately their goal. These guys know what really qualifies as a winner in the NFL.
Hint: It is not a contract, a sack stat, a defensive ranking, a partial record or really anything except for playoffs.
They know, unlike in the Big Bill days, the time is now. They are in the prime of their careers on a team loaded with talent and they do not want to waste it celebrating 13-3 seasons and bye-week wins. They want a championship.
"Yeah, no doubt," Witten said. "I don’t know the ins and outs of how all [of the Wade-Steve brouhaha] that got brought up, but I think for us, our standards are really high. He creates that standard for us. And where our goals are, none of us is excited about where we are right now."
Well, nobody except Coach Wade.
"I think the players are behind him 100 percent," Witten said.
A word of caution: Be very careful reading too much into these impassioned defenses of Coach Wade. What are players supposed to say for public consumption?
"Here we go again with his sunshine pumper." Or, "I disagree with Wade. What have we won?" Or, "I wish he’d shut up."
Despite his promises to be "more whatever," players understand that Coach Wade is not changing. That much was evident Wednesday when he praised Bobby Carpenter’s play and actually pretended Flozell Adams has a leg to stand on in his appeal of a fine for a gutless push or letting Mat McBriar swing for Nick Folk’s struggles or calling his team winners.
"What was he supposed to call us? Losers?" Keith Brooking barked to Steve in a TV show.
Nobody is calling them losers. Of course, they are not losers.
If they were being honest, though, they wouldn’t need Steve. They would be asking themselves: What have we actually won? And the answer would motivate them more than anything the bottom-feeding media had to say.
Jennifer Floyd Engel, 817-390-7760
__________________
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LINK
By JENNIFER FLOYD ENGEL
jenfloyd@star-telegram
IRVING — Sports’ greatest villain, the mean bottom-feeding Dallas Cowboys media, again has been put in its place.
"Where is the guy who called us losers? Get out," a couple of players screamed and yelled Wednesday.
Boom to the power of boom. Price check on aisle boom.
Marcy, get me boom. Boom, boom.
This anger came, fortuitously, just as locker room availability ended so no player actually had to confront the nefarious media member who dared to ask the coach of a team without a playoff victory in better than a decade: "What exactly have you won?"
WTG, Ken Hamlin and Marion Barber.
Always good to hear from an injured safety whose missed tackles barely have been missed and a running back who refused to be accountable for his game-changing fumble in the latest NYG debacle.
Say this for your Dallas Cowboys under Coach Wade, nobody rallies against the media like they do. ESPN’s Ed Werder united them a year ago and now Steve Dennis of CBS11 fame has his turn.
By now, everybody has heard his little verbal throwdown with Coach Wade from Monday. A scaled-down breakdown:
BFM: Why do you think this year is different, blah, blah, blah?
CW: We are winners, blah, blah, blah.
BFM: What have you ever won?
CW: What would you call them, blah, blah?
Always thinking, Coach Wade used this exchange in his Monday meeting with players, firing them up by saying The BFM called them losers. We did not actually do any such thing, but I am happy to do my part motivationally. At least we saw a little bit of fire from this group, however generated.
And let’s be fair, Coach Wade does have Steve on a technicality.
Eight wins and four losses is, in fact, a winning record. The question is fair, though. What exactly have the Cowboys won? Does the NFL give out Week 12 Lombardis? Does anybody except for Coach Wade?
Of course, not. What matters are playoffs.
And I’d give Coach Wade the benefit of the doubt except this is the same guy who said the bye week was like a playoff win and the better team lost and argues the December record is made up and cluelessly touts his overall record here while ignoring the elephant in the room. He was not hired, instead of San Diego’s Norv Turner, mind you, to accumulate a lot of pretty regular-season stats.
To go down in Cowboys lore, to be Ring of Honor-worthy, to walk into this locker room and command respect years later like Nate Newton did Wednesday, requires rings in Dallas. Or at very least a playoff win, not simply to have more wins than losses coming into December.
Bad news: Coach Wade is too busy with semantics and fighting PR battles to fix what’s broken.
Good news: A good many of his players do understand. If this December indeed is different, and that had to start with a victory Sunday, thank the players.
"It starts now ... we have to get some type of burst where we get motivated, we get on track," linebacker DeMarcus Ware said. "Usually the good teams that make it to the playoffs and make it to the end get that end-of-the-year burst going into the second half."
Guys like Ware and Jason Witten, and plenty more named James and Crayton and Ratliff, have been around a while and have tired of failing to accomplish what is ultimately their goal. These guys know what really qualifies as a winner in the NFL.
Hint: It is not a contract, a sack stat, a defensive ranking, a partial record or really anything except for playoffs.
They know, unlike in the Big Bill days, the time is now. They are in the prime of their careers on a team loaded with talent and they do not want to waste it celebrating 13-3 seasons and bye-week wins. They want a championship.
"Yeah, no doubt," Witten said. "I don’t know the ins and outs of how all [of the Wade-Steve brouhaha] that got brought up, but I think for us, our standards are really high. He creates that standard for us. And where our goals are, none of us is excited about where we are right now."
Well, nobody except Coach Wade.
"I think the players are behind him 100 percent," Witten said.
A word of caution: Be very careful reading too much into these impassioned defenses of Coach Wade. What are players supposed to say for public consumption?
"Here we go again with his sunshine pumper." Or, "I disagree with Wade. What have we won?" Or, "I wish he’d shut up."
Despite his promises to be "more whatever," players understand that Coach Wade is not changing. That much was evident Wednesday when he praised Bobby Carpenter’s play and actually pretended Flozell Adams has a leg to stand on in his appeal of a fine for a gutless push or letting Mat McBriar swing for Nick Folk’s struggles or calling his team winners.
"What was he supposed to call us? Losers?" Keith Brooking barked to Steve in a TV show.
Nobody is calling them losers. Of course, they are not losers.
If they were being honest, though, they wouldn’t need Steve. They would be asking themselves: What have we actually won? And the answer would motivate them more than anything the bottom-feeding media had to say.
Jennifer Floyd Engel, 817-390-7760
__________________