-
-
-
2010-2011 Regular Season: Malicious Mindless
Mistakes?
-
- October 21,
2010
At 2:30 PM CST
By Eric M. Scharf
The Dallas Cowboys were facing nearly identical pressure to perform
against the Minnesota Vikings last Sunday as they did in last
season's playoff encounter. The prize - this time around - was
almost as important as reaching the next round of the playoffs: the
chance to simply stay alive for entry into the playoffs.
-
- The Cowboys remained consistent –
finding yet another way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory
for the fourth time this season. The Vikings just managed to survive
– barely clearing 100 passing yards and 75 rushing yards and
registering zero sacks of Tony Romo. But . . . there always seems to
be a but with the 2010 Dallas Cowboys.
-
- All Brett Favre, Randy Moss, and Co.
had to do was wait for Dallas to self-destruct and – whether it was
the shiny new collection of penalties or Romo's interceptions
(including another tipped pass) – the Cowboys delivered right
on queue.
-
- The Cowboys really do want to win.
- The Cowboys really do play hard.
- The Cowboys really do struggle to
focus while playing hard.
- The Cowboys really do . . . have
something else going wrong with them – something sadistically
malicious.
-
- Warped Revenge
-
- Fans and prognosticators alike have
repeatedly accused the Cowboys’ players of achieving goals of
production and overachieving goals of stupidity.
While a 1-4 record and a myriad of moronic mistakes collaborate to
validate this argument, it is a carbon copy cop out.
The core problem goes far deeper than anything Wade and his coaches
have failed to do. After all - they are the same coaches the players
had last year, running the same systems.
The core problem goes far deeper than anything Jerry has failed to
do. After all - he is the same owner the players had last year,
spending even more money.
The Cowboys’ players are out for some kind of warped revenge and
thus far, they are having their way.
While logic continues to be a rare thing lately – in all walks of
life – logic still has a place in the current and future status of
the Cowboys’ 2010 season.
“Stupid is as stupid does” – Forrest Gump, 1994.
Logic dictates that only the earlier Tampa Bay Buccaneers teams or
the Detroit Lions and Oakland Raiders of the past two decades could
have ever been so incredibly inept as to collect as many penalties
and make as many bone-headed mistakes as the 2010 Dallas Cowboys.
Eleven games stand in the way of the Cowboys making those teams look
like impossible geniuses . . . or allowing them to keep their
records in futility for at least another year.
There is no logic, however, that can reasonably explain how the
Cowboys could have looked so mature and smart – outside of the
greater Minneapolis area – to end the 2009 season and gone so
brain-dead to start 2010 . . . with so many of the same players
returning.
While there are some truly delinquent players in the NFL, even they
would be hard-pressed to deliver the same mental meltdown made fresh
daily by Dallas.
The only explanation for this revolves – again – around some kind of
warped revenge.
The Cowboys’ players were slighted – some time before this season
began – in such a humiliating way that they must have held a secret
players’ only meeting one pre-season night to draw up an insidious
plan of self-inflicted suffering.
They made a blood pact to exact revenge against the person or group
of people who shamed them so badly.
It no longer matters what was done to the Cowboys to make them
travel this dysfunctional path towards darkness. Blackmail photos
from Kareem Larrimore? Sext messages from Brett Favre? Too much
obnoxious exposure to the Hollywood foreign press? The destruction
of Texas Stadium sapping the team's good karma?
-
- If something was done to encourage
the Cowboys to purposely turn on themselves, what was done is done,
and the only thing that counts moving forward is how to reverse the
players' response.
Who Done It?
-
- The mystery that is driving an
owner, a coach, his staff, and an international fan base to complete
insanity can be solved by asking one simple question (and getting an
honest and revealing answer): Who done it?
This happens to be the same question I asked in the article I wrote
following the Cowboys’ 2009 playoff collapse against the very same
Vikings. While the game was much more competitive, the bottom line
results were the same. The source of the Cowboys' problems, however,
were different this time – and the question continues to beg: Who
done it?
Who has crossed the Cowboys in such a deeply personal and vicious
way as to cause the Cowboys to take a mistake-sharpened straight
razor to their talented wrists? Who done it?
Who has so pissed off the Cowboys players that the 2009 maturity for
which every fan was waiting and finally witnessed – and for which
every opponent was dreading – has been degenerated into so much
pre-historic slime?
Did Buddy Ryan emerge from retirement at the end of training camp to
announce another Bounty Bowl – offering to pay any fines levied by
the NFL against the next player who takes out a Cowboys player with
a helmet-to-helmet hit?
Who done it? That is the $1.3 billion dollar question.
Jerry would gladly offer to double his players’ bonus payouts if
they would simply relinquish the revenge they seem to so relish.
Who done it? What will it take for the Cowboys’ anger to be
satiated?
Who will come forth from the team to unveil the truth about the
Cowboys’ “mistaken” identity?
The Cowboys certainly realize that – through the greater part of six
game performances – they are punishing Jerry, Wade, his coaching
staff, the fans . . . and themselves.
Imagine poking yourself in the eye enough times to drive your
eyeball into the back of your skull, and you have just an inkling of
what the Cowboys have done to themselves – so far – this season.
Pitied should be the team that faces Dallas this season – once the
Cowboys have completely, finally, and totally removed revenge from
their registry and refocused their rage. It could be a blood bath of
epic proportions. It could be like watching Barry Switzer’s Oklahoma
Sooners run up the score on Missouri 77-0. It could be a legitimate
excessive celebration AFTER a complete game and a resounding
victory.
It could be a lot of things . . . but it cannot be anything until
the Cowboys have confessed once and for all: Who done it?
-
- The theory of "warped revenge"
sounds absolutely ridiculous – and it is being presented (not so) tongue in
cheek – but the longer the Cowboys continue to cough it up to the
competition, the more real this theory becomes. Any worse, in fact,
and we will be talking about a full-blown spiritual possession.
-
- The Cowboys must understand that the
only way to get revenge on this mystery entity will be to win, win
convincingly, and win often for the rest of the season . . . and
maybe in the playoffs as well.
-
- Can the Cowboys conquer their mental
captors in time to give the New York Giants a gargantuan beat down?
We shall see. We always do.
|
