Bill and Jerry Have Enlightened Me

[Juke99]

Winning is the primary goal in professional sports. Not business, not Monopoly-- professional sports. Jimmy Johnson let his players get away with murder and broke their backs to produce a winner. Vince Lombardi elevated winning above all else. Lombardi, Parcells-- the rigid stance and codes of behavior these guys embrace are all in a focused effort to win.

Trouble makers to Bill are those who are not committed to practice, football, and winning.

The double standards regarding Owens are shocking-- exactly what qualifies as "bad" character?

Owens practices like Irvin and plays like Irvin. Yeah, he loves making a spectacle of himself, but how does that mean he's a bad character?

- How are his dances after scores any different than Butch Johnson's "California Quake", Harper's goalpost dunks, Icky's shuffle, Gary Clark's backwards trot, or all those Lambeau leaps?

- How are his calling out his teammates' poor performances any different than Charles Haley deficating in a teammate's vehicle, starting fights with teammates, or screaming at coaches in the locker room?

- How is what Owens did *any* different than what Keyshawn Johnson did-- yet Johnson is welcomed with open arms??? Johnson called Neil O'donnel a limp puppet, called himself a star and Wayne Chrebet a flashlight, hammered Brad Johnson, and hammered Jon Gruden. Keyshawn wrote a stupid book and so did Owens. Dallas signed both players, but Owens gets all the grief from the character police-- ***?

- He's is not a drug abuser like Favre, Lett, Irvin, Tuinei, or Tayor; a drug seller like Newton; a pimp like Harper; or pedophile like Septien. To me THOSE are signs of questionable character! Owens is guilty of using the media to promote himself and help fight his management.

I dunno. How is it different?

Something IS different.

The attempts to compare Owens to these guys isn't working for me...nor is it for the media...and most importantly, nor is it for the NFL...just ask the 49ers...the Eagles...and oh, another 30 or so teams...because if anyone believes there were 7 other teams going hard after Owens like his agent said, then I have a nice bridge for sale.

 

[Zaxor]

And this is the point...sports is no different than any other business....

There is a quick fix mentality in the business world.

Funny stuff....a few weeks back I was talking to my dad about a great uncle who had passed away. My dad said "Did you know he was a millionaire?"

I sez, "No. I had no idea. How did he do that?"

And my dad looked at me with the dumbstruck look on his face and snottily replied, "Uh, he worked his *** off...that's how"

Gee, what a novel approach. Working to make your millions. It have never occurred to me when I asked the question.

Sad statement.

LOL...

but if hard work was all that was necessary than there would be a bunch more than there are...I know a bunch of guys that work about as hard and as long as a man can work...and they are scratching and clawing trying to make ends meet...

I became a libertarian because I dislike both big government and big business and if it costs me a little more to keep Mom and Pop in business well so be it (political party message follows)

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[Reality]

because if anyone believes there were 7 other teams going hard after Owens like his agent said, then I have a nice bridge for sale.

I don't remember him saying they were NFL teams

-Reality is funny

 

[Zaxor]

I dunno. How is it different?

Something IS different.

The attempts to compare Owens to these guys isn't working for me...nor is it for the media...and most importantly, nor is it for the NFL...just ask the 49ers...the Eagles...and oh, another 30 or so teams...because if anyone believes there were 7 other teams going hard after Owens like his agent said, then I have a nice bridge for sale.

I agree though I tried to explain the differance before (I guess rather unsuccessfully)

 

[Zaxor]

I don't remember him saying they were NFL teams

-Reality is funny

Bwahahahaisn't reality funny

 

[Juke99]

I don't remember him saying they were NFL teams

-Reality is funny

Did you make an offer for him to be a mod here????

 

[dcfanatic]

There aren't many big businesses (not talking mom and pop shops, but billion dollar businesses) that wouldn't screw over you, me and every other consumer if it meant improving their bottom line.

I never said it "should" be that way .. I'm just saying that is the way it is. In a perfect world, there would be no wars, no abuse, no poverty, etc. Do I appreciate the NFL as much now as I did as a kid? Absolutely not, but yet here I am running a NFL fan site and watching game after game.

As I said, the NFL is big business and its goal just like other big businesses is to make money. Take Charles Johnson for example. He plays on the Bengals and even though they did better this year, it's not like I ever see anyone wearing Bengals jerseys. All of a sudden he starts doing his end zone skits and next thing you know, sports shows are replaying and talking about his antics some even putting them down. However, what has this accomplished? It has made him well-known to even casual fans.

Players like Terrell Owens, Deion Sanders, etc. are players fans love to hate. They love to hate them until they are on their team and that hate turns to support. Is that right? No, but it happens over and over and I doubt it will ever change.

There are exceptions to the Terrell Owens and Deion Sanders types of players in professional sports and the three you listed are definitely good examples. That being said, it doesn't change the fact that the number of professional players with high character and moral values that are also top players in the league are very few.

.. and let's face it, if it was such a problem with most fans, the NFL wouldn't be the most popular sport in this country.

-Reality is real

Very good comments. As you can see I am also supporting my team with a fan site and I love doing it because I love the Cowboys. One of the reasons I loved them so much was the fact that they were 'the Cowboys', not just any old team, but the all mighty DALLAS COWBOYS who people love to hate.

Now with this signing it just seems they are guaranteed a step backward in the eyes of all their fans for a chance of taking a step forward with a Super Bowl XLI win.

That hurt me, and I mean it really hurt me.

Now for my kicker. My site I have referenced below, dcfanatic.com, is brand new. You know why? Because I kinda closed my old fan site on Saturday.

I used to be parcellsguys on here and my site was parcellsguys.com. Not any more. Bill Parcells sold his soul to the devil. I can't even count the amount of times I argued on countless message boards saying that 'Coach Parcells will never allow this cancer on his team', then he ups and slaps me in the face. Now I know why, because he wants to win a Super Bowl. I applaud him for his desire to be sucessful, but then I say 'we could have won just as easily with Keyshawn if we got a RT, FS, LB and a kicker in free agency or the draft'.

But instead he's trying to take the easy road. This is after telling me for three years that he wants his type of guys in that locker room, 'Parcells Guys'.

So now TO is a Parcells Guy? Wow. The wool was pulled over my eyes I guess. If you visit parcellsguys.com now there is statement, sort of a protest of the signing of TO, which tells the browser that I am no longer a huge fan of Coach Parcells and therefore won't run a site with his name attached.

So my reason for the sarcastic article was this.

We all know that sports are just a big business these days, but it's not something that we should accept. We should do something. We should take a stand. The Cowboys should have been the ones to take a stand and not sign a jerk off like TO, but instead they were the only ones who even were willing to give him exactly what he wanted. I figured the people who were pissed to the point of uttering the words 'i aint rooting for the Cowboys no more' could just do a quick lol about it and move ahead.

We all know we aren't really going to abandon the Cowboys, but we can be a little mad at them. At least until the draft.

My brain hurts, lol. Have a good one bro.

 

[billknows]

Then explain Troy Aikman, Cal Ripken and Tim Duncan to me.

The great players were athletes that were loyal to thier respective teams.
Great players generally held thier personal lives to higher standards,as not to be disloyal or tarnish a organization , or team of men .

 

[Qwickdraw]

​

For the longest time I was a sports fool. I was totally misinterpreting sports. When the Dallas Cowboys signed Terrell Owens it finally clicked in my head. Sports are about winning and losing, nothing more and nothing less.

There are no lessons taught in sports. People should not tell their kids to play sports for any other reason than to compete in a game and win. There should not be any sort of 'sportsmanship', that's just some word a guy made up. Winning should be the primary focus when your playing a match, contest or game.

The humans who put the uniforms on are no longer people either. They become objects once the shoes are laced up and the chin strap is snapped into place. There are no feelings of friendship or camaraderie between those men out there and surely they don't care if one another gets hurt as long as their team wins.

I wonder how many Cowboy fans were also taught this valuable lesson by these two men last Saturday? Maybe hundreds of 1000's. There are probably some who are even still thinking of sports the old fashion way.

Those days are long gone for me. The days of thinking that I wanted to root for a guy like Troy Aikman because he was a good role model for kids and respected his teammates. I was rooting for him for all the wrong reasons in the early 90's. Thank god he was also winning football games or people would have looked at me like I had two heads.

Enough talk about that bum anyway, he's not helping the Cowboys win games anymore so what do I care about him. Terrell Owens is the guy I want my kids looking up to now. Maybe one day my little guy can sign a multimillion dollar contract in the NFL. Then when he decides that he didn't read the fine print he can just rip his teammates football skills apart on ESPN and they will let him go. Then it's off to another team where he can get an even better contract. Boy, I sure hope Jerry Jones still owns the Cowboys in 20 years.

Have you guys heard the new rap song by my man TO. He's changed the game folks. He showed the other players that if you don't like your contract then just do what he did. This is great, maybe all those other players will be on the Cowboys too. Imagine it now. The Cowboys could win the next twelve Super Bowls.

Coach Parcells is one tricky guy too. I didn't understand his philosophy at first. When he said 'no more thugs" I didn't catch on that it only meant he didn't want any thugs unless it helped him win the football games. TO isn't a thug in the sense of the word that he carries a gun or does drugs, but that's just because his mouth is his weapon and his ego gets him high. He's more of the 'Au Natural Thug'.

I'm kinda glad I learned this lesson right now too because baseball season is here. For the longest time I have been a Mets fan. Not any more. Let's go Yanks. It's obvious they are trying harder and want to win more than the Mets because they spend more money on players. I feel stupid for not rooting for them over the past few years. I was rooting for the stupid Mets when I could have been rooting for guys like Gary Sheffield, Jason Giambi and Alex Rodriguez. How many World Series have the Yankees won in a row now anyway? I have to look that up.

How many points do you think the Cowboys win by in Super Bowl XLI? This is great. My first season as a Cowboys fan where I know that we are going to win the Super Bowl. Thanks Terrell Owens. Those stupid Eagles. If they would have only just done whatever he wanted they could have kept winning Super Bowls one after another.

Let me just say one more time, thank you Bill and Jerry. I now have my head on straight. Sports are only about winning and losing. A guy like Dan Campbell busts his *** for the team 24 hours a day 7 days a week, but the Cowboys don't win the Super Bowl so he's gotta hit the road. Bring in more guys like my man TO. So what if he's going to be on ESPN by Week 5 talking about how Drew Bledsoe waits too long in the pocket and how the offensive philosophy isn't using his talents properly.

Terrell Owens is going to bring the sixth Vince Lombardi Trophy to the Dallas Cowboys, and that's a guarantee folks!

Thank you, I'm here all week.​

very nice post.
this levels of pessimism really strikes a chord with me because it is on par with my level of thinking, often.
I agree with the majority of this post. I'm already having to deal with so much negativity from my friends and family because of the T.O. sigining. I had really touted the Cowboys as a high character team and tried to sell some people (including my father) on how high quality the people were on my favorite football team are in relation to the rest of the league and how BP just had a bad rap and no longer dealt with the riff raff. Just when some were starting to warm up to the whole idea, the organization goes and does this and throws everything I stood by out the window and thus imposes a lot of ridicule upon me from my circle of peers and family.

 

[Reality]

Did you make an offer for him to be a mod here????

Actually, I tried to work out a Juke-T.O. trade with Philly but we reached an impass when they wanted me to cover the additional fees for your psychological reprogramming sessions.

 

[DipChit]

I've been a fan for a long time.

I'm still a fan...always will be.

BUT something is different.

I wouldn't miss a game...would never wander off while a game is on the tube...But the fanatical passion is missing.

Should that be a surprise?

I don't think so.

Fact of the matter is, I give my best as a fan but I'm not in "live or die" mode any more.

And that shouldn't be a surprise because the players aren't in live or die mode any more either. They, most often, give their best also but will leave a team at the drop of a hat if more money is offered.

How can my allegiance to the Cowboy's team be greater than the players I am rooting for? That's out of balance.

Thats the mode I've been in for quite a while now too. And it has nothing to do with TO type players. It has to do with the revolving door of players as a whole.

People have always wondered why I've never been a fan of the "home team" whether it was the first 22 years of my life living 30 miles from Lambeau, or the last 22 living 20 miles from Mile High. Well aside from the obvious reason.. I picked a team as a kid and that wont ever change, it has to do with the fact that why should I care about the home team when there basically wasnt any guys who grew up in the area that actually played on the team. With college teams, I am intersted in the home team because there is always a number of local kids involved.

But anyway, even in not rooting for the home team, at least there was continuity with a large percentage players on the team I cared about over extended periods of time. Whether it was a winning era or a losing era.

Now thanks in large part to FA, you're lucky if over a 5 year period there isnt 40 or more new guys.

Sure, better drafting/player development could stem that at a few positions but by in large theres still going to be massive player turnover.

Point of all this being, the actual character of our #1 WR doesnt concern me as much as the fact that we've been through 3 or 4 them since Irvin retired. Same at QB too of course to name a couple positions.

Hard to get stoked coming off a 10 year run with the Triplets, only to have to watch the QB deal go from QC/Vinnie/Bledose.. RB go from Emmitt/Hambrick/Jones.. WR go from Galloway/Johnson/TO over a 3 or 4 year period.

Whats it gonna be in '07 I wonder.. Kerry Collins/Ahman Green/Joe Horn?

 

[Zaxor]

Did you make an offer for him to be a mod here????

that would be the last straw that broke back mountain or something like that

 

[billknows]

One other thing, what business are you in?

Because if I follow you correctly then having large sums of money invested in partnerships with people means that the morality issues are out the window when it comes to staying in the black as opposed to falling in the red.

Correct?

If so, remind me to never do business with you, lol. Silly me, I was used to doing busines with people who had high moral values in hopes that they didn't rip me off every time I turned my back on them.

Honestly. I completely understand your response, but just because you make a valid point doesn't mean it's the 'way things should be', especially in an environment where children are looking up to the participants. Kids don't care what Bob the executive says on ESPN because no one cares what Bob the executive says about how he runs his toilet paper company which makes 4 million a quarter.

Know what I'm saying, lol.

The buisness model is ,that when a company finally becomes sucsessful,Then they allways strive for QUALITY and BUILDING A GOOD REPUTATION. Happens nearly every time. Rome may indeed be smoldering...

 

[Zaxor]

Thats the mode I've been in for quite a while now too. And it has nothing to do with TO type players. It has to do with the revolving door of players as a whole.

People have always wondered why I've never been a fan of the "home team" whether it was the first 22 years of my life living 30 miles from Lambeau, or the last 22 living 20 miles from Mile High. Well aside from the obvious reason.. I picked a team as a kid and that wont ever change, it has to do with the fact that why should I care about the home team when there basically wasnt any guys who grew up in the area that actually played on the team. With college teams, I am intersted in the home team because there is always a number of local kids involved.

But anyway, even in not rooting for the home team, at least there was continuity with a large percentage players on the team I cared about over extended periods of time. Whether it was a winning era or a losing era.

Now thanks in large part to FA, you're lucky if over a 5 year period there isnt 40 or more new guys.

Sure, better drafting/player development could stem that at a few positions but by in large theres still going to be massive player turnover.

Point of all this being, the actual character of our #1 WR doesnt concern me as much as the fact that we've been through 3 or 4 them since Irvin retired. Same at QB too of course to name a couple positions.

Hard to get stoked coming off a 10 year run with the Triplets, only to have to watch the QB deal go from QC/Vinnie/Bledose.. RB go from Emmitt/Hambrick/Jones.. WR go from Galloway/Johnson/TO over a 3 or 4 year period.

Whats it gonna be in '07 I wonder.. Kerry Collins/Ahman Green/Joe Horn?

your just looking for trouble ain't cha...

p.s. I agree and wished the salary cap had never passed

 

[lspain1]

Does anybody here believe that those kids looking up to players would do so if those players weren't winning? Roger Staubach got to be role model because he WON games. Troy got to be a role model because he won games. Once he stopped winning, the fans turned on him and out he went (regardless of the supporting cast he had).

I wish all of the great players had great character as well. Unfortunately reality is somewhat different than that. TO may be a great player but he may never be a role model. While Irvin's problems were different, he sure seemed to sell a lot of jerseys when he was winning.

As fans we often ignore the problems to celebrate on-field success. To make this some kind of morality play just continues to ignore 'what is' for the 'gee whiz' kind of thinking. I never hold up football players as role models for my kids (they are all girls so it makes it easier I guess). The idea that somehow winning the 'right way' involves using only great character players ignores the flaws we all contain and holds them to a standard none of us can meet.

 

[dcfanatic]

Does anybody here believe that those kids looking up to players would do so if those players weren't winning? Roger Staubach got to be role model because he WON games. Troy got to be a role model because he won games. Once he stopped winning, the fans turned on him and out he went (regardless of the supporting cast he had).

I wish all of the great players had great character as well. Unfortunately reality is somewhat different than that. TO may be a great player but he may never be a role model. While Irvin's problems were different, he sure seemed to sell a lot of jerseys when he was winning.

As fans we often ignore the problems to celebrate on-field success. To make this some kind of morality play just continues to ignore 'what is' for the 'gee whiz' kind of thinking. I never hold up football players as role models for my kids (they are all girls so it makes it easier I guess). The idea that somehow winning the 'right way' involves using only great character players ignores the flaws we all contain and holds them to a standard none of us can meet.

So I guess Peyton and Eli Manning didn't think much of their father because he lost so many games. Right?

 

[Juke99]

Actually, I tried to work out a Juke-T.O. trade with Philly but we reached an impass when they wanted me to cover the additional fees for your psychological reprogramming sessions.

Well...yeah...after spending as much time as I have here, of course I need psychological reprogramming...

...uh, but that's got nothing to do with you boss.

Honest.

 

[Zimmy Lives]

So I guess Peyton and Eli Manning didn't think much of their father because he lost so many games. Right?

No, they (Peyton and Eli) thought the world of Archie because he's their daddy. It's the other nonwinning NFL QBs they chastised.

 

[wileedog]

Thats the mode I've been in for quite a while now too. And it has nothing to do with TO type players. It has to do with the revolving door of players as a whole.

Good post, agree with all of it.

In the end it is Free Agency that has caused so many problems, and so disrupted the 'old' system.

Now I'm not going to argue whether it was the right or wrong thing to implement. Certainly it would not be fair to the player that if he couldn't sell his services to the highest bidder just like anyone else in the country.

But FA made the focus on the Big Payday for a lot of players. It made individual statistics more important than wins, because numbers translate into dollars. It made marketing yourself a viable and even important objective for guys who really wanted to chase the big bucks. In sports from football to basketball to baseball the focus went from marketing the team to marketing he individual stars on them. There's a reason you don't buy a "Dallas Cowboy Jersey" - you buy a "Roy Williams Jersey".

Its all nice to say in the current environment "I'm only going to get high character guys." But the reality is that most of the super talent in this league have had their ego's fed since they were superstars in college. They received a taste of true money for the first time in the draft - and they want more, and the perceived 'respect' that comes with it. And the only way to do that is to get yourself in the public eye and to put up statistics.

During the CBA nonsense everyone was saying the Cap had caused the quality of the league to diminish greatly. I still think it is in large part also a function of the lack of continuity on teams, and the lack of incentive for a team to play like a team - not 53 individual guys hoping to stand out enough in a crowd to ink their next deal.

Note: I don't think all the players have this mentailty by any means. But it really only takes a certain percentage to bring the quality of the league as a whole very far down.

 

[Juke99]

Thats the mode I've been in for quite a while now too. And it has nothing to do with TO type players. It has to do with the revolving door of players as a whole.

I agree 100%.

I think Owens is the ultimate example of this.

For me, it began, BIG TIME, with the roster Parcells assembled in 2004...Vinny, Anderson, Dedric Ward, Key, Eddie George, et al....It was like, "Who are these guys?"

There's a thread here having to do with favorite Cowboys on this roster....guaranteed, 90% of the choices in that thread are guys we've drafted.