Back info. I’m an older fan. Became enamored with the team in the mid 1960’s. I remember the letdown after the Ice Bowl, late 60’s losses to Cleveland that stung, the seeming unfairness of the Colts SB win over us in SB V. Pain to a youngster and then teenager. I grew up on football . . . I’m from Texas and we do football here. Not basketball, not hockey, not even baseball (Go Astros). Football is king. Football makes men! (No offense Mary Quality and others of the fairer gender).
Some balance here: I was ringside for Captain America, Lord Tom Landry with his band of merry men (yeah you Ernie Stautner), Too Tall and Harvey, them 2 head hunter safeties in Harris and Waters. I loved the 70’s. I learned to hate with a passion the Stealers. It was said that there was a hole in the roof of Texas stadium so God could watch his favorite team.
This is what formed my Cowboy love.
I’m skating over the 90’s but what a time to be a Cowboy !
So now, here we are in a new millennia . Optimization in all areas needed to rise to the top. My early childhood pains again personified and multiplied.
Here’s what I see:
Let see here . . . let’s look at chronic problems that this team seems to have.
— Managements problems:
— Paying players past their prime too much
— Paying mediocre players too much
— Paying minimally productive players too much
All 3 of this prevent the retention of better talent and the acquisition vis free agency of plug and play talented pieces that are needed due to draft failures (Dallas is a better than average drafting team but have a few reaches every year in the early rounds when they are attempting to show everyone else the (Cowboy management) are the smartest group in the league. My 3 laments above boil down to poor salary cap management and talent management.
Let’s continue with Cowboy Management issues:
— The general manager in his love of self undermines coaching by — insisting on certain players playing — talking to the press and giving away strategy and team philosophies — taking the edge off of player attitudes by his words to the press/radio programs (remember the Jimmy Johnson fear is a motivation philosophy?) . Insisting or forcing the playing of players that are not very productive. These are the only things that are apparent from my outside view looking in. Who knows Jerry’s input into coaching plans and philosophies but I’m sure that as he is such an egomaniac there is some.
— Coaching acquisitions is more than suspect. What coaching hires in the last 27 years has popped out at Cowboy fans as exemplary? Parcells maybe even though Parcells was done and coerced out of retirement. And then Jerry undermined him publicly with the headcase Terrell Owens (that’s one that was publicly known). The string of bad or mediocre coaches continues. When we need a lion at the helm of this team we get a house cat.
So, we can discuss moving talent around, Acquiring this or that star, building up certain position groups like the O-line or WR’s, or moving on from Dak and such but that is all just pizzing in the wind. The problem is the head of the snake, not the snake.
Piling On:
Jerry consistently undermines this team one way or the other be it over-paying, coddling players, poor coaching acquisition, shooting off his big mouth. He thinks he’s the smartest football man in the room. I am reminded of a wise platitude from Proverbs (16:18) in the Bible that reads :
[/color] "Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall."[color:#000099] These are words written by King Solomon who when asked what gift(s) God could bestow upon him asked for wisdom. This old wisdom has soooo much moxy in it. It also has Jerry written all over it.
There’s a cancer running this team. And again I point to the Bob Haze piece that we’re stuck with it. There is no cure, we slowly succumb to the cancer year after year, dying the death of a thousand cuts as fans (well, I am anyway). I am almost 70 years old and want so desperately to see excellence in my Cowboys yet I languish here as a perennial also-ran, chided by fans of such weak-azzed teams that never were members of such a fraternity as we Cowboy fans are. I feel there is no hope as a fan waiting on and imploring for the return of Cowboy greatness.
