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So those who think that TO getting cut is an instant fix for a team that played poorly because their starting quarterback got hurt and, including Romo's pinkie game, went 1-3 over a stretch where the team played the likes of St. Louis, Arizona, New York, and Tampa Bay. They lost to the eventual NFC Champion, beat the second best team in the NFC South, got crushed by the Giants and got crushed by the Rams. The Giants loss and the St. Louis loss rest on the shoulders of Johnson, who was beyond putrid. Four of the teams losses came to teams that made it to the NFL's final four. Beyond getting smacked by the Eagles, the Cowboys were not as far away as people SEEM to think they were. Guess what? **** happens in the NFL, and in this era of football, the expectation that you are going to just win a Super Bowl or qualify for the playoffs based on a very good season the year before is beyond stupid. The Cowboys had a major injury occur to their team, went 1-3 during that stretch including losing a game to a putrid St. Louis squad in which Brad Johnson was more interested in throwing interceptions than completed passes.
Yet somehow, it is the toxic locker room, team chemistry, all that stupid jagged nonsensical and unmeasurable bull**** which somehow takes precedence. They didn't lose to the Steelers, Ravens, Eagles, Redskins, Giants, Cardinals, and Rams because the team was filled with malcontents. They lost games because of execution and timing issues.
The New England Patriots came off a perfect regular season virtually intact, and Brady goes down injured. Yet, hey, it's okay New England didn't make the playoffs, even though there was even less of an excuse for that squad (with a competent back up the same analysts who say TO is not worth the risk believe is no holds barred a top ten quarterback in the NFL). Um...why? If people want to place locker rooms against locker rooms, take the 'toxic' Cowboys and compare them to the 'team oriented' Patriots. The Patriots suffered more twenty point losses. The Patriots had an easier slate of games. So...what...they were a talented team who underperformed because of an unforeseen injury and suddenly, the real reason why the team didn't qualify for the playoffs gets muddied? Both locker rooms equal out. Know why? Neither team executed when it mattered, and neither went to the playoffs.
This measuring team unity and locker room chemistry **** is lame. It's a bunch of people fetishising their fandom, wishing and hoping that the players on their team are nice with each other at all times, go over to each others houses and help reshingle roofs, sit around drinking beer and enjoying each other's company. Somehow, sport becomes something more to the athletes than what it really is; a job. Hines Ward constantly bitches whenever there is a threat to his spot as the number one target on his team, gets into public spats with his damn quarterback, but because that team plays tough defense and runs the football and seems to bring that lunch pale mentality, all is forgiven. These people that suppose on the reality of locker rooms, on the players, are lame because overanalysis of such points makes them feel good. Because hey, if TO is yelling at his coach for making brain dead play calls, or gets into a shoving match with a teammate, it fulfills you, because somehow, you have a better life because you wouldn't do that in that given situation. As if you ever would have a frame of reference to be in that situation.
Teams don't win because they like each other. They win because of talent and execution. The Cowboys had talent, but couldn't execute in games that were close. It's a game of inches. **** happens. Blaming losses on team chemistry is the most pathetic line of horse **** I have ever heard.
Which isn't even arguing the reality that, besides anonoymous source reports from a network which seems to laugh at the fact that the guy got released, the Cowboys have been pretty outspoken in support of the guy, saying he is a great teammate and hard worker.
But hey, if you wish to affect perception and concoct a reality, bull**** team chemistry is the only way to go. Since there really is no way to measure it, nor is there a way get the reality unless it is direct from the players mouths.
Because Mark Schlereth, Skip Bayless, Trey Wingo, and Ed Werner totally know more about the day to day in a locker room than someone like Marion Barber.
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03-07-2009, 06:11 PM
