Post by prossman on Dec 25, 2008 6:40:17 GMT -7
DC.COM: Sham: Good Year? Depends On Your Perspective
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Writing History
Sham: Good Yeat? Depends On Your Perspective
Brad Sham
December 24, 2008 3;37 PM
IRVING, Texas - Have the Cowboys had a good year?
That's going to be up to you.
By most measures, they have so far had a disappointing season.
It's a disappointment when a player suffers a serious injury. Disappointing to him and disappointing to the team. Certainly disappointing to the fans. Usually it's no one's fault. It's just stuff that happens.
Ask Felix Jones if his rookie season has been a disappointment. He will tell you yes even if the team rallies from the edge of the cliff it's on at the moment and wins the last game of the season in Tampa, Fla. Jones' injury in Arizona and subsequent new injury suffered while rehabbing during the bye week changed the team drastically. I don't know when I've heard so much disappointment from so many fans about losing a player's services to injury in-season. Everyone could see what he brought, and that things wouldn't be the same without him. Not a good year.
For DeMarcus Ware, this has been an exceptional year. The assault he's making on the single-season sack record is just tinsel on the tree. He is a serious candidate for Defensive Player of the Year because he changes games, because he is stunningly versatile and because offenses must game-plan around him. He is as good playing the run as he is rushing the passer. He can even drop in coverage, although if we never see him drop 20 yards away from the quarterback on third-and-five again, as he did in the second quarter Saturday night against the Ravens, that would be just fine.
Ware is everything you want. He's becoming a great player who is also an all-world person. Role model, solid citizen, unselfish. Face-of the-franchise stuff. What he most wants Sunday is a Dallas win. But in the locker room on Christmas Eve, asked if he thought he deserved to be voted Defensive Player of the Year, Ware said, "Yes, I think I do deserve it." Good for him. He's right. Whatever happens to his team Sunday in Philadelphia in the final game of the season, for DeMarcus Ware, it's been a very good year.
Maybe, considering the season we currently enjoy (and I don't mean football), the case studies of Felix Jones and DeMarcus Ware are a great example of how to take this gut-punch, rollercoaster ride of a football campaign. Count your blessings, be thankful for what you have, and if you don't get what you asked for, look around. Chances are you'll have no trouble finding someone with real problems.
On one hand, you could be a Detroit Lion. Or worse yet, a fan of the Detroit Lions. Or a fan of the Cleveland Browns. Or a Browns coach or general manager about to lose a job. You want to talk about frustrating? How about being a fan of the Cincinnati Bengals. The only people enjoying the San Diego Chargers' season are the team psychologists.
All these people would trade places with the Dallas Cowboys or with you, Cowboys fans, in a heartbeat. And don't say "I don't give a hangnail about them." Very un-Christmas season like. Not acceptable this week. I'm still sitting on a column ranting about the Dallas loss to the Rams, but I decided not to write it this week. Not at Christmas. Not with people celebrating the miracle of Chanukah. That's for another time.
You think this has been a challenging season for you? Try being Wade Phillips. The Cowboys head coach knows better than anyone that he's never head coached a playoff win. Tony Romo has also never quarterbacked one, but he's got a little more time to play with. Phillips has seen the promise of a 3-0 start fade into the injuries in Arizona and the loss of his quarterback and the disaster in St. Louis and the ups and downs of the last four weeks, and he was able to sit before the media Monday and say with an absolutely straight face, "I don't think our team's been inconsistent. And we have a chance for 10 wins, which means you're not inconsistent. If you win 10 games, you're a consistent football team."
This clearly is a man with great perspective. Show him a train wreck and he'll show you a train that left the depot on time.
Maybe we could all use some of that in deciding what kind of year the Cowboys have had. I'm pretty confident that owner/general manager/ Jerry Jones is not happy about the place his team occupies going into Christmas. He was not planning on being 9-6 and playing for the team's playoff life in Philadelphia the last game of the season.
On the other hand, he knows that if the Cowboys can win this game, there is absolutely nothing to say they can't do what the Giants did a year ago and Pittsburgh just a few back. They are probably good enough to win four postseason games. The question is whether they are good enough to play in one.
But the injuries that happened in Arizona, and since, happened. You can't wish them away. Some teams survive apparently crippling injuries. Some can't. But if you decide the Cowboys have not had a good year, you might want to ask yourself if the season had started and you had no Felix Jones or Mat McBriar or Kyle Kosier, no Romo for a quarter of the season and no Marion Barber for another quarter, would your expectations for the team have been the same?
Would you still have thought this team should be 12-4, or would you have said, "Y'know, if this team can scratch out 10 wins and somehow get into the postseason, that would be a heck of a deal."
On the other hand, if you had known Tashard Choice would be such a revelation, and that the defense could have almost the half-season that it's had since Tampa Bay, would you have expected more?
See, it's all in the way you choose to look at it. Me, I think this is a disappointing team because it has underachieved. It has played more poorly in spots than it probably should have. It should not be going to Philadelphia desperate, but it is.
But it has not, for me, been a bad season. Not when we get to watch Ware and Witten and Bradie James and Choice and Barber and, yes, Romo, who is Mr. Toad's Wild Ride come to life. Not when we get to watch Nick Folk line up for a critical kick or Terence Newman take on a top receiver. That's not a bad year.
It's all a matter of perspective. The Cowboys are still writing the history of the 2008 season. How you read it is up to you.
Happy Holidays, everyone.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Writing History
Sham: Good Yeat? Depends On Your Perspective
Brad Sham
December 24, 2008 3;37 PM
IRVING, Texas - Have the Cowboys had a good year?
That's going to be up to you.
By most measures, they have so far had a disappointing season.
It's a disappointment when a player suffers a serious injury. Disappointing to him and disappointing to the team. Certainly disappointing to the fans. Usually it's no one's fault. It's just stuff that happens.
Ask Felix Jones if his rookie season has been a disappointment. He will tell you yes even if the team rallies from the edge of the cliff it's on at the moment and wins the last game of the season in Tampa, Fla. Jones' injury in Arizona and subsequent new injury suffered while rehabbing during the bye week changed the team drastically. I don't know when I've heard so much disappointment from so many fans about losing a player's services to injury in-season. Everyone could see what he brought, and that things wouldn't be the same without him. Not a good year.
For DeMarcus Ware, this has been an exceptional year. The assault he's making on the single-season sack record is just tinsel on the tree. He is a serious candidate for Defensive Player of the Year because he changes games, because he is stunningly versatile and because offenses must game-plan around him. He is as good playing the run as he is rushing the passer. He can even drop in coverage, although if we never see him drop 20 yards away from the quarterback on third-and-five again, as he did in the second quarter Saturday night against the Ravens, that would be just fine.
Ware is everything you want. He's becoming a great player who is also an all-world person. Role model, solid citizen, unselfish. Face-of the-franchise stuff. What he most wants Sunday is a Dallas win. But in the locker room on Christmas Eve, asked if he thought he deserved to be voted Defensive Player of the Year, Ware said, "Yes, I think I do deserve it." Good for him. He's right. Whatever happens to his team Sunday in Philadelphia in the final game of the season, for DeMarcus Ware, it's been a very good year.
Maybe, considering the season we currently enjoy (and I don't mean football), the case studies of Felix Jones and DeMarcus Ware are a great example of how to take this gut-punch, rollercoaster ride of a football campaign. Count your blessings, be thankful for what you have, and if you don't get what you asked for, look around. Chances are you'll have no trouble finding someone with real problems.
On one hand, you could be a Detroit Lion. Or worse yet, a fan of the Detroit Lions. Or a fan of the Cleveland Browns. Or a Browns coach or general manager about to lose a job. You want to talk about frustrating? How about being a fan of the Cincinnati Bengals. The only people enjoying the San Diego Chargers' season are the team psychologists.
All these people would trade places with the Dallas Cowboys or with you, Cowboys fans, in a heartbeat. And don't say "I don't give a hangnail about them." Very un-Christmas season like. Not acceptable this week. I'm still sitting on a column ranting about the Dallas loss to the Rams, but I decided not to write it this week. Not at Christmas. Not with people celebrating the miracle of Chanukah. That's for another time.
You think this has been a challenging season for you? Try being Wade Phillips. The Cowboys head coach knows better than anyone that he's never head coached a playoff win. Tony Romo has also never quarterbacked one, but he's got a little more time to play with. Phillips has seen the promise of a 3-0 start fade into the injuries in Arizona and the loss of his quarterback and the disaster in St. Louis and the ups and downs of the last four weeks, and he was able to sit before the media Monday and say with an absolutely straight face, "I don't think our team's been inconsistent. And we have a chance for 10 wins, which means you're not inconsistent. If you win 10 games, you're a consistent football team."
This clearly is a man with great perspective. Show him a train wreck and he'll show you a train that left the depot on time.
Maybe we could all use some of that in deciding what kind of year the Cowboys have had. I'm pretty confident that owner/general manager/ Jerry Jones is not happy about the place his team occupies going into Christmas. He was not planning on being 9-6 and playing for the team's playoff life in Philadelphia the last game of the season.
On the other hand, he knows that if the Cowboys can win this game, there is absolutely nothing to say they can't do what the Giants did a year ago and Pittsburgh just a few back. They are probably good enough to win four postseason games. The question is whether they are good enough to play in one.
But the injuries that happened in Arizona, and since, happened. You can't wish them away. Some teams survive apparently crippling injuries. Some can't. But if you decide the Cowboys have not had a good year, you might want to ask yourself if the season had started and you had no Felix Jones or Mat McBriar or Kyle Kosier, no Romo for a quarter of the season and no Marion Barber for another quarter, would your expectations for the team have been the same?
Would you still have thought this team should be 12-4, or would you have said, "Y'know, if this team can scratch out 10 wins and somehow get into the postseason, that would be a heck of a deal."
On the other hand, if you had known Tashard Choice would be such a revelation, and that the defense could have almost the half-season that it's had since Tampa Bay, would you have expected more?
See, it's all in the way you choose to look at it. Me, I think this is a disappointing team because it has underachieved. It has played more poorly in spots than it probably should have. It should not be going to Philadelphia desperate, but it is.
But it has not, for me, been a bad season. Not when we get to watch Ware and Witten and Bradie James and Choice and Barber and, yes, Romo, who is Mr. Toad's Wild Ride come to life. Not when we get to watch Nick Folk line up for a critical kick or Terence Newman take on a top receiver. That's not a bad year.
It's all a matter of perspective. The Cowboys are still writing the history of the 2008 season. How you read it is up to you.
Happy Holidays, everyone.