YR's My Meaningless Thoughts Week 9...

[Yakuza Rich]

- I have always liked Lambeau when it was *not* during the winter months. The place has a great football feel to it and the crowd is usually very lively there and such. But in the winter months when the conditions are worse, I don’t take a lot of joy at players only being able to move at half speed and such. I always hear that ‘football was supposed to be played in the cold’, but being from Syracuse I can tell you that most fans, like myself, were more than happy to watch the game indoors.

- I thought Hos made a lot of good points in his ‘Start The Pups’ post. I’m a big Ratliff fan, but AdamJT13 is right, he’s been really bad this year…I just couldn’t pull the trigger on saying that. But that’s the reality and if it was up to me I’d go with Bowen-Brent-Spears up front. Ware-Bradie-Lee-Butler at the backers and Newman-Jenkins-Sensy-Church at the DB’s and call up Teddy Williams and give him some time in the nickel and dime. A message needs to be sent that nobody is safe AND that we will always attempt to play the best player the most AND that we are trying to develop the best players possible on the roster.

- On offense I would go with Kitna (for now until McGee gets more reps and gets a home game)-Choice in the backfield. Roy-Miles at WR. I’d give Bennett more receiving routes and force Witten to block more. Then on the O-Line I would go Free-Kosier-Costa-Gurode-Colombo. I think we need to replace at least 2 spots on the starting O-Line next year. I’m actually not down on Gurode, but I value the center position too much and Gurode is getting long in the tooth. So I would keep Gurode next season, find a new center who is ready and move Gurode to right guard for 1 year and cut Davis.

- I don’t know if the rumors are true, but if Dez wants to start and wants playing time, I’d demand that he shows up on time. Simply put, show up on time and you get to start. Don’t’ show up on time you are a backup and you get fined. If he doesn’t get that, then he never will.

- I’m not sure what Scandrick’s problem is. One of the things I notice is that on 3rd downs teams almost always run some type of drag route at him and he almost always slips and the receiver breaks away from him. This is one of the reasons why I would like Ron Rivera as the next HC (or possible DC), I get the feeling that for whatever reason, he would rejuvenate Scandrick’s career much like he did Kevin Burnett’s.

- Gotta say, Buehler has been kicking the ball much better the past 3 games.

- I think one great statement fans could make is to show up to the home games with paper bags over their heads. I don’t think Jerry has ever had that before and I think it would send a message.

- I was watching ‘Miracle’ the other day, a movie I’ve watched a few times before. But I have read quite a bit about the 1980 USA Olympic Hockey team coach, Herb Brooks. I think people will get too bogged down on the ‘team’ aspect of Herb Brooks’ coaching since that is what he used for the 1980 Olympic team. But when he was coaching college in Minnesota, he had a number of ‘superstar’ teams. The one thing Brooks used to like to say is ‘you don’t have enough talent to win on talent alone.’ And he made sure to drill that into the players’ minds to the point where they were more or less brainwashed into believing that. And if you’re going to brainwash somebody, that’s a good belief to brainwash them into.

A huge problem I have with the team, the owner and even the fans is that there’s just this belief that all the team needs is ‘X’ and everything will be all better. In this case, all we need is coach X and everything will be all better.

Great organizations are great at working around their flaws because everybody has ‘holes’ and flaws on their team. But it’s the belief that you’re only as good as your last game instead of the belief that you are as good as the press clippings, endorsement deals and whatever model/actress/whomever you are dating that seems to be the difference between long standing winning organizations and the Cowboys.

I think a lot of the hype and hooplah is unavoidable. But the question should become how do we take that hype and hooplah and use it to our advantage and avoid allowing that to hurt us.

Herb Brooks was a coaching genius because he understood that he had to find ways to motivate his players. With goalie Jim Craig, he was smart enough to know that Craig was a mentally tough guy that more or less needed a friend at coach. With somebody like captain Mike Eruzione, he understood that he could make him his whipping boy because his teammates loved him and Eruzione could handle it.

But here we seem to treat the players like they are rock stars and treat them with kid gloves if they have already been deemed as a superstar by the fans, the press and the contract that they have. And those painstaking, meticulous tasks that often result in the difference between winning and losing are often put to the wayside with the belief that ‘if we just execute pretty well, we’ll win because of our talent.’

The fact is that this team doesn’t have enough talent to win by not doing those meticulous and painstaking tasks all of the time. It’s not that there’s not talent here, but it’s like Steve Young said…the Cowboys are everybody’s ‘homecoming game’ and that just requires doing EVERYTHING possible to the best of their abilities so they don’t risk losing on something so simple and so basic.

It frustrates me that the team has gone ‘back to the basics’ because things like that they should have been working on from beginning and never stopped working on them. And if that’s not the biggest indictment of an organization that EASILY buys into their own hype, then I don’t know what is.




YR

 

[jobberone]

Good post. We need a new coach.

 

[Picksix]

I keep thinking of what Emmit said in the "Amercia's Game" regarding the 92-93 Cowboys. He pointed out that one time in practice, Jimmy got all over him, and Emmit was mad about it. Later, Jimmy came over and said, "you know why I had to do that? Because I need these other guys to know that if I can get on my superstars, then they don't stand a chance." We don't have anybody like that.

I remember in the preseason, when Phillips was talking about Siavii. He said Siavii looked better than he thought when he went back and looked at film from last season. Then he cut him. Also, he said "he's not Ratliff." I don't think anyone would have argued with that, but just the fact that he said it, to me, reinforced this way of thinking, that rock-star kind of mentality. If I'm Ratliff, I'm thinking, "Everybody thinks I'm a star. My backup isn't close to me, talent-wise, and he got cut." Any motivation for him? Now, I understand it's typical for the starter to be was ahead of his backup. But to hear your head coach say something like that? I can see how that could breed complacency, which clearly seems to be a problem.

That said, what do think are some other reasons that Ratliff seems to be having a down year?

 

[JIMMYBUFFETT]

This team just has so many problems that it's sickening. This is a tem that needs to retool the owner, the entire coaching staff, the offensive line, the running backs, the defensive line, the linebacker core, and the secondary. I still believe Dallas has the best receiving core in the leage, a top 5 QB, and at least a B+ TE core, but that's just not enough to cut it.

 

[perrykemp]

-

- I don’t know if the rumors are true, but if Dez wants to start and wants playing time, I’d demand that he shows up on time. Simply put, show up on time and you get to start. Don’t’ show up on time you are a backup and you get fined. If he doesn’t get that, then he never will.

Is this true? I hadn't heard this --- is Dez showing up late for meetings?

 

[JackOfNoTrades]

Good read, I think you could change you thread title going forward to "YR's Thoughts on Meaningless Week [insert number here]".

Re: Dez, I don't recall hearing specifics about him being late to meetings/practice or if this a regular thing but I find it difficult to believe anything coming from the media. Especially when their bread and butter team is irrelevant. They'll concoct any story and reach at anything in an attempt to be heard.

With that though, I think Roy has played well enough to remain in the starting line-up and Dez is getting plenty of field time. If anyone in that unit, Miles has been sorta suspect so far and needs to sharpen up his game.

 

[Yakuza Rich]

That said, what do think are some other reasons that Ratliff seems to be having a down year?

He did have that elbows surgery in the offseason.

I know he's said they are 100%, but players lie all of the time about that stuff so they don't lose their spot. It's the coaching staff that has to spot the lie and make the proper adjustments when they don't perform. I'm not saying cut the guy, but I'd be playing Brent a lot more, then wait until Ratliff gets healthy and back to his old self again.



YR

 

[Yakuza Rich]

Re: Dez, I don't recall hearing specifics about him being late to meetings/practice or if this a regular thing but I find it difficult to believe anything coming from the media. Especially when their bread and butter team is irrelevant. They'll concoct any story and reach at anything in an attempt to be heard.

I agree as I have exposed the lies and hyperboles of the media following the Cowboys for the past 5 years and if I come to the belief that Jerry is worried about winning first and foremost, then I will continue to expose them.

My feeling about the $27 for fans to watch practice thing is that it is completely blown out of proportion. However, I think it's not a wise idea because I'm not sure why a team would not send a scout over to see what they are doing.

It more or less sounded like the player's complaints were about regular practices when Jerry would hobnob with some celebrity ******bag and then call one of the players over in practice to shake their hand.

That's still a sizeable offense to me...not a dealbreaker though and completely different from the way the mediots around here portray it. And as a fan it is incredibly frustrating that I can only read about 1 writer around here, Todd Archer, because I question the motives of everybody else that follows the Cowboys.

I've read pretty much every main beatwriter for every team in the NFL at one point or another (it's a hobby of mine) and it's nowhere near as bad anywhere else in the league. In fact, it can often be the opposite...the writer is too big of a fanboy that it's difficult to take them seriously because they are always giving an optimistic viewpoint of the team.

What's sad is that it's far worse here than in Oakland and Washington. Oakland has very few detractors. Washington has more, but one bit of success and they jump immediately on the 'Dan Snyder is great because he's a true fan of the team' bandwagon.

But the neat thing elsewhere is that these guys do get fed up with failure after awhile and do give better and accurate details of what's going on with the team. Here it's usually some writer with an axe to grind. For all we know one of them got upset because Dez wouldn't want to do an interview with them and Dez was late to something like 2 meetings all year (and something like a couple of minutes late), so to feed their vendetta, they will claim that Dez shows up late to all these meetings, he's not grasping the playbook, etc.

I remember that hack Mosely writing an article basically stating that Larry Allen was a moody jerk because Mosely showed up to Allen's house, univited and without warning, to ask Larry some questions and Larry promptly shut the door in his face.

That's the way they do things here. And they write about it like they are the victims. I just wish Larry would've treated Mosely like he treated Jose Cortez because if you're going to play the victim, you might as well be victimized.






YR

 

[Robbieac]

I just wish Larry would've treated Mosely like he treated Jose Cortez because if you're going to play the victim, you might as well be victimized.

:laugh2:

 

[djmajestik]

- I have......
YR

Good post YR - btw I am going up to visit friends in Syracuse tonight, near the dome. Where were you from in Syracuse? And I see you live in Orlando, I lived in Winter Park and East Orlando for 8 years before moving here to NY (why, I have no clue). Where are you down there?

Just curious. Thanks for the posts!