JJT Blog: Cowboys attitude adjustment is key to winning

[slick325]

Cowboys attitude adjustment is key to winning
2:08 PM Mon, Nov 17, 2008 | Permalink | Yahoo! Buzz
Jean-Jacques Taylor E-mail News tips

For much of this season, the Cowboys have played with indifference and a misguided sense of entitlement that comes from an off-season of back-slapping and accolades.

Thus, they've played with little emotion this season. The game had become drudgery as they sank like a rock in the ocean under expectations and sleep-walked through the season waiting for the playoffs to begin.

Heck, even good-natured Tony Romo's dimpled grin was missing in action for at least a couple of weeks before he broke his pinkie and missed three games.

That all changed Sunday night.

This team underwent a transformation that began with Keith Davis' pulverizing hit on Clinton Portis four plays into the third quarter and didn't end until Marion Barber's unbridled arm-waving, fist-pumping jubilant celebration after his game-clinching, fourth-down run that propelled the Cowboys to their sixth win of the season.

That's the kind of passion, fervor and intensity these Cowboys must play with every week to reach the goals they set in July.

We all know they're not good enough to win playing any other way. I'm not talking about the empty emotion that accompanies pre-game pep talks and press conference bravado.
I'm talking about the real emotion that makes players perform at their highest possible level because their intensity and focus is at an apex. That's how the Cowboys played in the second half of their 14-10 over Washington.

 

[cowboyjoe]

just like jenn engel said today, parcells told her, after a win, you must step on the teams neck and make them play harder and better, keep improving, you cant be lax and say everything is ok, you have to keep the tempo up. Just like the giants are doing this year.

thats what great head coaches do, they see how they won a game, and they keep the tempo up, just like jimmy johnson one time, cut a player going into the playoffs, and another time jimmy said in 3 inch headlines, we will win, you put it on the players, and keep it on them to play with swagger and intensity, and you keep your intensity up as head coach and you keep your players intensity up

 

[Stash]

Great point about the Giants and something I was going to bring up.

That team is the defending Super Bowl Champions and they play pissed off like they've been disrespected every week.

I think that goes a long way toward their current success.

The Giants ball up their first and fight you for 4 quarters each week.

And win or lose, they come back for the 'fight' next week.

This team showed similar 'attitude' last night and I hope that it's a sign of things to come.

 

[Chocolate Lab]

Great point about the Giants and something I was going to bring up.

That team is the defending Super Bowl Champions and they play pissed off like they've been disrespected every week.

I think that goes a long way toward their current success.

I think it does, too, but I think they're about to lose all that because they're about to be -- if they aren't already -- everyone's darlings. There'll be no more rallies around being disrepected or underappreciated when everyone is saying they should be favored to win it all, and maybe to win it all easily.

And they've used the lame "13 Pro Bowlers" cry so much... Wait until they're the ones with 10+ Pro Bowlers.

I think they're going to experience exactly what we did last year. They're so far ahead right now that there's almost nowhere to go but down.