1 Why or why aren't we the favorite?
Not sure we will even be the favorite in our own Division after our two playoff performances the last two years.
Why..? because we let the Jints embarrass us in the only playoff game we played this year and last year, we also embarrassed ourselves in the only other playoff game we have played in, against Seattle.
It gets to the point now where playing well during the season just isn't enough.
Hello 2008 Dallas Cowboys.
Welcome to the REAL NFL WORLD.
2 How good are we? Critique the team.
We are good enough to talk a good talk but we are not good enough to walk the walk, yet. Please contact Jimmy Johnson at Fox if that comment doesn't make any sense to your question.
3 How good is/will Romo be? Critique his game.
Romo has a lot of growing up to do before this team takes the next step..IMO.
His taking off to Mexico with his Pop queen girlfriend the week before the biggest game of his life was like a high school teenager hopping in the first car he could find heading for Ft. Lauderdale Beach for Spring Break.
There was going to be nothing but trouble that came out of a harebrained move like that when you are the QB of a SB contending team. Same as if you were a harebrained high schooler. Chances are good you are going to be calling your Mommy and Daddy to send bail money for disorderly conduct.
And it snowballed for him quickly after that with his poorest performance of the year and our chances for going to a SB went right with it.
4 Where are we strong/weak?
We are strongest in billing ourselves as being deserving of another World Championship but weakest at doing it given all the talent we supposedly have with 13 Pro Bowlers.
The Jints had to have laughed a bunch the week those votes came out right before the game, while they proceeded to sweep us out of Texas Stadium with their 1 or 2 Pro Bowlers and left for GB.
5 Who's the competition? How do we stack up to it or match up with it?
We are our only competition.
If this team would quit reading it's own press clippings and wake up to the fact they haven't even scratched the surface yet about what it will really take to beat the best teams and best coaches elsewhere in the NFL, they will continue to keep talking about Next Year every year.
We don't need a team full of #1 draft picks and expensive FAs. The NY Jints just proved it in 2007.
What we need is a team with a chip on it's shoulder and the attitude that they will just go toe to toe and get it done without all the glamor we seem to have to have to take the field and feel good about ourselves.
When I look at the two SB teams this last year, you had two teams that had dealt with a ton of adversity all year, even before the season, to get where they were in February.
For the Jints, they had the Tiki Barber mud-throwing contest with their QB. You had their QB under attack all season about under-achieving and losing to Dallas twice in a season, the HC was in tremendous hotwater over their performance and their All-Pro TE was out for the season as the playoffs approached and then coming into Dallas having to play an extra game as a Wild Card.
No pressure there.
We instead were 13-3, sitting pretty and worrying ourselves sick over whether or not TO was going to play for us, if Romo was going to ever again talk to the media after CaboGate and whether we had lost our Mojo somewhere between beating GB and losing to the Commanders.
Oh, and our HC is going down main street at dusk the week before the big game with the Jints, swinging a lantern and calling out to all the townsfolk who will listen, "All is well, all is well.."
Anything disturbing about our picture there..?
While the Patriots were playing unbelievable football to start the year when Spygate happened and then they just circled the wagons and while the media opened fire on the franchise about cheating and espionage claims..
Tom Brady and the team responded to all the cheating accusations and went on this Freddie Crugger Revenge against the entire the NFL, running up scores and setting a standard being undefeated in the regular season few teams could touch until they got beat in the SB.
Why did these team succeed so much more that we did..? Were they overwhelmingly more talented than we were..?
No.
Where they lucky..?
No..what they went thru was only bad luck if it was.
The difference..?
They were motivated.
These teams were motivated by different things, but the point is, they had the motivation to exceed expectations and just do it despite the extreme criticisms and the endless 'what if's.
Our team imploded without having to deal with any of that distraction or additional pressures and had a cream puff playoff situation setup and they completely put themselves right in the ditch without hardly a fight..
I love this team, but until we stop having to keep looking to draft and sign MORE and MORE talent as the answer to our problems and instead stop and make the players themselves that are already here, point the finger at themselves and ask themselves why they have so badly underachieved now for so long..
..not much is going to change IMO. We are going to be frustrated by another season of high expectations and less than optimal effort from the team in the end.
It's been a pattern ever since the 2nd year BP arrived and it drove him crazy to the point he left in 2006.
Solve that and we breeze to a Championship.
And I realize there is some 'Tough Love' going on here from me in these comments, but it's really time for this team to cut the excuses and get it done.
Just my 2 cents.
Thanx for the thread.
:starspin ReDBaLL ExPreSS :starspin
