Bleacher Report - Articles by Mike Carley

Top Ten NFC East Perfomers through Nine Weeks

Mike Carley — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:57:33 -0500

Rivalries. Tradition. Hatred. (Expletive) you (expletive)-head. These are words that most die hard NFL fans associate with one of the most historically intense and competitive divisions in the history of football: the NFC East. The NFC East is so special because there really isn't one standout marquee rivalry. Some could argue Cowboys-Redskins, but are those games really any more intense than Giants-Eagles, or Eagles-Cowboys? In a division that frequently doesn't have a losing team, a division that frequently sends three teams to the Super Bowl, there is absolutely no shortage of talent. 2009 is no different. Without further ado, the top 10 performers in the NFC East through the first nine weeks of the 2009 season.

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Tony Romo Is All Grown Up

Mike Carley — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:04:59 -0500

Wow.

What a win.

The collective breath let out in relief by thousands upon thousands of Cowboys faithful, after the Cowboys' thrilling 20-16 win versus the hated Philadelphia Eagles Friday night, affected weather patterns as far east as Turkmenistan.

Sure, the Cowboys had been rolling.

Sure, the Cowboys had strung together three straight wins (albeit over only one impressive team).

Sure, the Cowboys seemed to have caught lightening in a bottle in Miles Austin, the un-drafted fourth year phenom out of Monmouth.

But this was the Eagles. This was a Sunday Night game. This was Philadelphia.

Enough had been written about the embarrassment the 'Boys suffered there the previous season, to emblazon that horrific outing in the memory of Dallas fans forever.

I guarantee you no single Cowboys fan would have been shocked had the Eagles come out and blown the Cowboys off the field Sunday. Not because we were disregarding the successes of previous weeks, but because we have seen Philadelphia do it to the 'Boys time and time again, where and when it hurts most.

Tony Romo took it upon himself to make sure history didn't repeat itself.

Now this isn't taking anything away from a phenomenal defensive performance

In the battle of former high-round picks, the Cowboys came away on top.

Former first-rounder Mike Jenkins failed to bite on a double move by first round rookie Jeremy Maclin in the third quarter, that led to a single-coverage interception that would have made any Madden junkie proud. On the other side, Terrence Newman completely shut down big play threat Desean Jackson.

Meanwhile, Jay Ratliff and Demarcus Ware sent Donovan McNabb running for his life so often that he looked like an extra in a Godzilla movie.

However, it was Romo's 21-34 for 307 yards and a touchdown that solidified a Dallas victory that ended in the 'Boys gleefully kneeling out the final two minutes of the clock in front of a bunch of inhumanly enraged Philadelphia fans (a beautiful site for the Cowboys' faithful).

(Quick aside: Has nobody explained to Andy Reid how important time-outs are in a close game? To run out of time-outs in a one score game with over 10 minutes remaining in the fourth is inexcusable.

My solution? Make him play 12 games of Madden a day until he learns the importance of clock management. This strategy is fail safe.

One can only take so much losing to a squealing 13-year-old on Xbox Live, as they run out the final four minutes of clock, before one starts questioning the decision to risk a time out on a third quarter challenge that would have resulted in a difference of seven total yards of field position.)

Aside from one interception (his first one in the last four games, and his second in his last six), Romo consistently put the ball on the money and put his team in the best position to win instead of being concerned with trying to make the 50 yard touchdown pass, every time he dropped back.

The play that embodied his overall effort perfectly was the game winner to Miles Austin. Romo set it up with a beautifully timed pump fake in conjunction with a crisp double-move from Austin, who proceeded to leave Sheldon Brown in the dust and catch a ball that Romo laid beautifully in his bread basket.

Romo also showed his new-found maturity by how calm and collected he was under the relentless pressure of the Eagles blitz schemes.

When the Eagles brought five or more defenders on Sunday, Romo was 15-22 for 256 yards, with 11.6 yards per completion and a 103.6 passer rating.

Romo also stepped up huge when it mattered most: third down.

On third down conversions Sunday night, Romo was a cool 9-11 with a 149.1 passer rating. That, folks, is how big time quarterbacks win big time games. And it appears more and more that Romo is morphing into a big time quarterback.

However, this crisp, efficient play has been emblematic of Romo for a vast majority of the 2009 season, and is a huge reason why the Cowboys now sit atop the NFC East at 6-2.

The biggest explanation? Romo, in only his third full season as a starter, finally started to mature into the wildly skilled NFL quarterback that most Cowboys faithful knew he could be (and into the quarterback everybody in the world swore he would never be).

After a shaky start to the season, in which Romo looked far too reserved to take the stereotypical chances that led to his typical high-risk-high-reward style of play, Romo seemingly found a happy medium between the "gunslinger" and the "game manager."

Through eight games, Tony Romo has thrown a total of five interceptions.

To contrast, Romo had thrown seven picks through eight starts in 2008, and (gulp) 10 through eight starts in 2007, including the Monday Night game at Buffalo in which Romo threw five picks in one game.

Keep in mind that one of those five interceptions was the Looney-Toons-esque bounce off of Witten's heel debacle against the Giants.

To put that number further in perspective, here are just a few of the quarterbacks in the league who have thrown more picks than Romo through week 9:

Jay Cutler (12), Matt Ryan (10), Kurt Warner (10), Eli Manning (8), Drew Brees (7), Carson Palmer (7), golden child Joe Flacco (7), Ben Roethlisberger (6), and Phillip Rivers (6).

Tom Brady and Peyton Manning are both tied with Romo with five interceptions.

Romo is finally showing the vastly improved decision making that Cowboys fans have been dying to see. However, this has not come at the cost of Romo's elite level of production.

He remains seventh overall in passing yardage, fourth overall in yards per attempt, 12th in passing touchdowns (mostly due to an overpowering run game in the redzone), and eighth in the league in quarterback rating at 95.8.

It should come as no surprise that with time comes experience.

However, maybe the biggest indicator of Romo's new found maturity shown through in the days leading up to the game in Philadelphia.

The scene was one many Cowboys fan have become far too familiar with: Ed Werder standing smugly outside of Valley Ranch claiming the sky is falling in Dallas due to an upset receiver.

The media's treatment of the situation was hilarious. Here is the quote that was played on ESPN 1000 times.

"I'm not a T.O. or I'm not trying to be a T.O. I don't know why people are trying to put me in that category, because I'm happy to win. I've said that 100 times. I don't understand why people won't just say Ok and leave it alone."

However, IMMEDIATELY after the clip concluded, the analyst would always qualify the quote with things like, "But, remember he still thinks he's the number one receiver!?!?!"

I guess it comes with the territory when one dons a Dallas uniform, but regardless of what Roy actually said, I don't believe we got an objective portrayal of the issue from the media in the days leading up to the game.

Nobody recognized that more than Tony Romo."We've been through this before with people trying to divide a football team, " Romo said.

Romo stated mass media outlets tried desperately to keep this non-story alive. "We're too strong for that. I know the media is going to try to make certain things appear what they may not have actually been, things of that nature."

"This team is too committed to win and too committed to improve to let anything divide this team."

Re-read that last sentence.

That doesn't much sound like the happy-go-lucky kid from Wisconsin who was able to shrug off the 44-6 whupping in Philadelphia last year with an "ah shucks, well life goes on" attitude.

That sounds a lot more like the face of one of the marquee franchises in the NFL finally stepping out into the spot light, and declaring that he is the face of a unified locker room with a common goal and a sense of solidarity not found in Dallas last year, where numerous "sources" couldn't wait to feed Ed Werder any piece of gossip about the alleged Romo-T.O. feud.

This team feels like a team.

And recognize that Romo wasn't simply coming to the defense of an embattled receiver, something he did for T.O. regularly.

He is now demonstrating an unyielding "it's this locker room against the world" approach that have been forged in Romo through the years of turmoil and scrutiny he has endured as quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys

Believe me, a lot of the old Romo is there.

The smirks and good natured sarcastic comments during press conferences.

The Brett Favre-esque touchdown celebrations.

The wide and seemingly carefree grin that seems to appear once every 5-10 minutes, regardless of the circumstances.

However, these symbolic Romo-isms, while I assume are just as frequent behind closed doors, are much less frequently caught in front of the eyes of the public or the cameras.

More often than not, reporters are greeted with a far more stoic, far more guarded Tony Romo than the one they met in season's past.

This is Tony Romo's team now, and he is stepping up and owning it. Declaring and driving a sense of unity that has been lacking in Dallas since the days of Aikman, Emmitt, and Irvin.

Now December and January will be the true test of Romo's grit and merit, but since I can't write about what happens in December and January without the use of an '85 Delorean, all I can view is what he has done through the season's first half.

That being said, one thing is for sure: if the second half of the season is anywhere near as great as the first, I doubt the "Dallas Cowboys Playoff Victory Drought" will be a story in 2010.

One other thing is for sure.

That will come as no surprise to Tony Romo.

Democratic Cowboys Offense Realizing Potential Of "No T.O. Show"

Mike Carley — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:19:56 -0500

The surging Dallas Cowboys present an intriguing enigma for any writer wishing to chronicle their exploits during the month of November.

Any article tinged with optimism will be berated by a chorus of "Let's wait and see until December because Romo automatically implodes every year," which I think is a ridiculously premature statement to make given how early it is in Romo's career. But that's a conversation for another time.

Conversely, how can you not write an optimistic article about the Dallas Cowboys given their sterling, top-to-bottom breakout performances against the Falcons and the Seahawks?

Stumbling into a bye week a penalty-infused and undisciplined mess, Miles Austin, Tony Romo, and Wade Phillips have seemed to place this season firmly back on the tracks again. That's something I was sure would never happen as the overtime coin toss was going up four weeks ago in Kansas City.

There are many things to note over the last few games.

The defense is finally living up to the billing, giving up only 19 points per game over the last three and generating the sacks and turnovers most were expecting right out of the gate.

Patrick Crayton has just become the first Cowboy to return punts for touchdowns in back-to-back games since the Jurassic Period.

Flozell Adams has cut down on his penalties by 600 percent (leaving him at only 20 flags per game), and his increased focus is absolutely indicative of the overall increased sense of discipline that this team has shown since coming off its bye week.

However, one of the most notable stats that I'm sure anybody who has been within 30 miles of a T.V. showing NFL Live has heard is that Tony Romo, over the past three games, has thrown eight touchdowns and zero interceptions.

Not only is this three game stretch the longest Romo has gone in his career without throwing a pick, he's only thrown one interception in the last five games.

For the season, Romo has now thrown for 12 touchdowns vs. a paltry four interceptions.

I'd also like to remind the audience that one of those interceptions was the off-Witten's-hand-and-heel-right-into-the-defender's-arms interception against the Giants in Week 2. Take out that Ringling Brother's interception, and Romo has thrown four touchdowns for every one interception at the halfway point of the year.

Chalk a lot of that up to Romo's continued maturity, as his decision making and ball control have improved remarkably this year.

However, there is another, far more important factor that has the Cowboys offense finally humming like most thought it could.

Terrell Owens is no longer in a Cowboys uniform.

I was a huge T.O. fan in Dallas to the bitter end, but even I eventually came around to seeing the potential this offense could have without his pervasive bitterness constantly surrounding every aspect of the team.

Regardless of how talented T.O. is, he has by his own past behavior become a self-perpetuating media you-know-what-storm.

What I mean by that is that what T.O. actually says or does no longer matters to the mainstream media or the public due to all the negative karma he has built up for himself in the past.

Due to all that negative karma, the public will initially believe anything that ESPN or whoever chooses to report on him regardless of the actual truth.

Given the persistent and unrelenting demands of the 24/7 news media cycle, a story that will create a flurry of activity during a slow afternoon is all a major news website needs to bridge the gap between last night's events and the following night's competitions.

The fact that the public will initially believe any headline they read about T.O. has turned Owens into the ultimate media scapegoat (entirely his fault of course) that any reporter can take any fact or anonymous tip and twist it into a sensationalist story that may or may not be "cleared up" two to three hours later.

In the eyes of the media and public, T.O. is generally guilty until proven innocent, which will make any headline, no matter how far-fetched, eye-catching and interesting.

Does anybody know whether T.O. really spearheaded a secret meeting with Jason Garrett behind Romo and Witten's backs? No. Did everybody (including myself) blindly believe that was exactly what happened for two or three hours after the story broke? Absolutely.

Did the veracity of the story have any bearing on the 3,000 questions per day every single member of the Cowboys had to answer on a daily basis regarding that "secret meeting?" Absolutely not.

T.O., whether he does anything or not, will always create groundbreaking news because he has completely lost the benefit of the doubt in the eyes of the media and the public.

How does this rather obvious character flaw of Terrell Owens affect MacGyver Romo in 2009? Because whether T.O. was actually demanding the ball behind the scenes or not, the only thing any Dallas Cowboy would be asked about in any game where T.O. didn't score six touchdowns was be "What do you need to do to get T.O. the ball more?"

This leads to one of two scenarios (or a combination of the two is more likely).

1.) Romo felt compelled to force the ball to T.O. for an inappropriate majority of the game so that he didn't have to deal with T.O. blowing up on the sidelines

2.) Romo felt compelled to force the ball to T.O. for an inappropriate majority of the game so that he could avoid the maelstrom of questions about T.O.'s attitude, T.O.'s productivity, and how they plan to get T.O. more involved in the next week.

These guys are all professionals who have worked mercilessly their entire lives to perfect their athletic craft and rise to become part of the top 0.5 percent of football players in the world. You can't tell me spending an entire season answering questions about a teammate won't eventually get grating.

For example, how did Pro Bowler Bradie James feel when he went out there, recorded 12 tackles and a sack, and the first (and maybe only) thing he would get asked about after the game would be the T.O. debacle? Your telling me that lack of recognition on behalf of the media wouldn't eventually drive a pro mad, regardless of how T.O. was actually behaving?

With T.O. in Buffalo, where they have reverted to physically handing him the ball in order to get him in the end zone, this is the first season Romo has had to (gasp) take his drop and take what the defense gives him, and that fact alone has the Dallas offense humming.

Last week against Seattle, he completed a pass to 10 different receivers, and all three of his touchdown tosses were to different people.

The previous week against a tough Atlanta team, he completed a pass to eight different receivers.

Since the bye week, Romo and the Cowboys' offense have adopted a new, democratic style of play that was frankly impossible to implement with Terrell Owens hanging around. And the proof in how well that is working can be witnessed on the field the past two weeks.

Romo has no problem hitting the checkdowns if the defense is playing deep. He has no problem taking a shot down field if the safeties are going to crowd the line against the run.

He has no reservations checking to a run play if that's what the defensive front dictates.

Why?

Because now, the only concern on Romo's mind is the quickest, most efficient way to get the ball from point A to point B, instead of worrying about the exact method with which the ball travelled there.

Football is truly like a game of chess, in that the only truly successful strategy is one that is tailored specifically to that of your opponents and specifically, your opponent's weaknesses.

The best strategy to accomplish that is one that is truly fluid, and not bound by any constraints like "Ok, we will take what the defense gives us, but only as long as the ball goes to Player X 45-50 percent of the time."

Strategies that have aspects that coaches are unwilling to change will be figured out and stopped in a league like the NFL 10 times out of 10, which is why recognizing and making in-game adjustments are a trademark of the NFL's most prolific offenses and defenses.

Remember when Randy Moss was in his super-human Minnesota Viking days, and Mike Tice (I think it was Tice but feel free to correct me) implemented the "Randy Ratio," which was some ridiculous statement that at a minimum Randy Moss would touch the ball on 45 percent of the team's plays.

Randy Moss was literally unstoppable as a Viking (not saying he isn't now still, but a young Randy Moss was ridiculous). If the talent of an individual player was more important than the strength and flexibility of a given game plan, then a strategy as gimmicky as "regardless of the circumstances we are forcing the ball to Randy Moss one-out-of-two plays" would have resulted in a 3,000 yard, 37 touchdown season from Moss.

Guess what? It didn't.

The emergence of Miles Austin, the return of an entirely healthy backfield, and Demarcus Ware returning from his vacation the first four weeks of this season have helped return the Cowboys to form immensely as well.

But the fact remains that Tony Romo (and Jason Garrett) are now free to do what Romo has never been able to do before this season: take what the defense gives them.

I will absolutely admit that I am awaiting December with as much anticipation as any avid Cowboy hater, because, founded or not, the "Chokes in December" tag is one Romo needs to shake off with his play before it will ever go away.

However, one cannot ignore the radical efficiency that this offensive group (and frankly, the entire team) has been executing with since the bye week.

Now the Cowboys could all collectively lose their focus for a game or two again, which has been the Achilles Heel of the team for the past few years. And by no means am I eliminating that possibility.

But with a huge redemption match coming up against the Eagles on Sunday Night Football, it will quickly become apparent if the Cowboys have just had a nice little stretch of games, or if they are actually a contender that is here to stay.

My personal opinion? Romo finally feels comfortable as the unquestioned head honcho of the offense and his new found ability to simply take what the defense gives him will allow him to ultimately demonstrate that he belongs as an elite quarterback in this league.

But, hey, I'll absolutely wait and see.

Don't want to force it, ya know?

Dallas' Miles Austin: A Season-Saving Sensation, Not a Flash in the Cowboys Pan

Mike Carley — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 08:42:42 -0400

Now I must admit, I often get accused of embellishing the significance of big wins by the Dallas Cowboys. Personally, I find such accusations to be both unfounded and ridiculous.

That being said, the Dallas Cowboys' 37-21 trouncing of the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday was the most significant win in the history of humankind.

Tomfoolery aside, I cannot overstate what a significant win that was for the Dallas Cowboys' season.

Anybody who has followed my last few articles knows what a melancholy and despondent state the first five games of the season put me in.

After a turnover-laden loss to the Giants at home, a deplorable first half against the winless Panthers at home, a last-minute loss to the Broncos, and a "victory" over the Kansas City Chiefs, my seemingly unending confidence in this squad was absolutely, well, ending.

I was genuinely starting to question if this team could ever be good, could ever play together, could ever execute and put together the four quarters of crisp, efficient football that all playoff-caliber teams exhibit.

Penalties, dropped passes, delay of games, and illegal formations seemed to be the early death knell of yet another squandered roster that was seemingly so full of promise just weeks earlier.

An early bye week appeared to be precisely what this apparently reeling team needed to finally get its act together.

This weekend, albeit one game, put to rest a multitude of the doubts that the first few weeks of this season had generated.

The Cowboys' defense was generating sacks and turnovers, the Cowboys' special teams generated their first punt return touchdown since 2007, and Tony Romo was, finally, Tony Romo again.

I was reading an article by Rob Phillips on the Cowboys' Web site this week in which he mentioned a chant the crowd started during the third quarter.

After yet another slippery sack-evade from the recently embattled gunslinger, the crowd at Texas Stadium started chanting "MacGuyver."

I honestly couldn't think of a more fitting nickname for Tony Romo, and I'm surprised it hasn't caught on until now (granted I don't live in the Dallas area, so I could have missed it).

Romo was at his best on Sunday, unafraid to unrelentingly keep every play alive for as long as possible, avoiding sacks and running away from defenders, converting first downs with his feet, and throwing touchdowns he had no business throwing.

Basically, creating something when everybody else watching couldn't fathom how he could create anything productive.

All the while not making a single turnover.

True, it is those very same traits that sometimes lead Romo to force plays and commit turnovers, but that is the cost of other-worldly ingenuity.

You can't tell me every portable land mine MacGuyver threw together from some cat litter, fishing wire, Big League Chew, and a nine-volt battery worked seamlessly every time he tried.

But when MacGuyver was at his best, no amount of ridiculously convoluted circumstances could keep him from escaping and laying down some general badassery.

Similarly on Sunday, just when Romo seemed to be cornered with nowhere to go, he would pull out a cat-litter-fishing-wire-and-Big-League-Chew-land-mine of a play, completely take the defense off guard, and made many of the big plays that led to the Cowboys' convincing 37-21 victory this past Sunday.

Exhibit A would obviously be the touchdown Romo threw to Patrick Crayton to end the first half after he evaded more oncoming attackers than than the Polish army circa 1939.

While we are still on the topic, both Romo and MacGuyver get chicks too. You can't tell me MacGuyver didn't pull chicks with that voluminous mullet he rocked, and we all know Romo's history.

All in all, phenomenal nickname, and to make a long story short, I am absolutely running with it from here on out.

But if Tony Romo was returning to form, Miles Austin was yet again displaying the form he seems to be taking in the NFL.

The biggest storyline going into this game was the 'Boys finally having all three running backs (Marion Barber, Felix Jones, and Tashard Choice) back in action. After anemic offensive performances versus the Broncos and the Chiefs, the only explanatory variable seemed to be the lack of production from a banged-up backfield.

However, when a seemingly stout Atlanta defense shut down the running game for much of the first quarter, it quickly became apparent it would be up to MacGuyver and company to start making plays, or else lose yet another home game to a playoff-caliber team.

When Roy Williams started dropping balls again, when the false starts and encroachment penalties started flying again, the season seemed to be teetering on the brink of being lost forever.

Seven catches for 171 yards and two touchdowns from Miles Austin later, and the Cowboys had sent a message to the rest of the league. That message?

"Hey, if we don't shoot our own feet off at every turn, we're a pretty formidable opponent."

And after a second consecutive huge week from Austin, it is safe to say that he is a real, verifiable threat in this league, and he undeniably will be the big-play replacement that Roy Williams has failed to be so far.

Now by no means am I saying that it only takes two games to evaluate and declare an NFL star.

However, these two huge games in conjunction with several other factors seem to suggest that Miles Austin can be the dominant force this Cowboys passing game has been lacking.

For starters, he has much better hands than either Roy Williams or T.O.

Both T.O. and Roy Williams try to catch far too many balls by trapping it against their chests, which leads to a greater number of incompletions because the ball is very hard to hold onto if the defender hits the receiver or gets a hand in before the receiver has time to secure the ball.

Other times, the ball is simply thrown so fast that the ball ricochets at light speed off their chest pad and onto the ground before they have a chance to bring their hands up quickly enough to trap it.

Austin, on the other hand, snags a majority of his passes with his hands, out and away from his body.

The first benefit of catching with one's hands is that it creates more separation between the ball and any meddling defensive backs (and their meddling dogs, too!).

Additionally, passes caught with the hands are often secured the second they come into contact with the receiver's hands, as opposed to rattling around between the receiver's forearms and breast-plate for a few moments. This makes it much tougher for defensive backs to jar the ball loose with a simple well-placed hit or hand.

Miles Austin also sports the physical attributes to succeed as a big time NFL wideout. At 6'3" and 214 lbs., Austin has the size to both out-jump and out-position most DBs for contested passes.

Despite that size, the sizable fourth-year receiver from Monmouth still sports a 40 time in the 4.3-4.4 range.

In conjunction with good hands, great size, and great speed, Austin has been developing on the Cowboys roster, largely out of the circus that has plagued this team, for the previous three seasons.

He has had time to pick T.O.'s brain, watch endless hours of practice, and get tons of work with now-starter Tony Romo (both were backups all season for 2005 and for part of 2006).

Because of this, Romo definitely seems to have a familiarity with Austin that he has failed to develop with Williams.

In the past two games, Romo has targeted Miles Austin 25 times for a total of 17 receptions, good for a rate of 68 percent.

In the first four games of the season that Roy Williams started, MacGuyver targeted him 25 times as well, and only completed 11 passes for a rate of 44 percent. And that was in twice as many games as Austin has had to start.

To recap, Miles Austin has great hands, great size, great speed, and has been given the necessary time to develop out of the Dallas Cowboys' spotlight and establish an amazing rapport with Romo.

Oh yeah, and in the past two games he has hauled in (gulp) 17 catches for 471 yards and four touchdowns. Taking all the above facts into account, it appears like this explosion was more a matter of time than a matter of "WTF is going on with this Austin kid?"

Next week against Seattle at home will be a nice tune-up for brutal back-to-back road games at Philadelphia and at Green Bay, and it should be the first time we see a defense treat Miles Austin with the double teams and respect a No. 1 receiving threat in this league demands.

This also should be a pretty good litmus test to see how Austin will respond to such attention, and it should be interesting to see what opportunities it opens up for other threats who haven't been doing as much lately, such as Jason Witten and Marion Barber.

Whether that happens or not, a single fact remains irrefutable: Miles Austin has single-handedly saved the Cowboys' season, despite the litany of penalties and inefficiencies that have plagued the early part of this season.

Without a gargantuan game in Kansas City to pull out an overtime win and another huge performance against a wildly talented Atlanta Falcons roster, the Dallas Cowboys could easily be down at the bottom of the division with the lowly 2-4 Redskins.

Austin has been such a savior this season I wouldn't be surprised if he has walked around to everybody on the team, looked them earnestly in the eye, and said "Earn it" like dying Tom Hanks at the end of Saving Private Ryan .

In reality, the symbolism of that ridiculous analogy isn't too far off.

Miles Austin has given a Cowboys season a second life that it in no way deserves.

No team that jumps offsides four times in seven plays by four different players deserves to be a half of a game out of the lead in a division containing the Giants and the Eagles.

However, here we are.

Romo appears to be sharp, the defense finally seems to be realizing its potential (Mike Jenkins and Gerald Sensabaugh have been particularly impressive), and the team has finally found its new big play threat in Miles Austin.

The team now needs to continue to build on the momentum that this huge win has given them, as the schedule only gets tougher from here on out.

Building on this momentum is so imperative because there were still signs of the "old" Cowboys in this win, as impressive as it was.

Far too many 3rd-and-longs induced by false starts, and way too many other stupid penalties, including a penalty that called back a 15-plus yard Tony Romo first-down scramble, and a silly offsides penalty on a failed Atlanta 3rd-and-2 that prolonged a drive that Atlanta would eventually score on.

There is still room to improve for this team without question.

But if this is the a step in the right direction that I believe it is, and the Cowboys can build on this momentum and get better as the season progresses (would be nice for a change), then I very well could be eating my words about Wade Phillips and Jason Garrett come playoff time.

Unfortunately I am not holding my breath on that account, but know if I do have to eat my words on Phillips and Garrett, nobody, and I mean nobody , will be happier about it than I will.

The Chicago Bulls Are Better Off Without Ben Gordon, Without a Doubt

Mike Carley — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 18:15:52 -0400

Believe me, I know what incredulous stares are greeting the title of this article.

I guarantee you a vast majority of those disbelieving glances are from non-Bulls fans.

I have never witnessed a player that was so over-valued by non-fans of the team that that player played for, and it's a fact I need to call attention to.

There is a reason the Bulls let Ben Gordon walk to an inter-division rival without so much as a counter-offer. Gordon's selfish, monopolizing style of basketball no longer gels with the new direction Vinny Del Negro is taking this team under the leadership of Derrick Rose.

Ben Gordon is what I like to call a "SportsCenter Hero," a player who is capable of putting up 50 on any given night, and does so on an often enough basis to make SportsCenter one or two nights a week.

I am not denying that Ben Gordon is an incandescent scorer who hit some big shots for the Bulls in his time there. How could I, because that's all most were exposed to on SportsCenter every night.

However, it was the nights Ben Gordon wasn't on fire that most didn't see on SportsCenter that really killed the Bulls last year. Only the diehard Bulls fans got to witness those "gems."

The fact that Ben Gordon can score can't be disputed.

However, there is a reason that he isn't on the same level as the Kobe Bryant's and LeBron James' of the world (despite the fact Detroit payed him like one.)

Ben Gordon stands listed at a generous 6'1" (there are some reports out there that he actually might be below 6'.)

Now, obviously a lack of height doeesn't preclude NBA guards from having successful and prolific careers.

However, smaller scoring guards like Chris Paul and Allen Iverson have the ability to score both inside and outside because they make up for their lack of height with blazing quickness, ridiculous ball-handling, and an uncanny ability to control their bodies and finish at the rim with contact.

Ben Gordon can shoot threes.

However, he doesn't possess the quickness of other smaller scoring guards. Also, he is an average ball handler at best, and even if he is able to beat his defender to the rim (which happens rarely), he is nowhere near as solid an at-the-rim finisher as other prolific small scoring guards. (Steve Nash fits in this group too.)

These limitations severely inhibit Gordon's ability to create his own shot, as evidenced by the fact that there are a defender's fingers a nanometer away from the ball on eight out of every 10 jump shots Ben Gordon takes.

This isn't an issue during the games he is on fire, as the shots he is barely able to get off all go in. And they look that much more amazing because there are always hands in his face due to his inability to create more space to get his jumper off.

It's during the games that he is in less than "everything-I-throw-up-goes-in" mode in which Ben Gordon truly becomes a team killer.

Guards that can score at the rim have a distinct advantage over players that can't because it gives them a second viable scoring option for when their jumper isn't falling.

Driving to the hoop also can shake a player out of their slump by drawing contact during the shot, allowing the slumping player to go to the line and try to re-find his touch with a pair of low-risk, high-reward free throws.

Ben Gordon doesn't have the ball handling skills, quickness, or desire (not sure which exactly) to drive to the rim on a consistent basis.

Therefore, when he goes into a slump, Gordon is forced to shoot himself out of his slump from the perimeter.

This often entails dribbling in the same five-square-foot area with his head down for 15 seconds, then launching a fadeaway three pointer with 73 hands in his face with two seconds left on the shot clock.

He does this 10-15 times in one game.

If Gordon was the only offensive option on a bad team, this might be acceptable.

However, Gordon played in a drive-and-kick Vinny Del Negro offense predicated on Derrick Rose getting into the paint and creating opportunities for others with ball movement.

With a series of young bigs like Tyrus Thomas and Joakim Noah that can't necessarily create scoring opportunities for themselves, Rose's ability to drive and move the ball around is essential because it gives those players chances to score that they might not have ordinarily.

Rose's drive-and-kick threat also gets Brad Miller far more involved in the game by giving him opportunities to utilize his reliable mid-range jump shot in both pick-and-pop and drive-and-kick-out situations.

When Ben Gordon would go into black hole mode, it would completely disrupt the entire flow of the game and kill the team by killing the ball movement that was so essential to getting so many other cogs on the team involved.

Did that matter to Gordon? Absolutely not, as long as he was getting his highly-contested 30-footers off, he was happy as a clam.

These games were just as common, if not more so, than his SportsCenter-worthy offensive explosions.

And that's all not even looking at his defense, which is hard to physically look at because it is non-existent.

There is a reason Ray Allen averaged 872 points per game in the first round of the playoffs last year.

Watching Ben Gordon anemically "fight" through picks while Ray Allen would rain down wide open threes was more infuriating than most things I've experienced in the last 25 years of life.

To summarize, when Gordon is at his best, you have an electrifying scorer raining long-but-covered jumpers down for 40 to 50 points, which may or may not be offset by the 40 to 50 points the person he is guarding will score.

When Gordon is anything other than that, you get a player who will feel compelled to derail the rhythm of any offense he is playing in so he can monopolize the basketball and attempt to shoot himself out of a slump.

With Gordon gone, the Bulls now have the option to either go small and start Kirk Hinrich, one of the best perimeter defenders in the game (and quite the scorer himself), or go bigger and start either Luol Deng or John Salmons (whichever doesn't start at small forward), both much better defensive options than Gordon.

On the surface one could argue that the Bulls will struggle to replace the offensive outputs in the games Gordon was lights out.

I would argue that Gordon's absence will allow other players like Tyrus Thomas, Joakim Noah, and rookie James Johnson far more scoring opportunities because the ball will swing around the court more freely. This will create those scoring opportunities that the young bigs can't necessarily create for themselves yet.

To re-cap, with the departure of Gordon, the perimeter defense has gotten remarkably better, and the offense, spearheaded by one of the most exciting young point guards to come through the NBA, will finally be allowed to flow freely.

Seems like a positive move to me, and it's not often you can say that after losing a top three draft pick to a division rival with absolutely no compensation.

It was fun while it lasted, Ben.

Have fun in Detroit, and we'll see you soon.

Dallas Cowboys' Early Bye Week Could Save Their Season on the Brink

Mike Carley — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 06:58:06 -0400

"You miss 100 percent of the shots you don't take."

Anybody who has ever played sports or been within 50 feet of a cheesy self-help "life coach" has heard this maxim fed to the hesitant like an elixir that will turn the meekest of the meek into Kimbo Slice.

However, I believe that this oft-referenced axiom is greatly over simplifying one fact: You might not make any shots by not taking them, but you aren't exactly missing any either.

Ladies and gentlemen, your 2009 Dallas Cowboys, who, for the first time all year, gained decisive ground on their rivals in the NFC East.

How did they do it you might ask? The strategy was ingenious: simply don't play.

The fact that it took the Cowboys sitting this Sunday out to finally gain ground on both the Eagles and the Giants is hilarious enough for both Cowboys haters and Wade-Phillips-corrupted Cowboys fans alike.

Yet for a seemingly talented team that has generated more stupid flags than an overly-festooned booze cruise, not playing might have been just what the doctor ordered.

Like most (if not all) Cowboys fans, I was beside myself after the "win" in Kansas City, and the overwhelming preponderance of ridiculous penalties had me writing off this season for good.

I know a win is all that matters. After this weekend, most Eagles fans will confirm those sentiments.

But it was the perpetuation of the lack of discipline, heart, and personal accountability that was so distressing and disheartening.

I started realizing that after every Cowboys first down, after every Cowboys big play or touchdown, I would scan the TV frantically for flags, fights, and involuntary manslaughter.

And this wasn't the "jump around yelling like an idiot for 30 seconds then look up to see if there is a flag" scanning.

This was "I am turning up the volume on the T.V. and staring at the screen in abject terror waiting for the despised 'FLAG' graphic to appear."

After every. single. big. play.

But I wasn't surprised in the slightest, because this has been the product Wade Phillips has been content to march out on the field every single week for AT LEAST the last season and a half.

Contrasting the abomination in Kansas City with the crisp, clean, flawless, and ruthless execution that the New York Giants took to a similarly winless AFC West foe made it all the much worse.

The Cowboys have talent, and I don't think many people dispute that.

However, I cannot tell you a single Dallas Cowboy player that I think is afraid of Wade Phillips, or a starter who would do anything more than stifle laughter if he ever tried to get in their face and demand their attention.

When I played football as a tight end, there were two things that kept me from forgetting a snap count:

1. The embarrassment of being the only jerkoff out of 11 completely stationary people to flinch and then awkwardly try to keep from tipping over, hoping nobody saw my flinch-and-awkwardly-try-to-keep-from-tipping-over move.

And

2. The fear of one of my coaches ripping me out of the game for god knows how long to rip me a new one on the side line because I couldn't remember a single-digit number.

Obviously, I never played in the NFL, but I would argue these two truths are universal to any and every offensive lineman on every level of football.

Now take Flozell Adams, whom I will use as a microcosmic embodiment of everything that is wrong with the Cowboys.

The man is a walking penalty flag.

He has been penalized in every single Cowboys game I have ever watched him play in (no data to back this up but I'm sure most wouldn't argue this point), and I'm pretty sure he has a "Consecutive Games With A False Start Penalty" streak that would rival Cal Ripken Jr.'s Consecutive Games Started streak.

I do not care how good one single player on a football team is.

If you expect to create a culture of "no one player is bigger than the whole" atmosphere that have worked for past Super Bowl teams like the Patriots, Giants, and Steelers, you cannot let one player consistently make stupid mental mistakes with absolutely no consequences.

That either sends a message of favoritism to the rest of the team, or serves as a silent assent on the part of the coaches to not punish players for ridiculously stupid mistakes.

Neither are characteristics found on any Super Bowl team that I can think of.

How Flozell Adams hasn't been yanked or benched because of his deplorable output of negative penalties is beyond me.

How Jerry Jones hasn't sentenced Flozell to be frozen in a solid block of carbonite like Han Solo from Star Wars like 300 false starts ago is equally befuddling.

Take the Steelers' Mike Tomlin, who benched Rashard Mendenhall for their Week Two match up after Mendenhall's copious amount of mental mistakes in the week of practice leading up to the game.

Mendenhall is that team's best and most versatile running back. However, Tomlin has obviously created a culture within the Pittsburgh Steelers organization that does not tolerate preventable mental mistakes.

Consequently, all of the players were fine with the suspension; there wasn't a huge commotion about it with the media, and it has since seemed to refocus and motivate a previously slacking Mendenhall.

Wade Phillips has failed miserably to create a similar culture of accountability, and the result has been exactly what most have witnessed out of the Cowboys for the past two seasons: endless penalties, called back first downs, and more "oh-so-close-yet-oh-so-far" wins against elite playoff teams than you could ever fathom.

(Not just this season either. Hard to call your team "personally accountable" when there was a multi-game streak in which super star players were blaming their lack of production on secret quarterback hotel-room conferences instead of taking blame themsevles.)

This is the mindset I was in after that Kansas City "victory," and, as you can tell, it wasn't exactly an optimistic one. But can you blame me?

Due to the grind of the regular season NFL schedule, 99.9999 percent of practice is specialized to prepare the team for the specific opponent they are facing that week.

Whether watching film or installing new wrinkles in existing plays that would most exploit perceived weaknesses in the defense of the upcoming opponent, in-season NFL practice mainly revolves around X's-and-O's strategy.

What has been plaguing the Cowboys isn't flaws in their X's-and-O's strategy, as it seems every time the offense is able to string together 10+ plays without a flag they end up in the end zone (too bad that has happened, like, never).

Stupid and preventable penalties are what has plagued the Dallas Cowboys, and those are fatal foundational flaws in the identity of the team that will preclude any NFL team from ever being more than the fringe-playoff team that the Cowboys have been.

The bad news?

There isn't any time to fix such foundational flaws during the week-to-week in-season practices of the NFL. These are issues that need to be sought out, addressed, and rectified during the seemingly endless days of training camp.

The good news?

The Cowboys' bye week came ridiculously early this year.

Because they don't play their next opponent for another two weeks, bye weeks are the only weeks of practice during the NFL season that coaches and players can focus on other big picture problems and issues.

Had this opportunity come during Week 12, the Cowboys would have been far too behind in the standings for any ground-breaking changes to make a difference.

However, the Cowboys had the good fortune to go into theirs with a record of 3-2, and get to restart their season against an Atlanta Falcons team that just pulled out a hard fought victory on Sunday Night Football versus the Chicago Bears.

Two weeks ago, after a "win" (yes I love putting that word in quotes when referring to that game) vs. the Chiefs, I was pretty sure the Cowboys' season was over, because good-to-great teams just simply don't make the abundance of stupid mental mistakes that the Cowboys made.

Upon closer inspection, an early bye week, which seemed like a bad thing at the beginning of the season, might be the one thing that can salvage what so far has been a bumpy 2009 for the Dallas Cowboys.

One can only hope that Wade Phillips and the coaching staff took this extra time off to correct some of the easily correctable stupidity that has permeated the 2009 Dallas Cowboys squad.

You know, things like reminding Ken Hamlin he can actually tackle, introducing Tony Romo and Martellus Bennett to each other, and having a child specialist come in and work memory card games with Flozell Adams.

This game versus Atlanta will serve to tell us a lot about the true merit of this Dallas Cowboys squad.

Hopefully the only false start called this weekend will be on my declaration of gloom on the 2009 Dallas Cowboys season.

Jason Garrett Still Looks Like Dallas Cowboys' One-Trick Pony

Mike Carley — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 11:16:24 -0400

I never thought I would say this, but it would have been interesting to see the Cowboys lose on Monday night.

True, the devastating explosion of rage that would have emanated from my apartment with more force than the atom bomb dropped on Nagasaki might have obstructed any sick sense of interest I might have had in watching Jerry Jones behead his coaching staff like a French Revolution-era executioner. Literally. While broadcasting it live on the jumbo-est of Jumbotrons. While wearing cowboy boots.

But after THE most discouraging and uninspired half of football (out of the eight) ever played in Cowboys Stadium (take that corporate sponsorship), all it took was a reportedly legendary halftime diatribe by Wade Phillips to lead the Cowboys to 21 unanswered second half points and an apparently easy victory over the Panthers on Monday Night Football.

It was relieving to finally see the Cowboys' defense step up, start executing, and force some takeaways and (gasp) even sacks!

(Playing 2009 Jake Delhomme never hurts.)

Wade took a lot of heat off himself rallying the team and the defense to a win Monday night.

Conversely, I have yet to meet a single individual who was happy with the way Jason Garrett called that game.

True the offense did post its second consecutive 200-yard game, an accomplishment that is absolutely nothing to sneeze at since it hasn't been done by a Cowboys team since the days of Tony Dorsett.

However, I would present the argument that this phenomenal occurrence happened despite Jason Garrett's best efforts.

Two instances stand out like scarlet letters on the lapel of an unholy and unnatural offensive game plan that seemed to fly in the face of the most logical ways to attack the Panthers' defense.

The first occurred on the first drive of the game, in which, if you recall, the Cowboys were ripping off first downs and seamlessly slicing through Carolina's defense after a long catch-and-run and long run by Felix Jones.

After a short gain up the middle on first down, Romo dropped back to pass on 2nd-and-9, held the ball, looked like he was waiting for something, and then simply dropped to the ground and took a sack for a 10-yard loss, something you rarely see from the slippery and determined signal caller.

The sack in itself was disheartening, but became exceedingly so when Ron Jaworski calmly explained that this was a play action trick-play intended for Martellus Bennett, in which Bennett goes in motion, pretends to fall down so his defender leaves him, only to hop up real quick to scoot out the backside as the only receiver on the play.

It is one of the most commonly used tight end trick plays in the game. You know, as an FYI for all those avid fans of tight end trick plays and all.

However, Martellus either failed to get up or was held up trying to get out of the amalgamation of offensive and defensive linemen furiously beating the living sense out of each other.

The bottom line is Martellus Bennett, the only receiver running a route on the play, was unable to get out on said aforementioned route.

Since Bennett got knocked down/held up, Romo had nobody to throw to, and next thing you know its 3rd-and-19 and your kicker is missing a 40-yard field goal on a drive that three plays earlier seemed destined to end up in the end zone.

Trick plays are supposed to take the defense by surprise, and, to give Garrett's credit, this was certainly a surprising time to run this play. The Cowboys were having no problem whatsoever moving the ball up the field using a conventional offense.

There is absolutely no need to run a trick play in which Romo has no option should the first one not be open, which, believe it or not, happens quite frequently in the National Football League. A play like that, like most trick plays, results in either a big play or a big loss.

Why Garrett felt the need to run such a high-risk-high-reward play on a drive that had tons of momentum is absolutely mind boggling.

That is a play that should be run on first down, on the first play of a drive. At least if you have to take the sack because the tight end can't get out on the route you have two more downs to make up the vast distance that now separates you from the first down marker.

Instead, Romo had to take the sack, putting him in the, ahem, unfavorable position of 3rd-and-19, which he understandably didn't convert. One Nick Folk shank later, and goodbye momentum, crowd enthusiasm, and first half energy.

The second instance needs nowhere near as much explanation. It's 2nd-and-goal, on a yard line so close to the goal line you would have to use an electron microscope to discern where the field ends and the end zone begins. Felix Jones and Tashard Choice have been thrashing the Panthers behind the Cowboys' massive offensive line.

The next two play calls? Fade to Roy Williams that was dropped (wasn't an easy play but its one's you expect elite NFL wideouts to make), and a disastrous fade to Martellus Bennett (which spun him around like a ceiling fan and inspired no less than 700 "wtf" texts from friends and family) and fell incomplete 10 yards away.

I would like to introduce Mr. Garrett, a fellow Ivy Leaguer (albeit for the despicable Princeton Tigers), to the time-honored, philosophical principle of Occam's Razor, which, quite simply, states that the simplest explanation is always the correct one as long as it doesn't contradict the observed facts.

It is a principle we use unknowingly every day in the sports world when navigating through the vast labyrinth of misinformation and flat out B.S. extruded from struggling/meddling athletes as they try to justify some misstep or criminal offense.

Barry Bonds is a great example.

Did Barry Bonds expand in size and see his season home run totals triple unexpectedly in his early 30s because of some unnatural and previously undiscovered training routine of which he and only he was the sole proprietor/practitioner of? Or was it because he was doing steroids like 90 percent of the rest of the league?

Which explanation is simpler?

Well here are the observed facts in this situation: The Dallas Cowboys had two chances to gain a literal inch to go up 17-7 and ignite a crowd which had seen the Cowboys settle for a field goal on a previous possession after a ridiculous "4th-and-goal-on-the-inch-line" false start penalty by a third-string tight end.

They have two extremely capable running backs who were rarely stopped for anything less than a gain of three or four yards all night behind the third largest offensive line in the entire league.

Should you:

A. Throw a pump-fake fade route to a covered Roy Williams in expectations that he will make an elite NFL wideout play when he has yet to make a single one of those in a Dallas Cowboys uniform? Followed by motioning our second-year, second-string tight end (who has been little more than a decoy in the passing game this year) out wide against a decent NFL corner and throw a fade up to him?

B. Run the ball behind your mammoth offensive line (twice if need be) with one of your two backs who have hardly had a negative run all night?

In Garrett's defense I do not know if a run play or option play was called, and Romo made the decision at the line to throw back-to-back fades, which is not entirely implausible.

Then again, why the explicit instructions from the sideline would be anything but "Tony, turn around and hand the (expletive) ball off or we are putting in Kitna" is equally as confounding as the mid-fade pinwheel Martellus Bennet executed so deftly.

My underlying point is this: Jason Garrett became the highest paid assistant in the league after a record setting 2007 in which he had a healthy Tony Romo for 16 games and T.O. in the last year of his prime (think it's getting pretty safe to say that).

He shattered passing and scoring records left and right, but not that dreaded playoff winless streak. Still, he seemed like the hottest commodity in all of football and most Cowboys fans were by and large pleased with keeping him in-house.

However, Jason Garrett played quarterback at Princeton and backed up Troy Aikman for years. Quarterbacks love Fun-and-Gun offenses where you get to chuck the ball down field and put up eye-popping stats.

So, too, do quarterbacks who become offensive coordinators.

In 2007, Garrett had the perfect set of both players and circumstances to run that down field Fun-and-Gun style of football, and it got him paid.

Then T.O. lost a step in 2008, Garrett seriously misjudged (no, excuse me, SERIOUSLY misjudged) Brad Johnson's viability as a starting NFL quarterback, (the need arose, and they paid for it with two embarrassing losses), and all of a sudden the Cowboys' offense was anemic and predictable.

On top of that, the Cowboys didn't find out they had three viable NFL starting running backs until the first two got hurt 12 games into the season, Romo was up-and-down coming off a pinky injury, and the Cowboys' season ended on what I like to call "The Bleakest Day in Cowboys History" coming in the form of a 44-6 drubbing at the hands of a hated division rival.

Now, in second game of 2009, an over-reliance on Tony Romo despite a largely dominant run game led to a crucial and awful interception that led to a last-second victory at home to a division rival.

This was followed by a victory over a winless Panthers team in which the offense posted a mere 13 points after kicking two field goals despite having the ball an inch away from the endzone—twice.

Now with Felix and potentially Barber out next Sunday Tony Romo should obviously get a higher number of throws. But with all three backs healthy, Tony Romo should not throw the ball more than 20-25 times all game this year.

Not because Tony Romo can't be successful throwing that many passes a game, but because our offense needs consistency, a much easier thing to establish with a great ground game than a great passing attack (especially given Romo's occasional brain fart games).

A friend of mine, who's a Giants fan, made a great point to me: it doesn't matter how prolific your offense is if it isn't consistent. If you want to win a Super Bowl, you need to string together three or four straight wins. In a Super Bowl run, there is no room for a brain fart game, from Romo or anybody (see: 2007 playoffs, offensive line).

It seems like Garrett is gradually, but extremely reluctantly, adjusting the "I need to chuck the ball downfield 40 times a game" gene ingrained into him from his days as a quarterback to a more reasonable "hey maybe we do have something going in this run game" strategy.

However, he has shown over the past two games that he lets his passing jones get the best of him in crucial situations, which have led to less-than-optimal offensive performances in two of the first three games of 2009.

Jason Garrett can put together one hell of a passing attack.

However, football is a game of adjustments. From play to play, quarter to quarter, game to game, and season to season, the most successful coaches and coordinators constantly adjust their strategies to fit the fluid dynamic of ever changing rosters, and the fluctuating sets of strengths and weaknesses those changing rosters entail.

Great coordinators don't force players to fit into their scheme if they don't fit naturally. They shape their scheme around their existing roster to maximize their players' strengths and minimize players' weaknesses.

I'm not saying Garrett can't or won't ever reach that level, but he needs to prove that he is willing to split 45-50 carries between his three healthy backs in one game until a team shows it can stop it.

He needs to prove he is willing to run the ball on three straight downs instead of freaking out and calling a triple reverse flea flicker fumbleroosky after every first down run that is stopped for no gain.

He needs to show he can adapt his schemes to fit his roster, and not the other way around.

Jason Garrett is still young as a coach, so I'm not saying he can't or won't ever reach that level.

However, empirical evidence over the last two games would seem to suggest that he still has a ways to go to get there. Let's hope he covers that gap as quickly as possible.

You know, like, say, Felix Jones or Marion Barber sprinting through a cavernous opening in the offensive line....

(Hint. Hint.)

Dallas Cowboys' Defense, Not Tony Romo, Should Worry Fans

Mike Carley — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:50:45 -0400

Allow me to preface this article by saying that I am a staunch Tony Romo backer.

His rags-to-riches emergence on the heels of a half-dozen years of horrendous quarterback play in Dallas ranks as one of the top three or four sports stories of my lifetime.

That loss to the Giants was one of the hardest I've ever had to stomach as a Cowboys fan. The amount of points and plays left on the field boggles the mind, let alone the two or three plays that appeared to be touched by the hand of the Almighty Himself.

As brutal as last week's loss was, I can't understand the level of backlash Romo has experienced leading up to this week's game.

Did he play awful against the Giants? Absolutely.

Has any other quarterback gotten such a ridiculously negative reaction after a single bad game? Not in my recent memory.

(Side note: Romo only threw 2 interceptions in my book. I cannot consider that "Off Of Witten's Heel" play more than an incompletion, which is all he should have gotten for throwing that ball behind Witten. It doesn't seem so bad if he only threw two picks, am I right?)

To see Cowboys fans turn on Romo so quickly indicates how easily it is to forget to past. It also provides poignant social commentary on how big of a "what have you done for me lately" culture we have become in today's society of instantaneous availability of information.

While I eagerly anticipate reading through all the tired points to be made against Romo in the comments section (most notably, his late season struggles), I needed to remind the people (specifically, Cowboys fans) who forgot both just how young and just how talented Tony Romo is.

The fact that questions arose this week regarding Romo's talent and ability are simply absurd. Say what you want to about his record in December, but the fact remains that Romo's 94.2 career quarterback rating is the second-highest among active quarterbacks—and the third-highest of all time.

The fact that he has broken every single-season Cowboys passing record and holds the record for the most 300-yard games thrown by a Cowboy (despite playing in all 16 games only once in his career) should serve as a neat exclamation point to the fact that Romo can and will get it done.

I don't want to hear the "He's only good against the Bucs" arguments either. That 94.2 number spans over four seasons playing in the toughest division in football.

Bad quarterbacks play bad teams, too. Nobody would expect JaMarcus Russell to throw for 350 yards against Tampa just because they're the Bucs.

And now on to the ridiculous (yes, ridiculous) argument citing Romo's horrible record in December and lack of a playoff win—assuming you haven't yet thrown your laptop in anger.

It's true that Romo doesn't have a playoff win. How people can comfortably throw that stat around like its some deus ex machina that solidifies Romo as a bum is mind boggling.

He's 0-2.

Just like Peyton was. Just like Eli was.

Now, the Mannings are considered two of the best clutch quarterbacks in the league despite equally dismal starting playoff numbers.

Theirs is somehow an unattainable future for Romo? This season is only his third full year as a starter.

And since when did playoff records and Super Bowl wins become the last and greatest measure of a quarterback? I suppose the only things that made John Elway good were those last two Super Bowls.

Jim Kelly, Dan Marino and Frank Tarkenton must then be chopped liver.

I'm not naive enough to think that playoff records should not warrant any consideration when analyzing the merit of a quarterback. Believe me, I will be the first one leading this train if we are sitting here eight years from now and Romo still doesn't have a playoff win.

What I take issue with is people using this early-career playoff record as a guaranteed predictor of Romo's future postseason failures—and how many Cowboys fans seem to be jumping on that bandwagon.

Did you all forget Romo's 35-yard scramble for a third-and-1 conversion against the Rams in 2007?

What about the ridiculous mid-sack, left-handed shovel pass against the Giants that somehow travelled 20 yards to find Tony Curtis sitting unguarded in the end zone?

The fact that he has shown unreal mental toughness time and time again should also be a reason to love Romo if you are a Cowboys fan. (He was actually able to have a career after the "Bobbled-Snap Game" and once led a last-second, game-winning drive against Buffalo after throwing five interceptions.)

You can't succeed with a talented head-case at quarterback. (Ryan Leaf once started for the Cowboys, remember?)

I challenge you to find a single Cowboys fan that, instead of Romo, would prefer Quincy Carter. Or Clint Stoerner. Or Chad Hutchinson. Or Drew Henson. Or Vinny Testaverde. Or Drew Bledsoe. (I have to stop or my head is going to explode from so much long-buried rage being conjured up at the same time.)

My point stands: Romo had an awful game and it is disturbing that he hasn't developed better ball security in more than two seasons as a starter. However, the level of ridiculously and unjustifiably negative hyperbole that permeated every Tony Romo-related story this week was patently absurd.

Cowboys haters will always find something wrong with Romo.

The level of unrest I felt from fellow Cowboys fans surrounding Romo was the real surprise.

Turnovers and all, the Cowboys offense still put up 31 points. That is a better-than-decent day of production, even if that number could have easily been in the 50's.

To call for Romo's head after arguably the worst game he's ever played as a starter is absurd. It's reacting to a statistical outlier instead of taking his whole body of work into account. (94.2, remember?)

What most worries me is that head coach Wade Philips' complete control of the Cowboys defense is supposed to do for Dallas what Rex Ryan is doing for the Jets.

The Cowboys must have been extremely confident in Philips' defensive prowess, because they felt fine letting go of five defensive starters from 2008, four of which had made Pro Bowls in the past (Greg Ellis, Chris Canty, Roy Williams, Zach Thomas).

Despite leading the league in sacks, the Cowboys defense in 2008 only had eight interceptions. By all accounts, Philips' largest point of emphasis in the offseason was the creation of turnovers.

Through two games (including one against a team that might not win a game this year), the Cowboys defense has yet to force a single turnover or sack. They have been less bothersome to receivers than a minor case of jock itch and gave Eli Manning and Byron Leftwich enough time in the pocket to compose Italian concertos.

They were absolutely gashed for over 200 yards on the ground by Tampa's Cadillac Williams and Derrick Ward.

They were destroyed for over 200 yards in the air by the Giants' Steve Smith and Mario Manningham (who made Terence Newman look like 2005 Jacque Reeves on that long fade).

This is the same defense that lost the last game in Texas Stadium by giving up the two longest plays in the 40-plus-year history of the building to the Ravens.

How did they respond to that embarrassment in the final week? By giving up 44 points to the Eagles in the biggest no-show game in NFL history.

This is the same defense, minus four Pro Bowlers.

Romo has led an offense that has put up 65 points in two games. Say what you want about the turnovers, but I find that pill a lot easier to swallow than the "All Wade Philips did was focus on defense this offseason but the defense hasn't yet made a single big play" pill.

The level of underachievement by the Cowboys' defense to this point is so far above unacceptable I don't even know where to begin. But for some reason all I hear about is the travesty of Tony Romo and predictions of his guaranteed failure.

Feel free to get nitpicky with Romo tonight. He won't have a game as bad as he did last Sunday. You don't set a career passing mark of 94.2 by playing that badly consistency.

Jake Delhomme and the Panthers' offense should be the sack-and-turnover equivalent of taking candy from Jay Cut—I mean—a baby. Another complete no-show by Dallas' defense tonight should have Philips' head on the chopping block.

Not at the end of the season. Tomorrow.

The job of any defensive coordinator/head coach is to create a terrifying defense. Hats off to Philips for doing that. He forgot that your defense is supposed to terrify the other team, not your own fans.

10 Best Cowboys-Giants Games of the Last 12 Seasons

Mike Carley — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 14:01:18 -0400

Sunday Night Football looks to present us with yet another installment of one of the most bitter rivalries in the NFL between the Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants, a series so storied and so intense, that it literally needs no introduction. It has been an extremely captivating match up since the game was first played between the two in 1960. However, the last 12 years has had no shortage of notable and amazing games. Without further ado, the 10 Greatest Cowboys-Giants game of the last 12 years.

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NFL: 11 Random Thoughts From Week One

Mike Carley — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:57:22 -0400

After one of the most exciting Week 1's in recent memory, I thought I would compile a list of random musings from the first week of competition. Enjoy.

1. Is it just me, or are the Miles Austin/Adrian Peterson/Mario Manningham touchdown runs signs that tackling technique among DBs is more of a dying art than the midrange jumper?

2. How long before Ochocinco or Cedric Benson pulls a gun out of his pads mid-run and goes “Beginning of The Last Boyscout” on the opposing defense? On a lighter note, “Child Please” is easily the second-most gangster thing to say to somebody before you pop a cap in their heiney behind Samuel L. Jackson’s diatribe from Pulp Fiction. "Child Please..." BLAOW! "And remember to kiss the baby...." You are telling me that doesn't sound like a line directly out of a Tarentino movie?

3. According to stories around the league, Jake Delhomme is making $16 million guaranteed this year. ESPN has reportedly deployed Adam Schefter to discover whether or not there is a clause that voids Delhomme’s contract if the number of interceptions he throws in one season exceeds the number of dollars he makes that year.

4. The Eagles signed Jeff Garcia on Monday. Along with Michael Vick, that now gives them two viable backup quarterbacks, or, as I like to call them, two “reason for Crazy Philly Fan to boo Donovan McNabb’s first rough outing and call for his benching”s. Either there is something they aren’t telling us about McNabb, or they are trying to drive McNabb crazier than Kathy Bates in “Misery.”

5. The Rams shouldn’t be scratching their heads as to why the got goose egged by the Seattle Seahawks. The best player on their entire team, Steven Jackson, only touched the ball 16 times, with zero receptions. This is a player who, last time he was this healthy, caught 90 balls, recorded 2,334 total yards and racked 16 touchdowns. I know Donnie Avery and Laurent Robinson are sweet, but give this man the ball! Does that have anything to do with the fact that he’s on my fantasy team? Absolutely!

6. The loss the Bengals took this weekend was something that only happens when playing Madden on the “All-Madden” difficulty, in which the computer will literally do anything short of striking your quarterback with a bolt of HD lightening to prevent your potentially game-winning drive from being successful.

7. What was more surprising: Joe Flacco throwing for over 300 yards in his first start of his second NFL season, or a Tyler Thigpen-led Kansas City Chiefs offense being able to put up more than -4 points on the Ravens' defense?

8. If you were playing Family Feud, and the category came up as “Teams Most Likely to Suffer a Crushing and Improbable Week One Losses,” wouldn’t the first three answers look something like, “Bengals – 37 votes, Raiders – 25 votes, Bills - 21 votes?”

9. Tony Romo sure didn’t seem to miss his buddy Terrell Owens on Sunday, setting several career bests in the passing game. The explanation? Either a new-found liberation from feeling the need to force a ball to a player regardless of coverage simply to keep him happy, or a liberation from nagging thoughts like, “I can’t believe Jessica asked how strong these ‘mussels’ were before we ate them…wow I hope she’s not pregnant?”

10. Why the Patriots would ever run anything other than a 4-to-5 wide receiver shotgun offense 100% of the time is beyond me. I’m talking a pass/run balance that would make Andy Reid weak in the knees. What they did to the Bills' pass defense in the final five minutes of that game was scary. Whatever neurons that fired in Leodis McKelvin's brain that made him conclude bringing that kick out of the end zone should be fired.

11. Combining the Bengals game with botched fumble call against the Chargers week two of last year, do the Broncos now have two of the most improbable gift victories in the last decade of NFL football? Are they really the Road Runner to the rest of the league’s Wile E. Coyote, just barely scraping through life-threatening situations, leaving Leon Hall stuck under a huge anvil that says ACME on the side? All in all, the microcosm game of one of the most exciting Week Ones in recent memory. Can't believe there are 16 more left just like it.

No-T.O. Show Silences Host Of Preseason Doubts About Dallas Passing Game

Mike Carley — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 21:21:30 -0400

Due to the departure of, as Bill Parcells would say, "The Player," this offseason, the passing game has unequivocally been the most intriguing question mark out of the many that surrounded this new-look, new-attitude Dallas Cowboys squad coming into the 2009 season.

However, even my ever present optimism couldn't have seen a performance like Tony Romo and crew put on this past Sunday.

Before I get into the analysis, I would like to provide a little "this is only week one" disclaimer.

While a team's performance in week one serves to answer a whole host of questions, by no means does it provide any 100 percent, Miss-Cleo-level guarantees about how a team will perform for the entire season.

Week one can provides answers like, "Wow, Carolina should have invested in a viable backup QB," "Looks like Brad Childress can have the discipline to give AP the carries he needs despite Brett Favre's presence," and "10 out of 10 people wish HBO was running a few extra weeks of Hard Knocks to cover the practices after the Broncos game."

Week one cannot give definitive answers like, "The Eagles have the most dominant defense in the league because they forced seven turnovers," or "Drew Brees and Tony Romo will each throw for 5,000 yards this season."

You see, with such a small sample size of work from each team, one cannot tell the flukes from the real deals, the impressive wins from the non-impressive ones, the "upsets" from the "that team actually was that much better than the other team" judgements we can make after, say, week 12.

That is my feeble attempt to address the elephant in the room surrounding the Cowboys' week one domination: that this offensive explosion was against the "powerhouse" that is the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

While the Bucs do have a very strong cornerback tandem in Ronde Barber and Aqib Talib, common sense would seem to suggest that this was a superior team playing against an inferior team (albeit on the road).

I will therefore try to avoid focusing on the simple eye-popping aggregate stats (353 yards passing for Romo, 135 receiving for Crayton, etc.) and try more to focus on the effectiveness of the strategy behind the passing attack game plan, which should be a topic far less skewed by talent differentials between teams than would a simple comparison of aggregate stats.

Three Things to Love About Week One in the Passing Game

Obviously, one would be hard pressed to write a negative article about a game in which Tony Romo sets a career high in single-game passing yardage (353), completes the longest pass of his career (80 yards to Patrick Crayton), extends his career 300 yard passing games to a franchise-record 17, and completes three touchdown passes over 40 yards in one game (hasn't been done by a Cowboys' signal caller since 1962).

For the sake of brevity, here are the three most exciting aspects of the passing that manifested themselves on the field in Tampa on Sunday:

1. "Favoritism" on Romo's Part? Non-Existent

Many critics wondered how Tony Romo would respond without T.O.'s game breaking ability.

Would T.O.'s departure free Romo up to read the field objectively and allow him to more fully utilize the weapons he had at his disposal, or would it lead to Romo developing Witten Tunnel Vision on every play, thereby exposing him as a product of T.O.'s ability?

Thankfully for Cowboys fans everywhere, the answer after week one overwhelmingly seems to be the former.

Romo was extremely democratic with his 16 completions, completing a pass to six different receivers at all three positions on the field (wide outs, tight ends, and running backs).

On top of that, no single player had more than five receptions, and the top three receivers on Sunday were only separated by a single reception (Witten with five, Crayton with four, and Roy Williams with three).

One of the largest things I was looking for on Sunday was Romo's pass distribution among the many weapons he has at his disposal. My biggest fear going into this game was a box score where Witten had 10 catches to Williams' and Crayton's three apiece.

Romo ended up spreading the ball effectively and simply taking what the Bucs gave him on defense. That is something something Romo arguably was not able to do every play in 2008, where, in order to keep the mercurial receiver happy, Romo often felt compelled to force the ball to T.O. regardless of if he was covered or not.

While Romo won't throw for 353 yards every week, as long as he remains willing to take what the defense gives him like he did on Sunday instead of forcing balls into coverage, look for many more huge performances out of the Cowboys passing attack.

2. Jason Garrett's Successful, and, More Importantly, Adaptable Game Plan

Anybody who was reading my work after the 2008 season knew I was more than underwhelmed with the performance of the Cowboys' offense last year.

A lot of that blame I put on Jason Garrett's shoulders for being too proud and inflexible to adapt his game plan to opposing defenses due to the overwhelming success he had in 2007.

If week one is any indication, that was soooo 2008.

By all accounts Tampa Bay's game plan was to bring extra men into the box to prevent the Cowboys from running the ball, forcing the Cowboys to beat them with their passing attack.

In conjunction with the departure of T.O., after an entire off season of "the Cowboys need to run the ball more" stories coming out of Valley Ranch, that would seem like the most obvious strategy.

For much of the first half, the Cowboys tried to run out of a non-shotgun, multiple running back and tight end formation while passing out of the spread shotgun offense. Many of the run plays were stuffed when Tampa brought an extra man into the box when the Cowboys weren't in the spread.

However, towards the end of the second half, the Cowboys realized that Tampa was going to keep stacking against the run, and ran a majority of their second half plays, regardless of whether they were running or passing, out of the spread shotgun formation.

This forced Tampa to do one of two things: 1) keep stacking the box against the run and opening it up to the big play through the air, or 2) play a pass defense and leave itself vulnerable to the draw up the middle.

As the box score shows (353 yards passing, 118 yards rushing), Tampa wasn't able to figure out when to do what and consequently was blown off the field in the second half.

The Cowboys went from using the run to set up the pass to doing the exact opposite based on what the defense was giving them, something I was dying to see out of Jason Garrett's offense last year.

If Garrett can become more and more effective at these in game adjustments, expect many more huge passing days out of the offense this year.

3. I Thought T.O. Was The Only Game Breaker in Dallas

While it is still hard to tell whether the plethora of big plays was due to Dallas' talent or Tampa Bay's lack thereof, it is safe to conclude that the Cowboys have a lot more people capable of breaking open a game that do not have their own reality show on VH-1.

(By all accounts Brett Michaels is an awesome punt returner...his limbo game needs work though).

While it will be hard to imagine all three wide outs having long touchdown catches in the same game again, I guarantee you Patrick Crayton, Roy Williams, and Miles Austin had defensive coordinators across the league that ended up in neck braces from the strength of the double-take the Cowboys' box score induced this Sunday.

The timing displayed between Romo's back-shoulder throw to Miles Austin, and Austin's subsequent electrifying run after the catch was a sight Cowboys fans have been waiting to see from the promising burner for the last two-plus seasons.

Patrick Crayton serves to benefit from the departure of T.O. more than any receiver on the roster, as the move meant Crayton was starting back at the second WR position instead of being relegated to the slot.

Crayton needed to demonstrate he was able to put up numbers worthy of a No. 2 wide receiver in the National Football League. One 80-yard touchdown and another 44-yard reception later, Crayton showed what he can do to defenses that don't give him the respect a No. 2 wide receiver deserves.

And suffice it to say, despite all the ridiculous critics who tried to postulate otherwise, 27-year-old Roy Williams can still play wide receiver in the NFL.

I don't care who you are playing against, complete slouches don't catch 66-yard touchdowns in the NFL unless the pass ricochets off a member of the Cincinnatti Bengals first.

Three Things That Need To Change After Week 1

Nobody plays a perfect game, no matter what the final score is. Here are three things the Dallas Cowboys can look to improve upon despite their dominant performance:

1. Roy Williams-Tony Romo Timing

One of the biggest reasons I was excited to see what Roy E. could do this season was because he and Romo had an entire summer to work together and work out the timing so vital to creating a successful QB-WR duo.

While Romo and Williams did connect on some nice plays and a long touchdown, there was a near interception on a third-and-long and a dropped slant on third-and-short that suggests the tandem still has a little work to do.

In the second quarter, Romo launched a pass to the right towards Williams, who was running a comeback route, a route that is often thrown before the receiver has made his break.

In the pairs' defense, pressure could have forced Romo to throw the ball earlier than Williams expected, but the defender had turned and seen the ball before Williams and almost made a pick on the sideline because the ball arrived just as Roy was turning around.

On the dropped slant, the ball was thrown high and seemed to ricochet off of Williams' hands and then helmet before bouncing to the ground. That was either a ball thrown in a place Williams didn't like/didn't see in time, or a flat out drop by Williams.

Either way, neither is a possibility you want to consider with your No. 1 wide receiver.

I still look for Romo and Williams to put up impressive numbers this season. However these two plays suggest the pair is still feeling each other out in their first full season on the field together.

2. Lack of Sustained Drives

This might not be something the Cowboys need to improve upon from last week and more something that will need to happen in the coming weeks, but there is another side to the "all three Cowboys' touchdowns were over 40 yards" coin.

Whether Tampa Bay turns out to be a contender or not this season (all signs point to the latter), one thing is certain: the New York Giants are better, especially on the defensive side of the ball.

One can't expect a veteran and disciplined defense coming off a dominant performance against Washington to surrender three scoring plays over 40 yards in a single game to ANY opponent.

I'm not saying the Cowboys shouldn't keep taking shots down field.

However, much like a basketball team who's first offensive option is the three-point shot every time down the court (I'm talking to you, Duke fan), a football team that relies exclusively on the big play to score will be more feast-or-famine than Nicole Ritchie.

Against the disciplined and talented defenses of the NFC East, the Cowboys will have to augment their big plays with sustained and well-balanced drives that synergistically combine the short passing and running game to actually set up big plays that might arise organically against less talented teams.

3. Marty B Quiet for the First Time Since Camp Started

I have been predicting great things for Martellus Bennett, easily the most colorful Cowboy and my favorite newcomer to the squad, since the beginning of training camp. Many Twitter updates and YouTube rap video releases later, Bennett finally got to take the field opposite Jason Witten, or, "Rice," for the first time in a meaningful game.

However, outside of a very nice 13-yard first down grab on an out to the left side of the field, Martellus Bennett was largely absent from the passing game, and seemed to be lost and/or confused in the three-play debacle that stalled the Cowboys' first drive of the game.

One thing to note is that big plays eliminate red zone possessions, which is the section of the field Martellus Bennett will be most valuable this year. After all, he did catch four touchdowns in only 20 receptions last year.

However, he was only targeted twice all game (the other being on the only Cowboys' red zone possession of the game). Bennett has game breaking ability for a tight end, and should be an integral part of the passing game from here on out.

If the Cowboys have any hope in creating the aforementioned sustained drives that will be so integral when playing playoff teams, Martellus Bennett will need to play a much larger role in the passing attack as a whole.

FINAL GRADE: A-

The Cowboys shattered personal records and put on an offensive performance only outdone by Drew Brees' performance against The University of Michigan's JV Women's Field Hockey Team that for some reason took the field in Lions jerseys on Sunday.

However, as impressive as the big plays are, long, sustainable drives are what wins tough close games, which the Cowboys will have a lot of playing in the NFC East.

Big plays lead to highlights. Consistency leads to playoff victories.

The Cowboys will face a true litmus test in the New York Giants next week during Sunday Night Football.

Let's hope Tony Romo and Jason Garrett can keep the "No-T.O. Show" going against a bitter division rival. All signs seem to be pointing in the right direction.

Things I Could Have Been Doing Waiting For A Cowboy's Playoff Win

Mike Carley — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 21:45:28 -0400

It is the Friday before the first Sunday of the NFL Season.

It's hands down one of the most exciting times of the year, and for the NFL fan the countdown to another 17-plus weeks of excitement now stands at a tantalizing two days.

Fantasy football teams are drafted.

Suicide/Survivor pools are finalized.

The Week One lines are set in Vegas.

Most importantly, the 'Boys in Dallas are getting set to strap on their star-studded headgear in yet another attempt to further the legacy and storied history of America's Team.

It's not hard to justify the use of such rosy and reverent vernacular when describing a franchise that has won more Super Bowls than any other not named the Pittsburgh Steelers.

But personally, I'm over it.

I am the biggest Cowboys fan you could ever imagine, and I am in no way ashamed to admit that. But no longer will I feel comfortable citing aggregate Super Bowl wins to quell the ever-present antagonizing Eagles fan.

No longer can I cite the glory days of Emmitt Smith, Troy Aikman, and Michael Irvin when asked to justify why the Dallas Cowboys are, for lack of a better term, "the dopeness." To do so would be just as silly as pinning the 2009 season's hopes on the influences Tom Landry left behind.

No longer do I believe the Dallas Cowboys deserve the attention that has been alotted to them by both fans and media alike, since the Trinity walked the field in the '90s.

This realization came on the heels of me finally coming to grips with one of the most head-scratchingly embarrassing number I have ever had to endure as a sports fan: 13.

It has been 13 years since the Cowboys last won the Super Bowl. Thirteen years!

I had heard that number thrown at me in the past months and just shrugged it off, chalking it up to the same typical Cowboys-hate that comes with the territory of being a fan of the blue and silver.

However, last week I sat down and actually pondered just how long a time 13 years is, and the realizations were staggering.

To put this number in perspective, I compiled a list of the things I could have been doing (hypothetically) while waiting for the Cowboys to win a single playoff game:

Fight In The First Three Crusades

Say I was a super soldier with a time machine (I've already piqued Nicolas Cage's interest), and was hired mercenary-style to fight in the Battle for the Holy Land.

I would be able to participate in the first three medieval wars (1095-1099, 1147-1159, and 1187-1192) in the time that has elapsed since the Cowboys' last playoff victory.

The Europeans and Saracens were able to go to war three different times in 13 years (and keep in mind this is an era where you had to walk to get from London to Jerusalem), and Dallas can't even scrounge up a playoff win in the same time period.

I will now go fall on the nearest scimitar.

Write the Entire Four Book Lord Of The Rings Books From Scratch

By all accounts, it took Peter Jackson like 200 years to write the Lord of the Rings books.

All joking aside, anybody who has ever picked up one of these books (I mean that literally...you don't even have to read them, they are each like 500 pages and 20 lbs) can recognize what a hefty undertaking it was to craft the deep and beautifully thought out universe that is J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth.

He invented his own races.

He invented his own geography.

He even invented his own language (Elvish), complete with its own unique alphabet and grammatical rules.

Glancing over such amazing accomplishments, one wonders if he ever had time to invent a girlfriend (heyo!).

Regardless, it took Tolkien 12 years (1937-1949) to write this wonderfully imaganitive series, one less year than it has taken the Cowboys to win a playoff game.

I will now walk up to the first Ent I see and ask him to body-slam me.

Live Through The Reign of Julius Caesar—Three Times

Julius Caesar remains as one of history's most compelling, interesting, and terrifying figures.

Through brilliant military strategy and general bad-assery, Julius Caesar transformed Rome from a Republic weighed down by more bureaucratic red tape than your local DMV to the Roman Empire, one of the most impressive and sprawling empires the world has ever known.

Through his rule, he created the title of "Roman Emperor," a position that lasted for, oh, the next 1,480 years. Suffice it to say, this was a pretty significant period in the history of the world.

However, as influential as Caesar's reign was, it only lasted four years (48-44 BCE).

I could hop in my time machine and go through that period three separate times in the same time frame that I have instead been using to watch every single Cowboys game since 1996 without a playoff win.

Fight In World War I And World War II

Say I was such an effective Timecop-style mercenary during the Crusades that word spread throughout time and my services were needed to defeat the Germans in either World War I or World War II.

Would I have to delay my services out of fear of missing a Cowboys playoff win?

What's worth noting is that they both changed the geo-political landscape of the entire world, and both of them took less than 13 years to complete (WWI:1914-1918, WWII: 1939-1945).

I could have literally attempted to take over the world in the time since I've last seen a victorious Dallas Cowboys playoff game.

Anybody got an extra tank of mustard gas?

Sail Around the World in a Wind-Powered Wooden Ship Using Only The Stars To Navigate....Twice

Ask any elementary school child or creepy-friend-who-is-way-too-good-at-Jeopardy! (we all have one) about the exploits of Ferdinand Magellan, and they will joyously recount his heroic exploits as the first sailor to circumnavigate the globe.

The fact that Magellan himself got butchered by natives in the Philippines halfway through the journey and still gets credit for it remains up there with the blown fumble call in the Broncos-Chargers game last year as one of history's biggest injustices.

However, despite the fact many people thought the world was flat, one could only navigate using a compass and the stars, and people were dying because they hadn't eaten fresh fruit in fave years, "Magellan" was able to complete this journey in 6 years (1519-1525).

I could have participated in that fiasco of a journey two times over in the same time period I have been waiting to see the Cowboys win a playoff game.

Unless the injury report reads "Jason Witten—Out—Scurvy," or Jason Garrett gets ambushed by a group of heathen tribesmen from the Philippines during his morning jog, I don't want to hear it.

Win a playoff game. Please.

Don't get me wrong, I will be a loyal and dedicated Cowboys fan if this playoff drought lasts for another 50 years.

But 13 years ago, I would have balked at the notion that it was more difficult to assemble a 53-man roster capable of winning a playoff game than it would be to, say, fight in the French Revolution (10 years long), but empirical evidence seems to point to the contrary.

The Dallas Cowboys need to win a playoff game in 2009 to preserve the legacy that is threatening to slip away forever after over a decade of ignominy.

Until they do, I guess I'll take up my time trying to conquer South America with an army of hamsters or something.

Dallas Cowboys Sport Best Group Of Pass Catchers in The NFC East

Mike Carley — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 11:27:39 -0400

"Nobody is afraid of those receivers in Dallas."

"With T.O. gone, who is Romo going to throw to?"

"If Romo couldn't win with T.O., how's he going to win now?"

I have had these fallacies spat at me with equal vitriol and incredulity everytime I try to explain what to me is overwhelmingly obvious fact regarding the upcoming 2009 NFL Season.

I realize I might be in the minority of most NFL fans and experts, but after close examination I cannot understand how, when asked to point out the best group of receivers in the NFC East, one could choose any other team but the legendary Dallas Cowboys.

Before I begin, let me point out the fact that I am rating "groups of receivers," not "groups of wide receivers" specifically, and the reason for this is simple.

It's 2009, and over the last two to three decades, formerly hyper-specialized positions such as running back and tight end have increasingly diversified their capabilities, making them much more essential to the strength of the passing game than they were 30 years ago.

Therefore, judging the strength of a given team's passing attack based on the strength of the wide receiver corp alone seems ridiculous.

That being said, onto the team-by-team breakdowns, after which it should be readily apparent why the Cowboys will have the strongest passing attack in the division, with or without T.O.

New York Giants

On defense, the Giants are scary, and are only getting better with the return of Osi Umenyiora. Even though all of the NFC East contenders boast extremely strong defenses, this group probably heads up the pack.

However, jumping from this fact alone to the conclusion that the Giants are going to repeat as NFC East champions is almost as ridiculous as watching Stephon Marbury weep and eat vaseline like it's ice cream from Cold Stone.

Contrary to popular belief, the Giants lost a lot more than one crucial passing option this offseason.

Unfortunately, only one decided to go N.W.A. on his own thigh while showing off a gun in a night club, thus learning the hard way that there are better ways an All Pro wide receiver can spend his time than drunkenly displaying his gun to a bunch of club chicks like an overzealous fifth grader showing his collection of South Park pogs to a group of third graders behind the monkey bars.

The importance of the loss of a game changer like Burress is obvious to even the most rudimentary NFL fanatic.

However, Derrick Ward also took his services (and his 44 receptions in '08) elsewhere. That loss, when combined with the retirement of 600-year veteran Amani Toomer, leaves the G-Men's passing game in the hands of a group of youngsters that seem more comfortable in the slot than as starting WR's.

In 2008, Burress, Ward, and Toomer caught 124 passes (and that was with Burress only playing in part the of the season that preceded the whole shooting himself in the leg like Yosemite Sam thing.)

If the Cowboys are in trouble because they lost T.O.'s 69 receptions in 2008, what does it mean if the Giants have to replace almost twice that in lost production?

The best-option replacements for those three play makers aren't promising either.

Derrick Ward had 44 receptions in 2008. The two backs that still remain on the team, Brandon Jacobs and Ahmad Bradshaw, had 11 receptions combined in 2006.

To replace Burress and Toomer, the Giants will look to the young duo of Domenik Hixon and Steve Smith.

Hixon, standing at an "imposing" 6'2", 185 lbs., recorded 43 receptions for 596 yards and two touchdowns last year, making him slightly less effective than the Cowboys' third option Patrick Crayton, who recored 39 receptions for 550 yards and four touchdowns in 2008.

Super Bowl heroics aside, Steve Smith is also undersized at 5'11", 195 lbs, and has yet to prove he can be a reliable option outside of the slot. Ironically, his 2008 numbers closely resemble that of Crayton's as well (55 catches, 576 yards, one touchdown).

At tight end, the Giants will turn to Kevin Boss, whose 384 receiving yards (despite starting 16 of 16 games) are much more indicative of his talent than his eyebrow- raising six receiving touchdowns in 2008.

The rest of NY's receivers are composed of potential busts (Mario Manningham and Sinorice Moss) and a rookie (Ramses Barden). Granted that rookie wide receiver might have had the most terrifying highlight reel in the entire 2009 draft, he is still a rookie wide receiver in the NFL. Anybody who has even sniffed a fantasy football league can recall the abysmal success rate among rookie wide receivers.

To summarize, the Giants are replacing their two most productive and experienced wide receivers with two young, undersized Patrick Craytons and a rookie. The back that bolted during free agency had four times more receptions last year than the two backs they kept. They sport a middle-of-the-pack tight end that won't even get drafted in most fantasy leagues.

The G-Men have a stellar defense, but I cannot sit here and watch people hand them the NFC East againt his year as they conveniently gloss over the fact that Eli Manning has nobody to throw to this year.

NFC EAST RANK: 4th

Washington Redskins

Just so you know, I can't think of the Washington Redskins without envisioning Santana Moss, and I can't think of Santana Moss without envisioning him sprinting by Roy Williams the safety for twoo touchdowns in the last two minutes of Monday Night Football in 2006.

I can't picture that MNF game in 2006 without having a completely mental breakdown in which I forget things pretty crucial to living like my middle name, how to breathe, or even where I am at the time, so if this analysis becomes a little less than coherent, I apologize.

That being said, most people would rate the Redskins' group of receivers as the most recognizable in the division, with T.O. and "Wyatt Earp" Burress gone.

I mean, the Redskins have Santana Moss and Chris Cooley, two of the more productive players in the division at their respective positions.

Yes they do, but that's all they have, and upon closer inspection, that still might not be all that much.

For starters, I have nothing but respect for Chris Cooley. He can be counted on for around 75 catches, 800 yards and five or six scores per year.

However, if Jason Campbell throws for 75 completions, 800 yards, and five or six touchdowns next year, I don't think he will be coming back in 2010.

Translation: There needs to be plenty more production alongside Cooley in order for the Redskins' passing attack to get off the ground in 2009.

But wait, what about Santana Moss, one of the most potent deep threats in the entire game? True, he did record an impressive 79 catches for 1,044 yards and six touchdowns.

A closer look at his numbers, and an intimate knowledge of what he did to my fantasy team last year, will reveal that Santana Moss is nowhere near the reliable No. 1 his numbers suggest him to be.

1,044 yards and six touchdowns is by all accounts a respectable year. However, it's the distribution of these yards and touchdowns that cast a far more dubious pall over the otherwise-positive outlook these numbers suggest.

In reality, as anybody who had Santana on their fantasy team last year can testify, Santana Moss is streakier than the soiled undergarments bin at your local mental institution.

Out of those 1,044 yards and six TD's Moss racked up in 2008, he accumulated a whopping 72.7 percent of those yards and five of his six touchdowns...in only 7 games.

He had eight games under 70 receiving yards and zero touchdowns (with the remaining ninth game being a smashing five reception, 35 yards, one TD effort).

Santana Moss is literally a flip-of-the-coin player. One out of every two games, he is stellar; the other is deplorable.

Despite his feast or famine nature, Moss and Cooley still accounted for more than 58 percent of all the Redskins' receiving yards.

Behind Moss and Cooley sits the consistently mediocre Antwaan Randle El, who has only eclipsed 600 yards receiving twice in his eight-year career.

We also can't forget about the accumulation of 2009 second round draft picks: Devin Thomas, Fred Davis, and Malcolm Kelly.

Those three rookies had 21 receptions for 165 yards in 2008...combined.

Clinton Portis is an absolutely dynamic threat on the ground, but coming out of the backfield as a receiver he only recorded 28 catches for 218 yards and no touchdowns in 16 games, and only has four total receiving touchdowns in his eight-year career.

The Redskins' passing attack is, for all intents and purposes, a two-man attack, and, considering one of those options only shows up one out of every two games, it's more like a 1.5 man attack that accounts for almost 60 percent of Washington's offense through the air.

A passing game with no depth is defendable with the right schemes, especially against the the talented defenses in the NFC East.

The attack becomes even more managable when the No. 1 receiver doesn't show up every other game. Chris Cooley is a pillar of consistency, but outside of Cooley the Redskins' passing game is hit or miss at best.

NFC EAST RANK: 3rd

Philadelphia Eagles

I need to qualify the following paragraphs with this admission: even as a lifelong Cowboys fan, I will gladly admit that, over the past decade, Donovan McNabb has been the most impressive quarterback in the league not named Tom or Peyton, and that isn't even a debate.

Nobody has ever been a more productive quarterback with less talented receivers.

Nobody.

And you can't truly appreciate McNabb until you have seen him destroy your favorite team twice in one year throwing to Freddie Mitchell and Greg "I Must Have A Parasite Inside Me Because That's The Only Explanation For How Skinny I Am" Lewis.

However, even with that in mind, I simply can't buy into all the hype surrounding this "exciting" Eagles passing attack.

Believe me, I more than recognize the potential the Eagles have to be exciting.

However, it's ridiculous hearing people talking about this group like they are the Greatest Show on Turf when in actuality it is a group of receivers surrounded by more questions than that little kid from Jerry MacGuire fighting the Riddler.

Brian Westbrook is one of the best players in the entire league, and I will even assume for the purposes of this article that he will be healthy come Week 1.

When healthy, Westbrook is unstoppable, and will get his 80 receptions for 800+ receiving yards again in 2009. He is by far the best receiving option out of the backfield in the NFC East, if not the entire league.

The keywords there are "when healthy." If you have played fantasy football and/or have been a fan of the NFC East, then you are familiar with Westbrook's injury history, which can be summarized as follows: "Westbrook has never had a year in which he started all 16 games of the season."

By all accounts, LeSean McCoy is just as dynamic and explosive of a receiver, and if that serves to be true, then the Eagles hit a homerun with the young rookie from Pittsburg. However, we have yet to see him take an NFL snap yet.

If McCoy isn't as physically or mentally able to handle the NFL game as most experts predict him to be, then the Eagles will find themselves in dire straights if/when Westbrook goes down.

DeSean Jackson had a nice rookie year, a rookie year that is completely atypical for most rookie receivers (even those drafted as high as Jackson). In 2008, Jackson had 62 catches for 912 yards and two touchdowns in which he thankfully remembered to take the ball with him into the endzone.

However, DeSean Jackson is only 5'10", 175 lbs.

There is a reason most No. 1 wide receivers are closer to 6'2" than they are 5'10".

Speedy as he is, DeSean Jackson will have to prove to me he can make it through the beating of another NFL season unscathed before I will truly buy into him being a viable long term No. 1 for the Eagles at that small a size.

The remainders of the Eagles' passing attack absolutely has promise, but could just as easily flop as fly.

Jeremey Maclin was an exciting college wide receiver. I understand that. DeSean Jackson had an amazing year by rookie wide receiver standards. I understand that, as well. Jeremey Maclin is now playing for the Eagles, the same team DeSean Jackson had such a successful rookie season with.

Any student of logic will gladly point out that the conclusion that so many of you want to make doesn't at all follow from the premises above given the past evidence.

The OVERWHELMING MAJORITY of rookie wide receivers have little-to-no impact on their teams during their rookie years. Just ask the Redskins and their trio of second rounders.

Just because Jeremey Maclin is a speedy wide receiver going to the Eagles doesn't mean he will have the success of DeSean Jackson, and if Maclin has anywhere near as average a year as most rookies do, he will be a slot receiver at best.

The remaining receivers that will have to step up if Maclin is unable to do so don't inspire any more confidence than the promising-yet-unproven rookie from Missouri.

Kevin Curtis has as many size and injury concerns as anybody on the Eagles roster, while last year Jason Avant and Hank Baskett didn't have as many receiving yards combined as did rookie DeSean Jackson.

Oh, yeah—and they have Brent Celek at tight end replacing "fan favorite" LJ Smith. I think that statement alone is sufficient.

So to summarize, IF Westbrook stays healthy, IF DeSean Jackson's rookie season wasn't a fluke/he is able to stay healthy, IF LeSean McCoy and Jeremey Maclin are as preternaturally amazing as advertised, and IF the gaggle of third-and-fourth tier receivers on that team don't need to be anything more than third and fourth receivers, then the Eagles will have an awesome passing game.

See my point?

NFC EAST RANK: 2nd

Dallas Cowboys

Arguably the biggest subplot coming into the Dallas Cowboys' training camp this year is how the Cowboys are going to replace the lost production of T.O., who amounted to around 80 catches a season in his three seasons as a Cowboy.

Some people are so concerned about the Cowboys' inability to replace this production that they have already written off the Cowbooys' chances to win the NFC East.

A closer look at the Cowboys' roster will demonstrate that the Cowboys possess more than enough talent on offense to replace the production T.O. took with him to Buffalo.

2007 was Romo's first full year as a starter, and was also the year in which he broke virtually every Cowboys' single season passing record. That season, he recorded 335 completions.

To be reasonable, let's assume that Romo needs 320 completions in 2009 to be successful.

The reason I felt the need to evaluate receiver groups instead of groups of wide receivers was, I admit, to make my own argument slightly easier...because the No. 1 receiver on the Cowboys isn't a receiver at all.

With the departure of T.O., Pro Bowl tight end Jason Witten is unquestionably the No. 1 option in this passing attack.

Witten and his roommate Tony Romo have established quite the rapport over Romo's first two full seasons as a starter, in which the yeomen-like tight end has averaged 89 catches, 1,049 yards and five touchdowns.

Let's chalk up another 90 catch season in 2009 for Witten, who remains in the prime of his career.

For a second option in a passing attack, Roy Williams isn't half bad.

I have no problem disregarding the fact that Williams was completely ineffective in the second half of 2008 upon his arrival from Detroit. The NFL playbook is far too complicated and dynamic, and the speed of the NFL game far too fast for any quarterback and wide receiver to get on the same page mid-season.

An entire offseason of learning the playbook combined with a multitude of throwing time with his new, recently single quarterback should work wonders for Williams' comfort level in 2009.

The propensity for pundits to write off Roy Williams after one half season has been equally amazing to me. The laws of fantasy football state that most young wide receivers don't fully come into their own until their third year in the league.

During Williams' third year in the league he caught 82 passes for 1,310 yards and seven scores.

The following year Williams only played in 12 games due to injury, yet still recorded 64 catches for 838 yards and five scores. If he had played all 16 games, he may have recorded 85 receptions, 1,117 yards, and about seven touchdowns that season.

All this was with absolutely no defense to keep games balanced (so defenses were always expecting pass), with absolutely no line, starting opposite two first round busts (Mike Williams and Charles Rogers) with Jon Kitna, and his current team's backup quarterback throwing to him.

Why people can't see a tenured and immensely talented veteran like Roy Williams being able to respond to a full offseason of learning a new system, but are willing to anoint sophomore DeSean Jackson and rookie Jeremy Maclin as the next Anquan Boldin and Larry Fitzgerald is beyond me.

I'll be conservative, and predict 65 catches for Roy Williams in 2009.

Marion Barber has consistently been an awesome receiving option out of the backfield, second in the division only to Brian Westbrook in Philadelphia.

Barber recorded 44 receptions in 2007, and 52 receptions in 2008, a year in which he missed a few games due to injury. Clearly, a much more effective option than Portis' 28 catches, or Bradshaw and Jacobs' 11.

Tashard Choice is also a reliable option out of the backfield. Starting the 2008 season as the third string back, the rookie tallied 21 receptions in the seven games he played a significant role in.

Felix Jones will catch a few balls, but for the purposes of this argument he isn't considered a top weapon in the passing game.

Choice should be playing a more significant role in both the passing and running games, and might take a few catches away from Marion Barber. Between Barber and Choice, I believe it's safe to chalk up about 60 receptions out of the backfield in 2009.

Say what you want about Patrick Crayton, but he is an established veteran who is capable of making a difference on the football field. As the No. 2 option starting opposite T.O. in 2007, Crayton had 50 catches for 697 yards and seven touchdowns. In 2008, behind T.O. and Roy Williams for a majority of the season, Crayton recorded 39 receptions for 550 yards and four touchdowns.

At the very least, he can be counted on for 40 receptions this year.

My favorite newcomer of the year, Martellus Bennett, rounds out the last pass catcher in this potent group of receivers.

At 6'6", 265, this former Texas A&M hoops player has great hands, phenomenal body control, and great hops. As a rookie second string tight end in 2008, Martellus Bennett caught 20 passes, four of which went for scores.

With promises from the coaching staff to run many more two tight end formations, as well as plans to split Martellus out in the slot more often, Bennett will have a breakout year in 2009, hauling in 40 receptions.

To recap, the Cowboys have two of the best three tight ends in the division, two more-than-viable receiving options out of the backfield, and two productive veteran wideouts (one of whom has game breaking ability).

The Cowboys receivers' possess more consistency and depth than the Redskins, more experience than the Eagles, and more talent than the Giants.

For the upcoming season, I predicted Witten would have 90 receptions, Williams with 65, 60 catches coming out of the backfield from Barber/Choice, and 40 catches from Crayton and Bennett each, for a grand total of 295 receptions.

None of those assumptions are unreasonable I believe, yet if the 2010 season plays out as above, Romo will only need 25 more completion among the likes of Miles Austin, Sam Hurd, and Felix Jones to reach 320 completions on the year.

The Cowboys will be more than fine without T.O., which is a point that has pretty much permeated every single Cowboys article I have written since Owens left for Buffalo.

The Cowboys will succeed not because Owens wasn't talented, or because Roy Williams himself is equally as good as T.O., but because Owens' absence will allow Romo and Jason Garrett to utilize the plethora of talent that was by all accounts underutilized last year in far more creative and innovative ways.

The Giants weren't able to make the trade they needed to replace the receiving talent they lost in the offseason.

The Redskins have a few marquee talents who don't always necessarily show up every week.

The Eagles have outstanding potential that remains to be realized.

Even without Owens, the Dallas Cowboys have a far deeper, more talented and more experienced group of receivers than any of their NFC East counterparts.

All we are waiting for now is for Martellus Bennet to come after Chris Cooley's King of the Internet title. Unlike Cooley, let's just hope Bennett remembers to put pants on before he does so.

NFC EAST RANK: 1st

"Los Angeles" Angels Of Anaheim Set Marketing Standard For Next 50 Years (Humor)

Mike Carley — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 21:31:06 -0400

Greetings all. I am Mike Carley Jr., the 35 year old son of the famous Mike Carley himself, e-mailing you from the year 2055.

The list of my father's exploits is long and exhaustive indeed: he cured Attention Deficit Disorder in 2024 and fought valiantly against the Zombie-French Axis in the Great Zombie War of 2036.

And of course, he perished epically this day five years ago while saving a boat load of innocent Peruvian supermodels from no less than seven attacking great white sharks—with his bare hands.

I felt it would only be appropriate, on the five year anniversary of his courageous death, to email his contemporaries back in the glorious year of 2009 to explain the far reaching effects of the one thing that I know vexed my father more than anything else imaginable.

The year was 2005.

Being a loyal Dodger fan living in Los Angeles, my father always looked forward to inter-league play, when the Anaheim Angels would shoot up the 5 freeway for a three game stop in Chavez Ravine. It didn't matter that back then, the Angels had won a World Series as recently as 2002, and his lowly Dodgers hadn't won a playoff series since 1988.

Watching the Orange County vs. Los Angeles Southern California rivalry play out on the field and in the stands of Chavez Ravine was one of the most enjoyably intense occurrences in my father's young life.

It was then that the new owner of the Angels, a pioneering young gent by the name of Arte Moreno, changed the face of sports marketing forever.

Way back in 2005, Moreno was faced with a dilemma.

An hour (with no traffic) up the 5 freeway was Los Angeles, the second biggest media market in the world, filled with what he believed to be lethargic and victory-starved Dodger fans just waiting for the first sign to jump the ship that had been sinking since Kirk Gibson left town.

However his team, classic stadium, intensely loyal fan base, and animated-rodent sponsor were all situated in the quaint town of Anaheim, CA.

This location was perfectly positioned across the freeway from Disneyland and was widely regarded as the baseball capital of Orange County. Still, Anaheim was rather far to attract the interest of the allegedly dissatisfied Dodger faithful located 30 miles up the coast.

How did the entrepreneurial Moreno solve this dilemma?

Why that's simple. He decided to step back, see the forest through the trees, and, disregarding all geographical accuracy, decided to throw "Los Angeles" in front of Angels.

The only problem with such a mind- bending radical strategy was the fact that, lo and behold, his team, classic stadium, intensely loyal fan base, and animated-rodent sponsor, were all still comfortably located back down in Anaheim.

Moreno, not one to take "no" for an answer, simply did what any persistent and rational individual would do—come to a compromise by keeping the names of both cities in the heavenly team moniker.

Thus, the "Los Angeles" Angels of Anaheim, and the first geographical oxymoron in all of sports, were created, and the shock waves are still being felt today almost a half century later.

Looking back, the move was brilliant!

Not only did Moreno supposedly increase his team's fan base by like, 3.4 billion people or something, he did so while managing to avoid more expensive means such as moving the team, building a new stadium, etc.

The only cost Moreno incurred was the cost in Internet bandwidth it took to send the simple email memo to key league officials and media outlets that the scoreboard would be reading "LAA" instead of "ANA."

Now we are of course ignoring the immense legal fees incurred when the suddenly-alienated city of Anaheim decided to sue the industrious team owner to block the name change, a suit that dragged on for four years before finally being dropped way back in 2009.

We can ignore that silly little case because in the end, that cost was minimal compared to the fact that Moreno, through ingenious machinations the likes of which the world has never seen before, gained access to the media cornucopia that was Los Angeles.

(It came at the cost of divorcing his team's claimed city from the physical, geographical location of his team, classic stadium, intensely loyal fan base, and animated-rodent sponsor).

At the time, the ploy seemed dubious at best, downright absurd at worst.

After all, just three years prior, the ANAHEIM Angels had won the World Series, and simultaneously brought the "Rally Monkey" into existence—a horrid and despicable creature that for some reason or another seemed to electrify all of Orange County into a frenzy.

Also, a few years previous in 1997, Disney had purchased the team and provided renovations to Angels stadium so extensive that they were, by all accounts, straight out of a fairy tale—thereby verifying what had been promised to the team by lead architects Goofy, Minnie Mouse, and Jimmeny Cricket.

I mean, who wouldn't want want such a, *ahem*, noble water fall gracing the outfield of their team's ball park?

Never mind that an explicit condition of this agreement-made-in-Neverland (the Peter Pan one, not the Michael Jackson one) was that the team's name contain the word "Anaheim."

This was a successful team, with what amounted to a new stadium and a devoted fan base. This wasn't a team that necessarily needed to be ideologically separated from its past.

Also, the sheer audacity Moreno possessed to completely disregard the overwhelming geographical paradox the name presented is nothing short of admirable.

Anaheim and Los Angeles are roughly 30 miles apart as the crow flies.

However, it seems to me that distance would only be relevant if people actually rode crows to and from work every day.

In actuality, the drive from Los Angeles to Anaheim can routinely take two hours or more, the same time it takes to travel between New York and Philadelphia on Amtrak.

If it takes that long to get from one stadium to another, I don't care what time period you live in, those two stadiums are not in the same city.

And that was the heart of the issue.

Anaheim wasn't in Los Angeles. Heck, it wasn't even on the boarder of Los Angeles (13 different earthquakes since 2010 may have changed this fact now, but I haven't checked a recent map.)

Yet it didn't matter. The "Los Angeles" Angels of Anaheim were born, unknowingly becoming a genesis of one of the slipperiest and most unprecedented slopes in sports marketing history.

After a few years of smooth sailing as the "Los Angeles" Angels, other sports marketing departments in major league baseball started to catch on. They began to realize that if they didn't need to tie their marketing efforts to the specific market their team resided in, the possibilities were endless!

Anaheim wasn't in Los Angeles, but that didn't stop Maverick Moreno from shamelessly trying to tap that huge media market.

Other teams started to recognize that maybe this formula could work for them as well.

Not to be outdone by their rivals down the coast, the Los Angeles Dodgers decided to up the ante a little.

If the Angels wanted to tap the market of a city they didn't reside in just because it was the No. 2 media marketplace in the country, why not capitalize on Joe Torre's New York connections and try to tap into the country's No. 1 market?

Thus, in 2012, with great fanfare the Dodgers changed their name to the New York Dodgers of Los Angeles.

The move was greeted with much chagrin by native Angelinos, but was widely embraced by the .6% of Manhattan composed of actual Dodger fans.

And hey, as the PR department put it, what's not worth a .6% bump in market share—am I right fellas?

It was all downhill from there.

By 2014, Yao Ming's foot woe's had been solved with mysterious Chinese implants, the origin of which was so mysterious, that ESPN reportedly lost contact with four different Outside The Lines reporters trying to gain access to the lab in Beijing where they were created.

Sadly, none of them were Skip Bayless, who managed to escaped unharmed from a Chinese prison after his guards were killed slamming their own heads into brick walls out of annoyance and disbelief.

Therefore, it only made sense to re-name the team the Shanghai Rockets of Houston. By doing this, the Rockets sought to be the first NBA team to directly tap the huge Chinese market that was already Houston-friendly by default.

Additionally, the No. 2 and No. 1 markets in the U.S. had already been invaded by other sports teams, so why not up the ante and go after one of the biggest marketplaces in the world?

This move by the Rockets led to absolute bedlam in the off season of 2015.

The Orix Mariners of Seattle came into existence after the team changed its name to reflect that of Ichiro's Japanese Pacific League Team, the Orix Blue Waves, in hopes of regaining some of the share in Japan that they had lost after Ichiro's retirement in 2013.

The Mariner's also sought to inspire a team struggling for success and identity years after the departure of their speedy slugger from the Land of the Rising Son.

Never mind that 95% of Seattle thought Orix was a new, environmentally friendly line of bottled iced tea that was coming out at Starbucks next year. They already had fans in Seattle; this was about expansion, damn it!

The Dallas Mavericks were also renamed the Bavarian Mavericks of Dallas, after the German state in which Dirk was born to recapture some of their lost glory as well, failing to realize that until chain smoking is allowed inside NBA arenas, most Germans will be semi-resistant to fully embracing the NBA product.

That same year saw the birth of the Barcelona Timberwolves of Minnesota, a strategy meant to capitalize on the fame of their All Star point guard Ricky Rubio, who coincidentally happened to be one of 16 straight point guards drafted by Kevin McHale from 2009-2017.

Even flagship teams across all leagues were not immune to this trend.

2022 saw the birth of the Lumbini Lakers of Los Angeles, Lumbini of course being the city in India in which Buddha himself was born.

While already alliteratively pleasing, the new named looked to "reincarnate" (pardon the pun) a franchise that was struggling to recall their past glory by bringing back the Zen-like atmosphere formerly bestowed on the team by one of the greatest coaches in NBA history, Phil Jackson.

India also seemed like the next logical untapped marketplace to exploit, and not only because of the connections to Phil Jackson and the country's massive population.

Additionally, the popularity of the sport itself was growing rapidly in India, as indicated by a shrinking "outsourced-American-corporate-telephone-help-center to basketball court" ratio that at the time stood at a promising 68 to 1.

Even "America's Team" couldn't help but be seduced by the rage sweeping through the sports world like a wild fire.

Anybody familiar with the Dallas Cowboys—Washington Redskins rivalry is familiar with the bitter origins of this rivalry.

Back in 1960, the Cowboys basically blackmailed the Redskins, the only team attempting to block their entry into the league, with their own fight song after the owner of the Cowboys bought the rights to it from the Redskins' disgruntled band leader.

The Cowboys never forgot about their hated rival's attempt to block their creation.

Therefore, as the axiom goes, revenge is a dish best served cold—and hindsight makes blatantly obvious that the Cowboys wanted this piece of revenge served freezing.

In 2035, exactly 75 years after the Redskins' initial attempt to block the creation of the Dallas Cowboys, "America's Team" was officially re-named as the Washington Cowboys of Dallas, a name change was nothing more than a nefarious "Screw You" to the organization's most hated rival.

Dan Snyder was still alive in 2035 due to the plethora of microscopic nanobots flowing through his bloodstream, which served to extend his life far beyond what mere non-billionaires could even dream of.

Snyder became aware of said process around 2011, after he saw how well it had been working for Magic Johnson, and ironically, in the ensuing investigation to uncover the origins of this life-extending procedure, ESPN lost four more Outside The Lines Reporters in the line of duty.

Yet again, sadly, none were Skip Bayless.

After this antagonistic maneuver by the Cowboys, the less-than-frugal Snyder, still invigorated with unnatural life, was not to be outdone.

The following week, Snyder promptly announced that the Redskins had been re-named as the "Dallas Redskins of Washington," a move most analysts classified as the renowned "I Know You Are But What Am I" strategy due to its childish simplicity and ease of implementation.

These teams still play each other at least two times a year, and the scoreboard of their match ups looks so confusing it has been known to induce seizures in both young children and the elderly.

I could detail the multitude of other name changes, but I feel like you get the idea.

Arte Moreno, who in your time in 2009 is just regarded as another enterprising major league baseball owner, is actually the genesis of one of the most revolutionary movements in sports marketing history.

By divorcing his marketing efforts from his team's geographical location, Moreno changed the face of sports forever, and for that he should be recognized, even if it does take a map more complicated than the blueprints of most spaceships to discern where sports teams actually originate from by 2055.

I know the paradoxical nature of the name "Los Angeles" Angels of Anaheim drove my father absolutely crazy.

Hopefully by explaining just how significant this name change has become over the last 50 years, I will offer his tortured and probably just-as-good-looking spirit some small condolence.

I do have so much more to tell you, but I have to run. If I linger here any longer, I might miss the first pitch of the Dodgers-Mexico City Padres of San Diego game.

Martellus Bennett: Dallas Cowboys' Offensive Breakout Player Of The Year

Mike Carley — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 09:26:55 -0400

For those of you who don't know, one can't simply introduce a personality or life force as vibrant and unique as Martellus Bennett with just any type of vanilla introduction.

That is why, after cogitating on the subject much longer than I probably should have, I decided the most fitting way to introduce the wider Bleacher Report community to the phenomenon known as Marty B. would be with the lyrics of one of the greatest musical groups of the past few decades.

A group that has released no less than 10 albums, has worked on countless television and movie projects, and has even taken home an Oscar.

Yes folks, I can think of no better way to eulogize the up-and-coming talent that is Martellus Bennett than with an album title of a group containing wordsmiths the likes of which have not graced the face of the planet since The Bard himself.

I am, of course, referring to the pride of Memphis, TN, Three 6 Mafia, who titled their acclaimed 2005 release The Most Known Unknown.

While the import of such a poignant title is knee-weakening for most, thankfully Juicy J felt the need to elaborate further on the album's intro by explaining:

A lotta people question the title they wanna know what it means. The Most Known Unknowns means that Three 6 Mafia is known, but at the same time they unknown know what I'm sayin?

Indeed.

That, my friends, is the best way I can think to describe second year Dallas Cowboys Tight End Martellus Bennett: The Most Known Unknown.

Despite what he produced on the field as a rookie, Martellus Bennett, if known by fellow NFC East or NFL fans at all, is probably best recognized for his various off-season You Tube hi-jinxes, which include regrettable forays into both rap and "athletic" event coordination for lack of a better term.

Admittedly, Martellus Bennett's name might not be as unfamiliar as other young Cowboys jockeying for a spot on the roster. However, I believe he falls firmly into the aforementioned Most Known Unknown category in that, despite his You Tube fame, most non-Cowboys fans can't even mentally summon a reception Martellus Bennett made last year.

That factor alone will be the most crucial in Bennett's breakout season, because a closer look at both his physical skills and his 2008 production will demonstrate that Martellus Bennett is on the fast track to resounding success with the Dallas Cowboys.

Standing at an impressive 6'6", 265 lbs., Martellus Bennett strikes an imposing and intimidating figure no matter where he lines up on the field.

In fact, he used that frame to play 2 full seasons of basketball at Texas A&M before quitting to focus solely on the gridiron.

As any football scout will concede, basketball and football surprisingly have a lot of transferable skills (for tight ends especially) because both sports demand high levels of hand-eye coordination and complicated footwork, exhibit A of course being Antonio Gates, a Pro Bowl tight end who didn't play a single down of NCAA football but rather devoted his entire career at Kent State to playing basketball.

The scouting report on Bennett composed by Scouts, Inc. before Bennett's rookie year points out how the athleticism he gained on the court has carried over onto the football field, where Bennett has already learned to use his size and athleticism to his advantage.

As a blocker, Martellus Bennett could be classified as above average.

There is obviously much the tight end, being so young, still has to learn about the run game in the NFL. However, scouts praise his ability to get under the pads opposing linebackers and defensive ends despite being so tall, which is probably the hardest part about run blocking for tall, lanky tight ends such as Bennett.

Scouts are also extremely impressed with Bennett's motor in the run game, praising his ability to sustain blocks and keep his feet running until he hears the whistle.

The above positives are definitely steps in the right direction in the run game, but it is in the pass game where Martellus Bennett will make the largest impact in 2009.

Scouts classify his speed as "above average," but fast enough to stretch the seams in the defense and put pressure on linebackers and safeties in the middle of the field. He combines this speed with great body control and the ability to catch the ball with his hands away from his body when balls are thrown outside his frame.

Whether or not a receiver catches the ball away from his body or not is a small yet very crucial distinction. When a receiver doesn't have confidence in their hands, they often try to let the ball come to them and "trap" it against their chest pads.

This is problematic for two reasons.

Primarily, most NFL quarterbacks have arms like Howitzer cannons, and there is no guarantee that even the savviest NFL wide receiver will be able to control a ball thrown with that force as it is ricocheting between his sternum and forearms at 6,000 repetitions a second.

Anybody who has watched T.O. play for any extended period of time will gladly point out that this is the main driver behind the large number of balls T.O. drops each season. He too often lets balls he cannot control get into his chestpad and ends up putting on the ground.

Also, even if the receiver has become fairly skilled at wrangling in balls by trapping them against his breastplate, it takes longer to secure a ball trying to trap it than if the ball was caught with the receiver's hands extended away from his body.

In other words, if a receiver (or tight end in this case) is crushed immediately after they catch the ball, they will have a much greater chance at holding onto the ball if they have the ball secured the second it hits their hands rather than having the ball bouncing between their chest plate and forearms.

Martellus Bennett is confident in his hands, and catches the ball away from his body whenever possible, which led Scouts Inc. to extol his ability to catch the ball in traffic by using his huge frame to shield impinging defenders.

These skills, combined with Bennett's leaping ability, make him a phenomenal red zone option on jump balls against small and undersized defensive backs when he lines up in the slot, a place where Bennett lined up frequently in college and already feels comfortable.

Even at this young age, the most impressive thing about Martellus Bennett is how much further he is along mentally than most rookie receivers.

Scouts, Inc. goes out of its way to laud Bennett's ability to release against NFL linebackers trying to jam him at the line, as well as his uncanny ability to read defenses on the run and find the seams to get open.

Pad level in the passing game is just as crucial as it is in the run game, and, more often than not, young, lanky tight ends often struggle keeping their pads low when they release from the line against NFL linebackers.

Since all contact on receivers is allowed within the first 5 yards, if a tall and lanky young tight end like Bennett doesn't stay low enough on his release, he ends up getting knocked on his tail by the likes of 6'1" Ray Lewis or 6'1" Patrick Willis as they put their helmets into his armpit as he tries to run around them.

Bennett has already learned this necessity, and the significance of mastering the ability to release against must stronger and faster NFL linebackers at this young of an age cannot be overstated.

As I have mentioned in previous articles, oftentimes an NFL receiver is given multiple routes on the same play, and doesn't decide on which of the routes he is running until halfway through the play, when he is able to read and react to the rotations of the defense.

This can often be the toughest part for young wide receivers for a few reasons.

NFL defenses don't stop moving and shifting until literally right before the snap, making pre-snap diagnoses of defensive locations fairly daunting.

Also, NFL defenders are so much faster than defenders in college that route running decisions have to be made in a much more contracted time frame than they had to in college.

The fact that Bennett, according to Scout's Inc., already has a great feel for reading NFL defenses and finding seams to get open means he can spend a lot more time focusing on the physical minutiae of the NFL game earlier than most young players because of his inherent feel for reading defenses.

Clearly, Bennett has the physical tools to succeed in the NFL, and Bennett's body of work during his rookie season is indicative of the promise demonstrated in his scouting report.

In 2008, Bennett recorded 20 catches for 283 yards and 4 touchdowns.

Those numbers are not significant on an aggregate basis, but a deeper dive elucidates the true significance of those numbers.

In 2008, Martellus Bennett caught a touchdown on 20% of his passes, speaking to his value in the red zone.

To put that in perspective, Jason Witten caught 4 touchdowns in 81 reception, while Bennett caught 4 touchdowns in a mere 20.

Bennett also averaged 14.2 yards per reception in 2008, a number that ranked third among all tight ends in the NFL.

All of these numbers were put up in a year where Tony Romo missed three games, and Bennett was probably anywhere from the 3rd to 5th option on every single pass play, and not even the starter at his position.

On any given pass play in 2008, chances are Bennett was behind T.O., Jason Witten, Roy Williams, and any running back that happened to be in the play as a check down option.

That fact alone, perhaps, is the most intriguing when trying to prognosticate Bennett's 2009 performance, because while not being a starter would seem to be a detrimental factor to Bennett, it will in fact be the single most important determinant of his breakout 2009 campaign.

Even with T.O. gone, Tony Romo still has a plethora of options in the passing game.

From Roy Williams to Jason Witten to Patrick Crayton to whatever young wide receiver prevails in the Hurd-Austin-Stanback wide receiver battle, on most plays Martellus will be at best a tertiary concern for most opposing defenses.

And as has been demonstrated above, Martellus Bennett has the size and skills that are by no means indicative of a tertiary option on any pass play on any team in this league.

Not only will defenses be concerned with the other options in the passing game before they even think of dealing with Bennett, the affluence of talent the Cowboys have in the backfield should serve to further exacerbate the amount of pressure Bennett is able to put on opposing defenses in 2009.

Bennett's ability to release against NFL linebackers on passing plays has already been illustrated. However, if Jason Garrett is worth the money he is being paid, he will find an intuitive and effective method of deployment for the three talented running backs he has at his disposal.

If used effectively, the punishing triumvirate of running backs in Dallas should serve to gain some yards early against opposing defenses, which will make the defense that much more vulnerable to play action as the game progresses.

Since linebackers must guard against the run before they worry about the pass, more often than not a linebacker's first step will be towards the line of scrimmage, giving the linebacker momentum to keep running towards the line if the ball is handed to the running back.

It is this first step that often gets linebackers in trouble when play action is run, for if the backers do not recognize the play action fast enough they could easily loose a step or two on whatever back or tight end they are responsible for covering.

Ordinarily, this wouldn't be a big deal, as most linebackers are saved by a safety hanging over the top when they are burned by tight ends on play action.

Again, I must draw attention to the fact that Martellus is the second tight end in the Cowboys offense while possessing the receiving capabilities of a primary receiving option.

An opposing defense, if they do have safety help on play action, will most likely be directing their deep attention to either Roy Williams or Jason Witten, preferring to deal with the lesser of three evils in Martellus Bennett.

Therefore, if Jason Garrett can establish the running game early and set up the play action pass, Martellus' speed up the seams and his ability to effectively release against jamming NFL linebackers should leave him wide open in the soft spot the defense inadvertently leaves open as they try to take away Roy Williams and Jason Witten.

If Jason Garrett can put this amalgamation of talent together in a productive way, we could see the birth of the first permanent two-tight end system that the NFL has ever seen.

Imagine the competitive advantage this could provide, an advantage that could absolutely be leveraged in conjunction with the run game in a way equally as revolutionary as the Wild Cat offense popularized by Miami this year.

(A quick side note: Bennett has already coined a nickname for himself and Witten: "Beans and Rice," a moniker referring both to the tight ends' skin color, as well as to the relative "spice" of their opposing personalities.)

At the end of the day, Martellus Bennett, off season ridiculousness aside, has enough natural talent and size to become an extremely successful NFL tight end, one that can succeed and be productive in a second string role that compliments Jason Witten in two tight end formations in a way most NFL defenses have never experienced before.

Bennett's 2008 numbers absolutely foreshadow the unique threat he can pose to defenses that come to Dallas for seasons to come. Hopefully this article will now lend you some football perspective with which to judge Marty B's You Tube clips with.

However if there is one thought I can leave you with regarding Martellus Bennett it would be this: whether before this season he was known or unknown to you, I guarantee the production he puts up in the first half of the 2009 season will far outpace the You Tube attention he received this offseason.

If Martellus was the most Known Unknown before the season, I'm not quite sure what crunk nickname I could possibly create that would be simultaneously as telling and fitting.

However, I think I'll concern myself more to tracking Bennett's successes on the field in 2009.

I have Juicy J on retainer until Friday if I need a better nickname before then.

Anthony Spencer: Dallas Cowboys' Defensive Breakout Player of the Year

Mike Carley — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 02:55:13 -0400

(Author's note: This article, while NFL-related, does NOT contain any references to Brett Favre or Michael Vick. No Michael Jackson whatsoever either. I promise.)

Human beings could be classified as, quite paradoxically, a race of individuals.

At the end of the day, a human being is an incarnation with a singular, independent conscious (as opposed to the "hive-mind" behavior of creatures such as bees and mackerel).

At the end of the day, twins and artificially-inseminated-octuplets aside, we develop in and emerge from the womb largely bereft of company (as opposed to being born in litters or groups like dogs, pigs, and other mammals).

At the end of the day, the Darwinian instructions encoded in one's very genes compel us, as a species, to ensure the survival of you and you alone, and worry about others as a secondary consideration.

Despite the apparently lonely essence of our existence, human beings as a culture and as a society, are seemingly obsessed with the notion of duplicity.

Every word has another word that applies in the same context, but are diametrically opposed in definition.

Every human is born alone to find the one person they are meant to spend a vast majority of their life with, to die as a pair.

Every sports team, while enjoyable to watch by fans on their own, have an "arch rival" that gives each season a little extra meaning.

I for one guarantee I wouldn't enjoy the NFL season as much without the epicness of two "Cowboys-Redskins" and "Cowboys-Eagles" matchups on the schedule every season.

Equal but Opposite.

Yin and Yang.

Heaven and Hell.

Jim Carrey's comedy career and Jim Carrey's drama career.

DeMarcus Ware...and Anthony Spencer.

Spencer, the Cowboys' first round pick in 2006 out of Purdue, has shown glimpses of brilliance in his first two years in the league.

However, he spent an overwhelming majority of that time buried behind veteran and Pro Bowl linebacker Greg Ellis, better known to the Harry Potter crowd as "He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named-Because-The-Cowboys-Drafted-Him-Over-Randy-Moss."

He also spent extensive time, especially last year, on the injury report, an unfortunate turn of events that completely deflated all the momentum Spencer built up during a stellar 2008 training camp.

However, as the saying goes, there's always next year.

The good news for a healthy Spencer? Next year is finally here.

With Ellis departed to the Black Hole in Oakland (a moniker now taking on a rather duplicitous meaning itself), Spencer is poised to have a breakout 2009 campaign and create one of the league's most fearsome defensive duos alongside 2008 NFL sack leader DeMarcus Ware.

Physical Attributes and Skills

A quick glance at the 2008 Scouts, Inc. Scouting Report on Spencer is all it takes to recognize the wonderful physical gifts this 6' 3", 255 lbs. linebacker is blessed with.

Classified before last season as a "good overall athlete," the report goes on to praise Spencer's speed and awareness.

From a purely physical standpoint, Spencer excels on getting off the ball quickly. He augments this awesome first step with a great ability to change direction and the ability to "flatten quickly to chase" run and pass plays that travel to the opposite side of the field.

He has the "speed to turn the corner with good shoulder dip and body lean," and he combines that with a "good inside chop hand" to eliminate tackles trying to gain hand purchase on him as he comes around the corner on the speed rush.

After commending his uncanny feel for hand use and the pass rush sequence for a player so young, the Scout's, Inc. report puts the final period on its evaluation by stating that Spencer is "still developing into the responsibilities of a 3-4 outside linebacker, but he has the physical tools to succeed with experience."

Obviously, Spencer was gifted with all the physical tools and attributes that have made past NFL defensive ends into the dominating forces they were. However, according to Scouts, Inc. last year, all Spencer needed was experience.

Enter Greg Ellis, and another important factor in the predicted emergence of Anthony Spencer in 2009.

Unparalleled Opportunity to Learn

Three years of tutelage under the aforementioned Pro Bowler Greg Ellis have provided the experience Spencer has needed to finally put together an All-Pro 2009 season.

A learning environment unique for most first rounders served to accelerate Spencer's adjustment from a traditional hand-down 4-3 defensive end at Purdue to a stand up outside linebacker in Wade Phillips' 3-4 scheme.

Greg Ellis, the Cowboys' first round selection in 1998, had a largely productive and successful career as a defensive end in Dallas. He topped 8.0 sacks 5 times in his career, including a monstrous 12.5 sacks in 13 games outing in 2007 that earned him his first bid to the Pro Bowl.

Ellis had 12.5 and 8.0 sacks respectively in the two seasons since Spencer has been a rookie.

Ellis has also topped 50 tackles in four separate seasons.

By all accounts, Ellis has the numbers to back up any knowledge he decided to impart on young Anthony Spencer.

Spencer was also able to receive this knowledge in an environment largely absent from the pressures to immediately succeed that so often submarine promising first round draft picks.

When Spencer was drafted in 2007, the Cowboys already had defensive stalwart Greg Ellis and the up-and-coming DeMarcus Ware as the starting defensive ends.

Therefore, unlike other first rounders like Mario Williams, Chris Long, and Brian Orakpo, the pressure to come in, learn the playbook, and immediately play like a veteran was largely non-existent in Anthony Spencer's case.

Absent was the media and fan scrutiny that so often surrounds first round draft picks (especially those picked by the Dallas Cowboys), scrutiny which can serve to sever the focus of young players trying to adjust to the NFL game.

Spencer was allowed to develop in a veritable media black hole, and has apparently thrived in the relative quietude Ellis and Ware provided him, as all reports out of Dallas' mini camps seem to confirm that no single player is working harder, or impressing more, than Anthony Spencer.

Additionally, the awfully large amount of time he spent on the injury report last year had the added (and opposite) effect of providing Spencer more time to mentally internalize all of Phillips' complex schemes and packages, taking what are known more commonly as the "mental reps" that are so essential to a young and developing player.

If all Spencer needed was the experience to take his immense talent to the next level, three years as an understudy to a tenured and accomplished veteran like Greg Ellis should be more than sufficient, especially when allowed to develop largely absent of pressure and media scrutiny.

All that being said, the final and most crucial element in Spencer's breakout 2009 campaign has yet to be mentioned:

DeMarcus Ware

This is where the synergy of individual and opposing pair becomes so beautifully apparent, as the very existence of DeMarcus Ware, 2008 NFL sack leader, on the opposite side will single-handedly be the most important factor of Spencer's success in 2009.

Unlike the aforementioned Williams, Long, and Orakpo, Anthony Spencer has the luxury of starting opposite a player who recorded 20 sacks and forced 6 fumbles in 2008.

While rather blatant on the surface why this excess of talent might be advantageous to the young Spencer, a deeper understanding of the O-Line vs. D-Line dynamic will demonstrate just how advantageous Ware's presence will be.

DeMarcus Ware takes a majority of his snaps on the right, which would be the offense's left side.

A vast majority of NFL quarterbacks are right-handed. In order to throw a football as a right-hander, a quarterback needs to stand with his left shoulder pointed down field, closer to the line of scrimmage, to maximize leverage and throwing power.

Consequently, the quarterback has his back facing the entire left side of his line, and is completely blind to any incoming defensive pressure coming from that side.

As a result, a team's best pass blocker is usually put at the left tackle position to protect the quarterback from being blind-sided by a rusher coming of the left edge.

In fact, this responsibility has become so important that it is not uncommon to have the left tackle be the second highest paid player on the entire roster, behind only the quarterback.

To make a long story short, for a majority of the match ups in 2009, DeMarcus Ware will be occupying the opponent's best pass rusher on the left side of the line, leaving the freakishly talented Spencer to deal with the lesser of two evils at right tackle for a majority of the season.

The interior lineman in Phillips' 3-4 scheme are no slouches either.

Pro Bowler Jay Ratliff is complemented by the 6' 6", 309 lbs. Igor Olshansky and the 6' 4", 315 lbs. Marcus Spears, a triumvirate that should provide more than enough pressure to make doubling either end with an interior offensive linemen both risky and difficult.

This fact becomes especially interesting when you take into account the one major flaw in Spencer's game listed on the Scouts, Inc. report.

At 6'3", 255 lbs., Anthony Spencer isn't a status quo immovable object by any means.

Consequently, Spencer "will lose ground working against big offensive tackles."

Scout's, Inc. quickly counters to point out that despite his struggles against those tackles he "can handle blocking tight ends well."

DeMarcus Ware not only serves to take away the offense's biggest advantage by occupying their best pass blocker, he simultaneously mitigates Spencer's biggest weakness by leaving the opponents to use a great number of smaller tackles and tight ends to block Spencer than he would have faced had he come in as the #1 pass rusher a la Mario Williams.

Anthony Spencer has the physical attributes to be a dominant defensive end in the NFL. Injuries aside, the most prohibitive factor in Spencer attaining said dominance ultimately lay in his lack of experience as both a stand-up defensive end and as an NFL player in general.

The experienced gleaned from Greg Ellis combined with the lack of pressure that surrounded Spencer during this time has left Spencer as one of the hardest working and most motivated players, if not on the whole team than certainly on defense.

At the end of the day, Anthony Spencer will police the left side of the Cowboy's defense by himself.

However, conforming to the duplicitous nature of humanity itself, on the opposite side of the defense Spencer will find the biggest element of his success in 2009, DeMarcus Ware, opening up countless opportunities for him all season and contributing to a monstrous 2009 season from Anthony Spencer.

As in the Newtonian Law of Physics, the axiom describing the duplicity that permeates every level of human interaction typically conforms to the phrasing "Equal, but Opposite."

In the case of Anthony Spencer and DeMarcus Ware, I would pose a more accurate phrasing to be "Opposite, but Equal."

For while Spencer and Ware might now be sentries on Opposite ends of an intimidating Dallas front line, by the end of the season, they will be regarded as Equal threats to the safety and well being of all quarterbacks who look to drop back against the Dallas Cowboys in 2009.

Anthony Spencer and DeMarcus Ware.

Opposite but Equal.

We can all only pray somebody comes up with a much cooler nickname for this tandem before the season starts in 2009.

(Check back in a few days for the Dallas Cowboys' Offensive Breakout Player of the Year...and FYI, it's not Felix Jones.)

Gerald Sensabaugh Is the X-Factor in Dallas Cowboys' Revamped Defense

Mike Carley — Thu, 28 May 2009 13:22:08 -0400

Terrell Owens is no longer a Cowboy.

This much is true, and it is a fact that has many widespread ramifications on the entire Dallas Cowboys organization.

The circus T.O. inevitably brings to town has departed to the Great White North, leaving an eerie calm over America's Team.

No longer are reporters goading Cowboys players for a disparaging comment against the much-maligned pass catcher.

No longer is Tony Romo getting drilled about how he plans to get T.O. the ball every game.

No longer will reporters and TV analysts incessantly analyze how many catches T.O. will get in an upcoming matchup, or, more specifically, how many catches T.O. needs to get to keep being a good teammate.

While T.O.'s departure will open up the offense, it also signals the end of an era of media scrutiny that, for all intents and purposes, the Cowboys appeared unable to handle by the end of 2008.

Now that the overwhelming onus of attention is no longer on the Cowboys' star-studded offense, players can finally take a deep breath and refocus on getting to work.

And fans can plan on hearing about a topic that was rarely reported over the "Get Your Popcorn Ready"'s that flowed so relentlessly from Valley Ranch last year: the strength of the Cowboys' defense.

We are talking about a defense that finished eighth overall in total yards per game and finished fifth in passing defense.

We are talking about a defense that boasted the NFL sack leader and defensive player of the year candidate DeMarcus Ware, surrounded by Pro Bowl talents like Ken Hamlin, Terrence Newman, and Bradie James.

We are talking about a defense that didn't get a shred of attention last year due to the media circus driven by Bill Parcells' Lord Voldemort (The Receiver Who Shall Not Be Named).

A great deal of the Cowboys' success in 2009 depends on the strength of this defensive bunch, which suffered key losses in free agency with the departures of Chris Canty and Zach Thomas.

The Cowboys' ever thrifty and wily GM Jerry Jones was able to replace those two key pieces with surprising effectiveness, signing the freakishly athletic Igor Olshansky to replace Canty, and signing NFL ambassador Keith Brooking to replace the inside linebacker spot left vacant by Thomas.

These moves could even be considered an upgrade over the two departed Cowboys defenders who helped to anchor a stout defensive squad last year.

However, there is a Pro Bowl-caliber talent that didn't have the luxury of choice to stay or leave the sensation that is the Dallas Cowboys.

Jerry Jones woke up in an extremely bad mood one morning this offseason, and before they knew it, the likes of T.O., Tank Johnson, and other "bad apples" no longer had a home at Valley Ranch.

Among this group of outcasts was the polarizing Pro Bowl safety Roy Williams, whose prowess and terrifying hitting ability in the run game initially earned him the adoration of many Cowboys faithful.

However, it quickly became apparent that Williams' deficiencies in the passing game overshadowed his strengths as a tackler and a run stopper.

Any Cowboys fan will tell you their No. 1 Roy Williams memory with a hung head and heavy heart, woefully recanting the tale of the heartbreaking 2006 loss to the Washington Redskins on Monday night.

The Cowboys gave up a 13-3 lead in the closing minutes of the fourth quarter, and fans watched in horror as Santana Moss sprinted by the static Williams for back-to-back long bomb touchdowns.

Or they will recap the countless games where Jeremy Shockey had 10-15 receptions because Roy Williams seemed always a step behind the Giants tight end.

With Williams gone, Jones ended up going the complete opposite route from that which he chose to replace Canty and Thomas. He signed a young, inexperienced special teams expert from the Jacksonville Jaguars named Gerald Sensabaugh.

A quick look at the other 10 veterans on the Cowboys' defense will clearly elucidate how vital a role this inexperienced five-year vet out of North Carolina will play, and how he could easily make or break a Cowboys defense that was one of the best in the league last year.

The defensive line is composed of Olshansky, fan favorite Jay Ratliff, and the somewhat disappointing yet still effective former first-round pick Marcus Spears.

The linebacker corps is composed of the beastly Ware and the terrifying Greg Ellis/Anthony Spencer combination on the outside, and anchored by the rock-solid James and newly acquired Brooking on the inside.

Newman and promising second-year player Mike Jenkins will assume the cornerback positions, with Pro Bowl safety Ken "The Hammer" Hamlin roaming behind them.

All 10 other positions are filled with accomplished veterans who know how to get their work done and get it done right.

The final void filled by Sensabaugh will absolutely be the strategic attack point for many an offensive coordinator in the early weeks of the season, and Sensabaugh's ability to rise to this challenge will be absolutely crucial.

The scouting report obtained from Scouts, Inc. is indeed very interesting and provides many pros and cons on the young safety, leaving him as the biggest question mark in an otherwise ridiculously solid group.

Scouts, Inc. rates Sensabaugh overall as a 54.

To put that in perspective, Scouts Inc. gives ratings of 100-90 for "elite players" such as Ware, ratings of 89-80 for "outstanding players" such as the 84-rated Newman, 79-70 for "good starters" such as the 77-rated Hamlin, and 69-60 ratings for "average starters" such as Ratliff.

Scouts, Inc. classifies players rated in the 59-50 range that Sensabaugh falls into as "good backups."

Quite the stark contrast in comparison to the ratings given to the likes of Ware and Brooking.

The second red flag lies further down in the scouting report, which admonishes that Sensabaugh is not a natural two deep safety, with "some stiffness in his hips" that results in slower than average "transitional movement."

In a division with blazers such as Santana Moss, DeSean Jackson, Jeremy Maclin, and Steve Smith, "transitional movement" in the passing game will be beyond essential to be able to hang with the inevitable double moves these speedsters will put on the young safety.

Scouts, Inc. concludes this analysis by stating that Sensabaugh is not suited to deep zones, which inexorably conjures up the vision of Moss sprinting by the Oakland native on double moves for seasons to come.

However, there are many bright spots in Sensabaugh's scouting report.

Scouts, Inc. praises his "good size and strength" while lauding his ability at the line of scrimmage to maintain "leverage on the ball carrier" and his "speed to run the alleys."

This would help to cut off big running plays like the two at the end of the Baltimore Ravens matchup last year that put the nails in the Cowboys' coffin and led to the much-maligned "must win" matchup against the Eagles.

Well, at least the fans knew it was a must win game—anybody who saw that matchup will guarantee none of the Cowboys players got that message.

Yet I digress.

The scouting report thereby concludes that Sensabaugh is "best suited up near the line of scrimmage against the run."

To grossly oversimplify, at first glance it seems that the Cowboys replaced Roy Williams with a less experienced and imposing Roy Williams clone who will struggle just as much against the pass as his predecessor did.

However, Sensabaugh had four INTs with the Jaguars last year and seems to be firmly on the upward curve of his career.

The good news is the Cowboys will seemingly not lose the run-stopping and tackling capabilities that Roy Williams was able to hang his hat on last season.

What remains to be seen will be Sensabaugh's ability to: A) Beat out special team staple Patrick Watkins for the starting job (which shouldn't be too tough); and B) Keep developing his coverage and pass defending skills to avoid becoming the weak link in the passing game that Roy Williams was.

The Cowboys have a defense stacked with veterans and athletes who have been there before and know how to get it done.

Without T.O. in town to absorb the copious amounts of media coverage that surround Valley Ranch every year, it will be up to Sensabaugh to prove his critics wrong and provide a stronger presence in the passing game than the much-maligned Williams was unable to.

To make a long story short, Sensabaugh is one Santana Moss hitch-and-go away from bearing the brunt of five years of frustration that Roy Williams infused into that safety spot with his inability to cover...well, anybody.

Cowboys fans and the media no longer have their popcorn ready, and nobody else on that defense besides maybe Jenkins could possibly be portrayed by the media as a weak spot.

Due to the inefficiencies Williams brought upon Cowboys fans over the years, Sensabaugh will have a much shorter evaluation period among the Cowboys faithful, who have become so distraught with the long bombs and big plays that have kept the Cowboys without a playoff victory for 12 years.

While it might not be fair, it's reality.

Sensabaugh will have to step up and prove he isn't the liability that Roy Williams was.

Either that or be ready to face the barrage of screaming media and die-hard fans that inevitably accompany the venerable honor of being a Dallas Cowboy.

With that in mind, I have one message for the young safety from the Jacksonville Jaguars who looks to fill in the most scrutinized position on the entire Cowboys defense:

Good luck, kid.

Four Reasons Tony Romo Will Be The Best Quarterback in The League in 2009

Mike Carley — Wed, 27 May 2009 16:32:51 -0400

Never has success or failure of any athletic endeavor been determined more by the ability of teammates to synergistically cooperate and execute their given tasks than in the great game of football.

Or to paraphrase into less dorky vernacular, football is the ultimate team sport.

The success of any football team, whether on offense, defense, or special teams, demands perfect simultaneous execution on any given play by all 11 players on the field.

It doesn't matter if the quarterback receives a perfect snap and awesome pass protection from his O-line and backs if one receiver runs the wrong route andbrings extra defenders into the passing lane, thereby taking himself out of the play and alleviating a great deal of pressure on the defense.

It doesn't matter if 10 out of 11 men on defense are executing a perfect cover 2 man to man defensive cover scheme if one corner or safety gets confused and drops into a zone, thereby allowing an uncontested 80 yard streak up the sideline.

Undeniably, success or failure on the gridiron depends almost fully on the effectiveness of the other 10 men on the field with you, because, to oversimplify, one man's perfect execution is really only 1/11th of the total defensive or offensive effort.

With all that in mind, it is almost patently absurd how much credit and how much blame the quarterback of any team gets for the relative success or failure of his aggregation of gridiron warriors.

Is the quarterback's ability to throw the ball to a receiver really that much more important than an offensive tackle's ability to read a blitz scheme and pick up the correct defender?

Probably not.

Does the casual fan have a basic understanding of what a great quarterback looks like compared to Drew Bledsoe or Quincy freaking Carter while being relatively clueless about the intricacies andminutiae of offensive line play?

Absolutely.

This is why the quarterback position is so phenomenally revered among fans of the game, and out of the 32 NFL quarterbacks taking the field next year in 2009, Tony Romo will shine the brightest.

Here are 4 reasons why:

1. The "Usual Suspects" Have Hurdles to Climb in 2009

In starting this argument, I believe addressing the unique hurdles top quarterbacks will be presented with in 2009 is the most appropriate starting place, as it will be shown that Tony Romo has a lot less to "overcome" than those who have led the league at this position over the last 5-6 years.

One can't think of "quarterback in the NFL" without thinking Tom Brady. He is the epitome of a competitor, the epitome of a winner, and the epitome of what an NFL quarterback should be.

However, he suffered a catastrophic knee injury last year, as well as complications after surgery that further delayed his rehabilitation.

No amount of Brady's vast resources of competitive drive or Bill Belicheck's wealth of X's and O's can overcome a broken body part. and the track record of quarterbacks who suffered a similar injury is far less than sterling the year after the injury (see: Carson Palmer, Donovan McNabb).

I'm not saying there is no chance Brady will be successful next year, but he will have to show over a few games that there are no lingering effects from the injury in 2009 before anybody should expect a return to his super star form.

Ben Roethlisberger is about Tony Romo's age, but has already won two Superbowls, while Romo has yet to win a playoff game. Yet if Romo plays to his potential, he will outperform Roethlisberger based on offensive systems alone.

While the Cowboys should look to run the ball more in 2009, it will be nothing compared to the grind it out system the Steelers play.

While I can't knock Roethlisberger's amazing propensity to pull out a victory in the clutch, his numbersas a passer in 2008 were less than impressive:

24th overall in Passer Rating; 21st overall in completion percentage; 14th overall in passing yards; 15th overall in passing touchdowns; And 28th overall in total interceptions.

He is a winner, but as a passer in that system his numbers are average to below average at best, numbers that Tony Romo should have no problem eclipsing last year.

Carson Palmer and Donovan McNabb both have receiver issues.

Carson Palmer lost his No. 1 target in T.J. Houshmanzadeh and is forced to deal with a Chad Johnson who seems to be losing his mind quicker than his receiving ability, while McNabb will be throwing to a second year receiver and a rookie wide receiver as his first two options in DeSean Jackson and Jeremey Maclin.

(Quick side note: is anybody else wishing Chad Ocho Cinco gets traded to a team where the No. 85 is retired, people can start buying No. 81 Ocho Cinco jerseys?)

Romo has a plethora of weapons to exploit that dwarf those in the arsenals of McNabb and Palmer, and should find himself ahead of those two.

Drew Brees will be another ridiculously strong contender, but Marques Colston has yet to prove he is more than just an awesome rookie year, and Reggie Bush won't have Duece McCallister to pick up blitz's and take the crushing between the tackles.

Between Bush, Colston, and tight end Jeremy Shockey (who has never played in all 16 in a season in his entire career), there are substantial injury concerns to 3 key components of that passing attack, and, while Brees dealt with these injuries last year with much success, I can't see him repeating that performance if all three players go down again.

Peyton Manning probably has the strongest chance to contended with Romo for the best quarterback in 2009. He has lost his favorite target for good in Marvin Harrison, and that could prove crucial.

It's true that Reggie Wayne has unquestionably become the most potent receiver on that team, and that Peyton pretty much stuck to his career averages of around 4,000 passing yards and 28 touchdowns last year without Harrison for a majority of the season, but we'll see if defenses learn to adjust better to the Colts' attack without Marvin Harrison in the line-up for an entire season.

Hopefully most of you readers were able to get through this entire section before immediately scrolling down to leave death threats in the comments section, and, if so, it should be apparent that the cream of the quarterback crop in the NFL all have some hurdle to deal with, hurdles that could finally propel Tony Romo to the top of the metaphorical mountain to become the NFL's best quarterback.

Now that we have examined factors going on with the rest of the league's signal callers, let's move on to examine the forces within the Dallas Cowboys organization that could easily propel Tony Romo to the top of his NFL game in 2009.

2. A Full Offseason with Roy Williams

The importance of timing between in a quarterback and a wide receiver, used a buzz word on many a pre-game show by countless individuals, really cannot be overlooked.

I have analyzed in more depth the importance of timing routes in the previous Cowboys' articles I've written (links at the bottom of the page), so feel free to check those out for a more in depth analysis of this factor.

However, the issue of timing between a quarterback and a wide receiver all boils down to two main issues: being on the same page on option routes, andunderstanding a receiver's tendencies.

Oftentimes, a wide receiver is given multiple routes to run on a given play, and will have only fractions of a second to read the defensive rotation mid-play as he is running the stem of his route to decide which of the 2 or 3 route options he has to run.

The more time a quarterback and a receiver spend together, the more likely it is that they will get into a groove and will make the same reads on any given defense, drastically reducing the chance that the quarterback thinks and throws as if the receiver is going to run one route, and the receiver ends up running the other.

Also, the more time a quarterback spends with a wide out, the more the quarterback will become familiar with the subtle preferences the receiver has as far as ball location and body position.

For example, I had the privilege of playing 7 years of football at both the high school and collegiate levels as a primarily pass catching tight end. I loved catching balls that were thrown high above my head, especially high and to the left on routes like curls.

On routes like drags or crossing patterns, it was easier for me to catch balls at helmet level out in front of my body as opposed to face level or balls thrown slightly behind me where I had to turn my hands in the opposite direction.

On routes up the middle of the field, I was much more comfortable catching balls over my left shoulder than my right shoulder.

My high school quarterback had played with me since 7th grade, and knew all of the places I liked the ball to be thrown (defense allowing of course), and all the ball locations that were less than ideal.

This mutual understanding led to more completions and drastically increased our effectiveness on the field.

The same can be said for Tony Romo and Roy Williams.

The NFL regular season moves at 1000 mph, and after pre-season camp most teams don't have the luxury of working out things as subtle as ball position preference because they are too busy studying film of the opponent's game plan and wondering how they are going to attack it in practice and on game day.

The offseason, in contrast, will afford Romo and Williams (who have reportedly been working for a month or two already running routes) the luxury of time to gain such understandings between one another, time that was frankly unavailable during the regular season last year.

An entire mini camp and pre-season camp together will greatly increase Romo's and Williams' mutual understanding of what each sees in a rotating defense when option routes are called, and should lead to many more completions as Roy Williams should be where Romo expects him much more often than last season (see: Philadelphia 44 Cowboys 6).

This increased understanding of each other's game should greatly mitigate the loss of Terrell Owens in the passing game, and should lead to another big passing year from the gangly Cowboys' QB.

3. A Healthy Backfield Will Create a "Pick Your Poison" Scenario for Most Defenses

The Dallas Cowboys arguably have the most stacked offensive backfield in the entire league.

Not only do defenses have to worry about dropping back to cover Roy Williams, Jason Witten, Patrick Crayton, and wild card speedster Miles Austin in the passing game, they haveto also account for three game breaking running backs in their defensive gameplan.

Marion Barber is a Pro Bowl running back, and one of the most ferocious runners the league has seen since the days of Earl Campbell.

Inside the 10 yard line, he is somehow able to channel an even more intense gear, and has an unparalleled knack for the end zone.

Barber's underrated proficiency as a receiver will also be a huge asset to Romo's success this year.

Second year phenom Felix Jones has the ability to go yard any time he gets his hands on the ball. He won't be the guy for the job between the guards in a third and short situation by any means, but his amazing speed and agility make him a deadly potential weapon.

His skill set will be especially appreciated on the 2nd and long or 3rd and long draw plays out of the 3 WR 1 TE 1 RB shotgun formation the Cowboys like to run so much when the defense begins to devote too much attention to the passing game.

TashardChoice is a game breaker in his own right, withmore speed than Marion to get aroundthe corner, but with more size that Felix, allowing him to put his head down and gain 2-3 yards after contact that Felix can't.

These three backs compliment each other perfectly, and, given the relative black hole of talent at the full back position (no offense to the perennially injured Deion Anderson, the only one on the roster), it is not out of the question to see many offensive formations with two of these three backs on the field at the same time.

If defenses decide to devote so much of their energy to stopping Romo, Williams, and the rest of the passing attack like they did last year with T.O., the Cowboys have the talent and depth at running back to chew up both yards and the game clock to inevitably force their opponents to bring more big defenders back into the box.

Any offensive coordinator will tell you that an established running game will make any victory that much easier to attain because the clock keeps running and gives any effective running team a huge advantage in time of possession.

A passing attack can be just as, if not more, deadly, but at least with primarily passing teams the clock stops after incompletions andleaves the opponent with much more time to catch up to any lead amassed by the Cowboys.

Therefore, when forced to deal with an effective passing and running game, defensive coordinators will be slightly inclined to give away certain things through the air in order to make sure his defense doesn't get run off the field and exhausted by a relentless and productive running attack.

These will be openings Romo can exploit with his accuracy, and his phenomenal pocket presense and abilities to bend andtwist his ways out of sacks against blitzing defenders will be yet another factor leading to a huge 2009 season from Tony Romo.

Which brings me to my final, and maybe most important point:

4. No T.O.!

I am a T.O. fan. I was initially mad to see him go, because as Cris Carter and other NFL analysts constantly contend, you can't just find anybody to replace a guaranteed 10 touchdowns and 1,000 receiving yards a year.

However, upon further inspection, this factor alone could be the single most important factor in Tony Romo's success in the upcoming years.

Like all NFL receivers, T.O. wants the ball.

T.O.'s track record with the 49ers and Eagles suggested that when T.O. doesn't get said ball enough, he explodes and craters his team's season.

This leads to the propensity, whether conscious or unconscious, to look his way more often, and for longer, than any quarterback or offensive coordinator would ordinarily.

In his three years in Dallas, T.O. was either near the top of the league or led the league in targets by a wide margin.

Conversely, he was also near the top of the league or led the league in dropped passes as well.

As much as I hate to say it, I believe both Tony Romo and Jason Garrett succumbed to the desire to get T.O. the ball as much as possible to try to mitigate the amount of distractions he caused, and he ended up putting an unacceptable amount of those targets on the turf.

This propensity to get T.O. the ball is also fueled by the media, who have now made T.O. a whipping-boy of sorts, and look to create stories about T.O. by constantly asking players on the roster leading questions about him, and grasping at threads and conjectures just to get out another "T.O. is crazy because now he's doing this" story.

To make a long rambling short, because of the media's desire for negative T.O.-driven stories, T.O. is a constant distraction to his teammates whether he tries to be or not.

There is a headline on ESPN.com right now on the front page that reads "(Terrence) McGee Hurts Arm In Practice While Covering T.O."

The spin on that story is ridiculous.

Apparently the two went up for a jump ball, fell to the ground and T.O. landed "partially" on top of McGee, who layed on the turf for awhile before leaving the field and not returning.

McGee is a corner. I would posit that in a vast majority of cases, when a cornerback gets injured, he is covering a wide receiver.

But that article title alone would suggest that T.O. shankedhim in the shoulder with an ice pick he was hiding in his pads as he sprinted past him on a streak, or that he pulled out a gun and starting unloading like that running back in the opening scene of "The Last Boyscout."

Whether T.O. likes it or not, the media-driven negative press has become a self-perpetuating entity that nothing short of him delivering a baby on the sidewalk for a collapsed woman while simultaneously taking a bullet for Barack Obama could alleviate.

Regrettably, it is a storm his teammates can't help but get swept away in.

Romo no longer has that cloud over him.

He has the ability to sit back and read the field freely to look for the open man without a subconscious desire to glance at T.O. first, or for a little longer, causing him to either get sacked, force a ball into coverage for a turnover, or miss another open, less disputatious receiver.

He will be able to take the field with a clear head, and make reads free of the bias or stress T.O. inevitably brings, which will undeniably lead to a more balanced and free flowing offense than we have seen from the underachieving Cowboys teams of the past two seasons.

There are undoubtedly many cases out there to be made for many other quarterbacks to contend for the title of "Best Quarterback in the League."

However, given the considerable obstacles most, if not all, of the usual suspects of the NFL's elite group of quarterbacks face this year, Romo might have the easiest route to the top of this choice group.

Not only that, but his increased timing and flow with Roy Williams, his stacked backfield which should keep defenders in the box and out of coverage, and the removal of one of the biggest psychological obstacles to Romo's success in Terrell Owens should lead to one of the greatest seasons we've seen from a Cowboys quarterback in the venerable history of this franchise.

True Romo hasn't won a playoff game yet, but I would draw your attention to the rambling but hopefully poignant discussion that began this epic dissertation regarding how it takes 11 men working simultaneously to win in the NFL.

Romo could have played better true, but Flozell Adams could also choose to remember the #$%*! snapcount once in awhile, because one would think that after like 37 years in the NFL one would come up for a system for such a mentally hefty undertaking.

The fact is, Romo needs his entire team to win a playoff game (or less slippery fingers but that's an entirely different discussion).

To be the best quarterback in the league, however, Romo needs his natural skills, as well as the factors mentioned abovethat all should result in an MVP-caliber season for the Wisconsin native.

So here's to 2009 Tony Romo. Time to bring the Cowboys back to the promised land.

Dallas Cowboys: A Leader Away From The Super Bowl

Mike Carley — Mon, 25 May 2009 18:00:47 -0400

One of the greatest works of classical political theory was a work written by Thomas Hobbes called "The Leviathan." Arguably, this is the single most significant literary work to grace the face of the planet since Plato took quill to parchment.

Among the multitudinous subjects Hobbes decides to touch on, the main point of the book is to justify how direly important a strong and capable leader is to any societal group. To prove this point, he examines human society in what he calls a "State of Nature," which is simply a state of humans living together without a natural power or leader to make the rules or laws that govern their existence.

Hobbes goes on to conclude that humans, regardless of race, color, gender, or age, will end up in a perpetual state of warfare because they will have no higher power to quell what Hobbes claims to be the three main causes of hostility between people:

"First, competition; secondly, diffidence (i.e. a secret inner doubt of one's own abilities); and thirdly, glory."

Now for a great majority of human history, there has rarely been an actual society without any leader or social structure to dictate societal norms and behaviors like the state Hobbes examines in his theoretical "State of Nature," which makes it very hard to examine his hypotheses in anything other then a purely theoretical discussion.

However, for the first time maybe ever, a practical and real world example of a Hobbesian State of Nature has come to pass that clearly shows the development of hostilities among humans in the same leaderless group, the very same hostilities Hobbes predicted would happen when humans congregate with no leader.

Ladies and gentleman, your 2008 Dallas Cowboys.

Football games aren't won on paper. Everybody knows that. However, if Vegas bookies feel comfortable enough making pre-season odds on who will win the Super Bowl two months before the season, obviously the composition of a roster is a very large component in any teams' success.

With that in mind, the underachievement of the 2008 Dallas Cowboys was beyond unreasonable. It was beyond unfathomable. It was beyond unacceptable.

Nobody will argue the Cowboys' level of talent, and, at least on the defensive side of the ball, that talent seemed to cohesively work together to have a very productive season. They produced the NFL sack leader and Defensive Player of the Year runner up Demarcus Ware.

They finished eighth overall in the league in yards surrendered per game and fifth overall in passing yards surrendered per game. The Baltimore Ravens game aside, they gave up far fewer huge plays last season than they have in the past five seasons.

The aggregation of talent on defense for the most part held up their end of the bargain, and absolutely played well enough to propel a team into the playoffs.

This is why the buck stops here at the Cowboys' offense, which ended up being less productive than the likes of the New England Patriots (starting quarterback who hadn't started since high school), the New Orleans Saints (didn't have one healthy Pro Bowl Running back, let alone three), the Miami Dolphins (no comment necessary), and the Sage Rosenfels-led Houston Texans.

A quick look at the Cowboys' offense should drive home how ridiculous that underproduction is, as well as demonstrate how another January spent at home should be out of the question for the 2009 squad.

The Cowboys have not one, not two, but three Pro Bowl caliber running backs in Marion Barber, Felix Jones, and Tashard Choice.

Don't think Choice is a Pro Bowl caliber player? Ask the Steelers defense (who I hear is decent) that question, as no back in the league put up more rushing yards against the Steelers than Tashard Choice did in Pittsburgh last season.

On top of the plethora of talent at that position is the fact that all three backs are so complimentary to each other. Marion Barber's ferocious warrior-like, between the tackles running style is complimented by the diametrically opposite style of scatback-type, get-around-the-corner-and-go game that Felix Jones plays.

Additionally, Choice is a perfect compliment to both, with better speed than Barber to accelerate around the edge for the big play, and with better size than Felix to take the ball and get meaningful bruising carries between the tackles.

Many teams could create a Super Bowl capable offense with just this talent at running back (see: The Baltimore Ravens and Tennessee Titans). However, the Cowboys also are blessed with a ridiculous amount of talent in the passing game.

Jason Witten is arguably the best tight end in the league, and is one more injury-plagued season from Antonio Gates away from securing that marvelous mantle for good. He rarely, if ever, drops a pass, has created superb timing with Tony Romo when working the middle of the field, and is phenomenal in the run game when blocking big defensive ends or linebackers running downhill.

To compliment him on the outside the Cowboys have Roy Williams (not to mention the phenomenal talent they had in TO last year). Admittedly, Roy Williams had an infinitesimal effect on the offense last year, but you really can't ignore the importance of timing and familiarity a quarterback has to have with his receivers to create any productive results whatsoever.

The best example of this would be timing routes, in which multiple routes are called for a receiver on a given play, and the receiver has to read the defensive rotation mid-play to decide which of the two or three called routes he will end up running.

Oh yeah, and the quarterback needs to make the same read of the defense, anticipate which of the two to three routes the receiver will end up running before he gets rid of the ball.

My favorite route to demonstrate this concept is the fade-stop. Often offense coordinators will send big, rangy wide receivers like Roy Williams on streaks or fades up the sideline.

However, there are two defensive scenarios that dictate whether the wide out should break off that fade route to run a 10 yard curl/comeback or not. The first defensive look would be when the defense rotates a certain way that leaves a huge void between the corner back playing the flats and the safety playing the deep third of the field, like in a cover two zone.

Conversely, a cornerback playing man-to-man that is running step-for-step right on the hip of the wideout as he is running his fade route also dictates when the receiver should break that route off at about 10 yards into a curl.

This will leave the wideout to either catch the ball in the soft spot of the zone coverage, or to catch the ball after the man-to-man corner back takes three or four more steps up field before he can stop his forward momentum and turn around to recover and break up the play.

It should be evident, however, that this is the NFL, and that by no means are these reads black-or-white situations. It is in the many plays where the defense operates in the shades of grey between those obvious reads that timing and recognition between a quarterback and wide receiver become vitally essential.

Because of the speed of the NFL game, a quarterback usually has a paltry few seconds to read the entire offense/defense, make a decision, and get the ball out of his hands. A lot of the time, it takes the wide outs longer to run their routes than the quarterback has time to hold onto the ball.

He therefore must get rid of the ball to where he thinks the receiver will be as opposed to sitting back, waiting forever, and having the luxury to throw to where the receiver is after he has made his break.

This fact alone signifies the undeniable importance of timing and recognition between a quarterback and wide receiver.

Peyton Manning and Marvin Harrison were not only ridiculously successful because of their God-given talent, but also because they were always undeniably on the same page on every pass they completed.

Because they played so long together, Manning inevitably knew what situations Harrison would break off his streak in, and what defensive looks Marvin would keep chugging up the sideline for the deep bomb.

There was no confusion or murkiness in Manning's reads of Marvin's route running choices in situations like these.

Conversely, quarterbacks who haven't established a similar report with the receivers are hurt in one of two ways. Either they glance in the direction of the fade-stop, are unsure how the receiver in question is going to react to that particular defensive look, and will quickly look to get rid of the ball elsewhere. That is a huge explanatory variable in Williams' lack of production last year.

If the quarterback does throw the ball that way, a misread can have disastrous consequences.

If the quarterback thinks the receiver is going to keep chugging up the sideline and throws it deep, only to have the receiver break into a curl right after he throws it, the ball sails majestically into the arms of a sideline attendant, or, more then likely, into the arms of a waiting safety.

If the quarterback thinks the receiver is going to run a curl, and throws the ball short while the receiver fails to turn around and keeps sprinting up the sideline, 9 times out of 10 that will result in an interception with an extremely large return, as the only thing standing between that cornerback on the sidelines and the endzone is the ability of the huge offensive linemen to catch him from behind as he high steps his way to glory.

These are the plays where it looks like the quarterback simply threw the ball directly to the defense, and are almost always the result of a miscommunication because the quarterback thought the receiver was going to do one thing, and the receiver did the other.

Romo had this timing down with T.O. last year, and the offense still failed miserably. He should finally have this timing down with Roy Williams after an entire offseason of working together, making another season without a playoff win equally as disappointing and unacceptable as the last.

Now there is no doubt Tony Romo has his critics, but two playoff losses in two attempts is nowhere near a sample size large enough to condemn Tony Romo's ability to win the big game. Romo has a unique skill set and gunslinger attitude that can absolutely win in this league, in both big games and small.

Romo's pocket presence alone is ridiculous.

He is not the speedster like Michael Vick or Donovan McNabb, but his constant awareness of defensive pressure and his Mr. Fantastic-like ability to bend and wiggle his way out of sacks gives the Cowboys three to five extra plays per game on offense that would have resulted in a sack or a throw away with any other more concrete footed quarterback.

He can throw either up top or side-armed (or even underhanded as he channels his legend Brett Favre), and this ability to release the ball at multiple angles allows him to avoid yet even more sacks/pressure in a tight situation, as he can move his arm to throw the ball over, around, or under any descending defensive pressure.

While his decision-making might need some improving, a lot of his mistakes result from an unbelievable drive to keep the play alive and moving, and, to date, more positive plays have resulted from this desire than negative plays, making his gunslinger mentality much more of an asset to the team then a detriment.

To put Romo's performance into better perspective in terms of Cowboys history, if you took Troy Aikman's three highest career single season touchdown totals (23 TD's in 1992, 19 TD's in 1997, and 17 TD's in 1999), they total to 59 total touchdowns. And those are numbers from three whole seasons as a starter.

In a mere two and a half seasons as the Cowboys starting quarterback, Romo has thrown for 19 touchdowns in 2006, 39 touchdowns in 2007, and 26 touchdowns in 2008 for a grand total of 86 total, a smooth 27 more total touchdowns than Aikman threw....in the three best touchdown-producing years of Troy's career.

That figure above all else should demonstrate that Romo is the real deal and a force to be reckoned with, interceptions and all.

History has also shown that quarterbacks with a similar style can win Super Bowls, most notably Brett Favre, and, to some extent, Steve Young.

For all of the negative things people say about Tony Romo, they are mostly refusing the recognize the bevy of positive traits and skills he brings to the Dallas Cowboys, as the Cowboys wouldn't be a perennial playoff contender without Tony Romo at the helm.

To recap, last year the Cowboys offense had a stable of Pro Bowl Caliber Running Backs, a Pro Bowl caliber quarterback, one of the best wide receivers (statistically) ever to play the game in T.O., arguably the best tight end in the game, and a Pro Bowl studded offensive line.

Yet they failed to even reach the playoffs.

This year, the Cowboys will have all of the same pieces in place (swap T.O. for a fully up-to-speed Roy Williams). How can this team avoid the same fate as last year's group?

By finding the only thing the 2008 team was missing last year: a leader.

Strong and successful teams oftentimes find this Hobbesian Leviathan in their head coach. Bill Belicheck or Bill Cowher are the ultimate examples of this, as they are leaders that are both respected and feared.

Wade Phillips, for all his defensive prowess, is probably respected and liked by a majority of the roster, but definitely not feared.

This is why Jerry Jones felt the need to emasculate him repeatedly in front of teammates and the media by being the final source of information on the Dallas Cowboys on any issue, to the point where he felt the need to not let any members of the coaching staff whatsoever talk to the media at all this summer.

Other great teams look to experienced and accomplish veterans to fill the same role.

Michael Jordan on the Chicago Bulls beautifully elucidated this concept, because while he left it up to Phil Jackson to design the X's and O's, Jordan's teammates on the Bulls weren't afraid of incurring the wrath of Jackson when they made a mistake. They were terrified of Jordan, because it was Jordan that brought the hammer down before they could even get off the court to reach the relative safety of Phil Jackson's "anger."

It is now becoming apparent what any competitive team needs in a leader: both a sense of respect and a sense of fear, because those feelings will synergistically combine to translate into a team-wide desire to succeed out of both respect for the leader and out of a fear of letting the leader that unites the locker room down.

Tony Romo, for all his strengths, still hasn't been seen to become the fiery on-the-field leader of a Tom Brady or a Ben Roethlisberger, and, on the offensive side of the ball, it is very rare for anybody besides the quarterback to be able to take that leadership role that is so natural for any quarterback to step into.

Team leaders can also be found on defense in many different positions. Ray Lewis is unquestionably the leader of the Baltimore Ravens. Brian Dawkins fulfilled a similar role on the Philadelphia Eagles. Brian Urlacher on the Chicago Bears.

However, Dallas' best defensive players just haven't seemed to be able to rise to command a similar amount of respect as the aforementioned gridiron defenders that have led their teams to Super Bowls.

Demarcus Ware is unquestionably the best defender on Dallas' squad. He was a few Brett Favre-freebies away from breaking Strahan's sack record last year, but I can't remember him saying one memorable comment or taking one single motivating jab at the under-performance of his team as a whole.

Terrence Newman was probably the most vocal defensive player, but by no means could you say he commanded the attention of the team like Ray Lewis or Brian Urlacher can.

Zach Thomas was the most seasoned and accomplished, but even he seemed content to sit back and let the bus swerve off the road instead of taking a stand and demanding more effort and discipline to avoid said car wreck.

Last year, the Cowboys were without a leader both on the coaching staff, and without one on the field.

They were, by all regards and definitions, the first tangible example I can remember of a Hobbesian State of Nature.

Surprisingly enough, the ramifications of such a state that Hobbes predicted hundreds of years ago were surprisingly accurate, and most, if not all, came to pass on the 2008 Dallas Cowboys.

As Thomas Hobbes believed, without a strong and capable central leader (or "Leviathan" to use a Hobbesian terms), these causes of hostility propel man into a perpetual state of warfare due to the natural equality in both mind and body of every man in existence.

This might seem like a stretch, but, to paraphrase, Hobbes attributes the equality of strength to the fact that the weakest of men can always kill the strongest of men through either "secret machination or confederacy."

In other words, any pipsqueak can place a land mine in the entry way of any World's Strongest Man contestant's doorway, or gather up 50 other pipsqueaks to take the behemoth down by force.

He also argues that all men are more or less equally wise, because wisdom is a function of experience and time, and time is something that is bestowed roughly to all men equally.

This gives all men an equal amount of experience on this Earth, which equates to equal amounts of wisdom in Hobbes' eyes.

An equality of strength among men will lead to an equality of fear of being overtaken and a doubt in one's ability to defend himself, and he will therefore be forced to take the offensive and take out his competition before they choose to turn on him.

Therefore, because there is no leader in a State of Nature, this equality in strength and wisdom will lead any society into a perpetual state of warfare where the arts, sciences, and culture in general can never be realized.

All of the above came to fruition in the debacle that was the 2008 Dallas Cowboys' season.

The first Hobbesian qualification for a disaster in the State of Nature would be equality in strength and wisdom.

This situation is not true on many NFL rosters given the age difference of teams simultaneously starting rookies and 10 year veterans, but this applies amazingly well to the Dallas Cowboys, who were a team of talented and accomplished veterans with similar amounts of experience who wanted the ball.

Was T.O. a better wide receiver than Marion Barber was a running back? It's an understandably tough question to answer, but that is exactly the point. Hobbesian equality of all members of any given societal group will eventually, given the competitive nature of man, lead to hostility and warfare.

On the 2008 Dallas Cowboys, the elephant in the room for the entire season was how to get T.O. the ball, and trying to figure out why T.O. wasn't producing at the level fans have become so accustomed to.

This leads to the second Hobbesian qualification of perpetual warfare: diffidence i.e. inner insecurities about one's own abilities to defend himself against equally matched opponents, causing him to go on the offensive before he let's himself be attacked.

On the Cowboys, concerns over T.O.'s production led to concerns that Romo was forcing the ball to Witten too much. This led to concerns that the running backs were getting too many touches, or not enough touches depending on who you asked. This led to finger pointing at the offensive line for committing too many penalties or messing up the pass protection schemes.

As Hobbes correctly predicted, without a leader to reign in all the fingerpointing and accusations, the 2008 Dallas Cowboys ridiculously descended into a perpetual state of warfare against each other, choosing to offensively attack other equally skilled veterans at other positions instead of focusing on making themselves better and wait to have the metaphorical finger pointed at them.

Jason Witten was unequivocally the strongest part of Dallas' offense last year. As things started to unwind, this led to a "confederacy" of the slightly weaker producers of T.O., Roy Williams, and Patrick Crayton, who planned to address this slight inequity with "secret machinations" such as meeting with coordinator Jason Garrett to discuss Romo's possible secret meetings with Witten to work the other receivers out of the gameplan.

All of this contention was a result of the third component of perpetual warfare in a Hobbesian State of Nature: the quest for glory.

All of the Cowboys' immensely talented offensive components wanted the ball, wanted more touches, wanted to win, ultimately because of the glory inherent in all those things.

It was when this supposed glory started to slip from the horizon that what should have been a Super Bowl contending team slipped into a Hobbesian State of Nature which only a capable and respected leader could have brought them out of.

One of the most beautiful quotes from The Leviathan directly addresses why there will always be bickering for touches on a leaderless team with as much talent as the Dallas Cowboys:

"For such is the nature of men that howsoever they may acknowledge to be more witty, or more eloquent or more learned, yet they will hardly believe there be so many as wise as themselves; for they see their own wit at hand, and other men's at a distance."

Marion Barber will never say T.O. is a bad receiver. Roy Williams will never say that Jason Witten is a bad tight end. But it is the "nature of men" to recognize the best skills in others, but refuse to admit that those skills are more effective or more productive than the very ones they themselves possess.

All the components on the roster are there. There isn't any glaring weakness on the offensive or defensive side of the ball on this squad, as evidenced by the Cowboys being more than content to not have a draft pick until the third round this year.

However, when the alleged glory that was so prematurely bestowed upon this Cowboys squad started to falter last year, the locker room erupted into a perpetual state of warfare that didn't end until the 44-6 drubbing at the hands of the Eagles that sent them home for the season and made all the bickering and fighting 100% irrelevant.

As Hobbes so eloquently states:

"Hereby it is manifest that without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in a condition called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man."

The Cowboys need a leader to unite that locker room, because the NFL is by nature a perpetual state of warfare itself. Anybody who has seen a Cowboys game in Philadelphia and had beer dumped on them or been denied access to the restroom by Eagles fans will gladly agree with this statement.

However, this needs to be a war of team vs. team, and not teammate vs. teammate.

The Cowboys have all the components in place to be great. No longer should they be contented to watch so many teams with so much less do so much more.

However, like many of the great heroes and heroines of ancient Greek mythology confined to the depths of hell to perform tortuously redundant and repeated tasks for all of eternity, until someone in that locker room decides to step up and unite this team of warring but talented athletes, the Cowboys will be condemned to the Hell of their recliners at the end of each season, damned to watch leader after leader attain the glory they thirst for so greatly for countless Januaries to come.

Four Reasons Michael Jordan Is, and Will Be, the Greatest Ever

Mike Carley — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 18:47:54 -0400

The "Age of Information" has had many wide-spread ramifications in every inch of the fabric that makes up human civilization.

The instant availability of information, taken for granted by so many mouse-clicking Googlers, is in actuality one of the most important evolutionary developments the human race has ever experienced, and looks to be a stepping stone to a meteoric rise in technology, innovation, and quality of life in the next 50 years.

A mere 500 years ago, to get a message from one side of the world to the other, you had to physically sail it through storms and high seas for six months to a year and hand deliver it to the intended recipient.

"Don't shoot the messenger" was an actual universal regulation on ancient battlefields.

Think about that.

Communication across long distances was so difficult that, in a battle where you could literally run up behind somebody and smack him in the head with a spiked hammer, killing the other side's messenger was widely regarded as a "D*ck Move."

Now you can literally find any person/piece of information in fewer than two minutes, depending on the speed of your wireless internet/3G network—literally anything you need to know.

I could be sitting at the opera, and within 45 seconds, know exactly how many nanometers long the Great Wall of China is.

You can sign onto a computer, and have a face-to-face instantaneous conversation with somebody in China.

Or for that matter, somebody in one of the former Soviet Bloc countries doing things some would sail for six months to see, while others would sail rough seas six months to get away from.

However, this ability to instantly receive news and find information has regrettably turned us to a culture of the "now," where "what have you done for me lately" has replaced "remember how amazing it was when..."

Spinning tales of Herculean achievements has been replaced by a repetitive up-to-the-second ESPN bottom line.

We can no longer take the time to savor wonderful moments and accomplishments, nor reminisce about times past.

By the time we can even fully comprehend what has just happened, we have 13 different stories/news angles shoved down our throat, only to be replaced 24 to 48 hours later with 13 different stories/news angles about something entirely different.

We are so inundated with information about the now, we no longer can find the time to appreciate accomplishments' past.

This, my friends, was my pathetic attempt to justify a ridiculous trend that has developed in the NBA world of fans and media that, in my eyes, truly has no justification.

An act of here-say so blasphemous and offensive that I have no problem turning to ridiculous biblical terminology to describe it.

But it is appropriate.

At this point of the year, every year for the last seven to eight years, when the magic of the NBA Playoffs dances brightly on the horizon, somebody, somewhere wants to start The Comparison. The Comparison of whichever young and chic superstar has been lighting up the league most lately...to Him.

To the One.

To the Greatest Ever.

The man Larry Bird himself described as "God disguised as Michael Jordan."

That's coming from the mouth of "Basketball Jesus" himself.

Anybody with even a passing knowledge of Christianity can recognize the beautiful symbolism in this imagery.

Larry Bird is one of the greatest ever to play the game. He can literally look down on 99.9 percent of the people to ever play in the NBA with amusement, scorn, and superiority.

He can stand there and look Magic Johnson squarely in the eye, but nothing more.

However, he cannot help but look up to One, and in gazing upon His greatness that fateful night in 1986, couldn't help but bow down in reverential respect.

He can only look up at one player and consider him to be on a different level entirely, a level far above the pitiful world of the mere mortal basketball player.

He, with the divine powers of Jesus with a basketball, couldn't help but get down on his knees and anoint the King, the One, his allegorical father, the God of the Basketball Universe.

Michael Jordan.

Ever since Jordan hung 63 points in the Garden, going into the Temple of Larry Bird and leaving with the flocking converts of His Airness, Jordan gained the title of God of the NBA, and has yet to relinquish it.

But how quickly people forget.

The search for a new Messiah has taken on a haphazardly desperate feel, leaving His lost flock to worship the golden idols of flash-in-the-pan superstars and young talents with their whole career yet ahead of them.

I am here to put things in perspective for all those Kobe lovers, for the Tim Duncan supporters, and the supporters of the Shaq Attack. To calm down all those D-Wade warriors and the loyal subjects of King James.

Because when you look at it, there is no comparison to Michael Jordan.

Nobody that has played since, or is playing now, has even come close. People haven't seen His Airness play for 10 to 12 years, and have truly lost the scope and dominance of the feats and accomplishments of the greatest player ever to pick up a basketball.

Let me give you four reasons to remind you, and hopefully, put an end once and for all to these yearly comparisons until someone truly worthy of approaching His Throne actually arrives.

I have placed these four factors in order from least to most important.

(Also, two quick definitions. When I refer to the "Next Generation," I am referring to the next generation of superstars who followed Jordan's era—i.e. Kobe, KG, Shaq, Jason Kidd, etc. I will refer to the up-and-coming generation—i.e. Chris Paul, LeBron, Wade, etc. as "The Future.")

4. Unparalleled Offensive Production

When one thinks of Michael Jordan, one can't help but summon an image of an incandescent and high-flying scoring machine, able to get the ball through the rim no matter what angle, speed, or height he was at at the time.

However, not many people have taken a step back to fully appreciate how impressive some of the scoring feats Michael Jordan actually accomplished were.

(Author's note: Against every inclination I currently have in my body, I will include his two abominable years with the Wizards in all career averages cited.)

Jordan's PPG career average is an astounding 30.1. That is the highest in NBA history. Higher than Wilt. Higher than Russell. Higher than Bird and Magic.

He accomplished that, not in one season, but over 15 seasons. To add some perspective, Dwayne Wade, who seems to be putting up 40 and 50-point games every other time he hits the court, is only averaging 29.7 PPG this year.

Wade is averaging that over roughly 82 games. Michael Jordan averaged higher than that over 1,072 games.

Since 2000, Jordan's career average of 30.1 PPG would have come in either first or second in seven of the last eight seasons.

Keep in mind these are years of the Next Generation playing in their prime and posting their highest individual season PPG, and Jordan's career average tops a vast majority of their single season performances.

Since 2000, there have been five different scoring leaders ranging from Tracy McGrady to A.I. to Kobe Bryant.

Jordan led the league in scoring a league record 10 of the 15 seasons he played. He captured the scoring crown an NBA record seven straight times, a record that only ended because he literally got bored with the game and decided to retire in 1993.

He also holds the NBA record for most consecutive games scored in double digits, a number that stands at a paltry 866 games.

If you begin to examine some of his most impressive individual offensive seasons, the numbers become even more mind-blowing. Keep in mind that in the current state of the NBA, usually between 28-30 PPG will have you in the race for the scoring title.

In 1986-87, Michael Jordan started 82 out of 82 games, and averaged 37.1 PPG.

Look at that number again.

Michael Jordan almost averaged 40 PPG for an entire season. And this isn't like the silly averages Wilt Chamberlain put up playing against 6'1" power forwards.

Jordan posted that number in the same division as the Bad Boy Pistons. Jordan posted that number playing in the same conference as Patrick Ewing, Kevin McHale, and Robert Parish. Wikipedia even went so far as to classify this year as the "Golden Age" of the NBA.

Here is a list of the stars that were playing that year for anybody who wants to even dare bring up the competitive non-parity argument between then and now:

Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, James Worthy, Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Robert Parish, Moses Malone, Julius Irving, Isiah Thomas, Dominique Wilkins, Charles Barkley, Hakeem Olajuwon, Karl Malone, John Stockton, Patrick Ewing, Adrian Dantley, and Joe Dumars.

Those were just the Hall of Famers that played that year, and doesn't even encompass the defensive enforcers who existed solely to take Jordan out on his way to the basket. Players like Bill Laimbeer and Kurt Rambis are rare breeds that seem to have gone completely extinct in the new run-and-gun NBA.

Also, keep in mind that Jordan posted that ridiculous number in an era where the now-present "hand-check" rule was non-existent.

For the uninformed, that basically meant that when playing teams like the Knicks or the Pistons, Jordan took six to seven hits a game that Dwayne Wade or LeBron might take once or twice a month (probably resulting in suspensions and three days of Around the Horn segments).

I am not taking anything away from LeBron or Wade.

I am just trying to provide some perspective in how astounding that 37.1 PPG number really is for a player with no three-point shot (he shot 18.2 percent from deep that year) in a league far tougher and more physical than anything the Next Generation or The Future have or will face.

As impressive as Jordan's offensive accomplishments are, they are equaled, if not overshadowed, by his unmatched dominance on the defensive end.

3. Unmatched Defensive Prowess

Everybody remembers MJ for his scoring. Jordan over Ehlo, the 63 points in the Garden, the 54 he hung up in the first month coming back from his first retirement, the 38 points he had with the flu. That is often the reason that pundits feel compelled to force the likes of Kobe or Dwayne Wade into this "comparison."

However, when you take a step back and fully understand the scope of Jordan's defensive dominance, it's almost unfathomable.

People forget that among NBA experts and die-hards, Jordan is arguably the greatest perimeter defender—of all time.

Jordan's career average for steals per game is a mind-blowing 2.35. To put that into perspective, if he averaged that for a single season (let alone over 15 seasons), it would put him in sole possession of second place in the league this year behind CP3's 2.88 SPG.

If you have gotten a chance to see Chris Paul play defense this year, it is amazing how many passes he gets his hands on. He seems to be everywhere on the court all at once.

Jordan was like that, and even better, considering he topped that 2.88 SPG number five different times in his career.

No steals leader since the year 2000, the year all of the Next Generation Superstars mostly were all "of age," has even come close to approaching Jordan's career high of 3.16 SPG that he posted in 1987-88.

Oh yeah, he happened to average 35.0 PPG, starting 82 of 82 games that year. That's the thing about Jordan.

He's not Bruce Bowen. He's not Ron Artest. He's not Ben Wallace.

Jordan had the skills of a defensive specialist, who could also lead the league in scoring any given year.

Don't believe me? He was the only player ever to be named Defensive Player of the Year, lead the league in scoring, and take home the MVP trophy—in the same year.

In a different season, he also became the only player in history to lead the league in scoring and win Defensive Player of the Year. Two out of three ain't bad, either.

None of the Next Generation can boast stats like these. None of the Next Generation played so highly on both the offensive and the defensive end.

Since the year 2000, no Defensive Player of the Year has averaged 20-plus PPG. Only two (KG in 2008 and Ron Artest in 2004) averaged more than 15 PPG, and half of the winners didn't even average in the double-digits (admittedly, all were Ben Wallace, but the point remains).

Jordan was named to the All-Defensive First Team a record nine times. To put that in perspective, Kobe Bryant would need to make it four more times to tie that mark (definitely possible, but that would mean making the All-Defensive First Team in years 13 through 17 of his career).

Jordan even led the entire league in steals on three different occasions (1987-88/3.16 SPG, 1989-90/2.77 SPG, and 1992-93/2.83 SPG). That is good for No. 2 all-time. Jordan is also No. 2 all-time in total steals in a career.

Nobody will dispute Jordan's offensive dominance and unparalleled showmanship on the court. But examining those skills in conjunction with one of the most dominant defensive careers ever recorded, it should become apparent why Bird didn't hesitate to anoint him God of the basketball world back in 1986.

2. Competitive Drive and Desire to Win

Regrettably, the top two most important factors behind Jordan's dominance don't have nearly as much statistical support as the last two.

However, a factor that can be fully captured and displayed by a statistic would be by its very definition tangible, and the intangibles really pushed Jordan above all who had come before him and above all who would follow.

Nobody had the competitive drive of Jordan in the NBA. Freaking nobody.

He is without a doubt the most clutch shooter in the history of the NBA.

Nobody in the history of the game has pulled more victories out of the jaws of defeat than MJ. I don't have statistics to support this, but if anybody out there does and can prove me wrong, know I'm very anxious to see such proof (but I won't hold my breath).

Every time Jordan made it to the finals, he won, largely because he did everything it took to prevent his team from losing.

He wasn't afraid to make the extra pass (see John Paxson and Steve Kerr), and we all know how unafraid he was to take the final shot (see Craig Ehlo, Bryon Russell, anybody on the Knicks or Pistons from 1988-1993).

As long as his team came out on top, MJ was happy. That is a rarity nowadays, where only last year we witnessed the closest player to match Jordan since Jordan, Kobe Bryant, sulk around and do nothing for an entire second half of game six in the Finals, allowing the Celtics to come into his own house and embarrass him and his team to the tune of a 35-point beatdown in the deciding game.

That never happened to Jordan, and never would have. He wouldn't let it, because he refused to accept failure either from himself or his teammates.

That is probably why the '90s Chicago Bulls are the only NBA Dynasty in history without a marquee big man. I mean, Bill Wennington was sweet and all, but all the rest of the NBA dynasties had a dominant big man that created unsolvable matchup problems for the other team.

The Celtics had Bill Russell. Magic had Kareem and Worthy. Bird had Parish and McHale. The 2000 Lakers had Shaq.

Big men are different than guards.

The physical difficulties inherent in trying to stop somebody that big needs to be recognized. I don't care how many hours a 6'6", 225 pound NBA player works on defense, I don't care how many defensive slides or footwork or hand quickness drills you do. A player of that size will never be able to guard a 300 pound seven footer. Ever.

Therefore, unless you have a center of comparative size/skill, a dominant big man can absolutely take over a game at will because no amount of 6'9" defensive wizards will be able to do a thing to stop him.

However, Michael Jordan was just another 6'6" guard with great athleticism and a strong mid-range jump shot.

There are a lot more personnel options available on any given team to guard a 6'6" guard than there are to defend a 7'1" center, because undoubtedly there are more 6'6" defenders around the NBA to negate any possible size advantage than there are seven-footers.

That is what makes Jordan's reign at the top so unparalleled. It is the intangibles Jordan possessed that took him to the next level, and made an average-sized shooting guard into the most unstoppable force the NBA has ever seen.

The best statistical way to view this desire to win would be to see the numbers boost Jordan experienced in the playoffs versus the regular season.

Jordan's career playoff average of a whopping 33.4 PPG stands as the best in NBA history. He also holds the most 50, 40, 30, and 20 point games in playoff history.

In fact, Jordan has scored in double digits in every single career playoff game he'd ever played in.

Even more startling, he scored at least 20 points in every single NBA Finals game he's ever played.

He also has the record for most points averaged in a finals series, a weak 41.0 PPG that led the Bulls to beat the Suns in the 1993 NBA Finals.

Nobody came through more hugely or more consistently when it counted than Jordan. That is why he won an NBA record six Finals MVP awards, one for every time he appeared in the finals.

If anything, that stat alone signifies that when it was time to shine in a bright and important moment, it was MJ, and nobody else BUT MJ, who would step to the challenge.

Jordan never refused to rise to the challenge when his team needed him, and the flu game in the 1996 playoffs in Utah is the best allegory of this.

A few hours before the game, Jordan became extremely feverish and dehydrated with an undisclosed stomach virus.

With the series tied 2-2, playing in Utah, rumors were swirling around the Bulls faithful that Jordan wouldn't play, that the force no man on Earth could stop was being halted by a simple microscopic organism, that He wouldn't be there to prevent the hated Jazz from regaining control of the series at home and forcing a game seven.

Despite falling behind by 16 in the second quarter, somehow, Jordan rallied. He began to nail contested jump shots, make beautiful dishes on fast breaks for layups, and even throwing in the occasional tip jam after a missed layup.

However, missing after these stereotypically Jordan-esque plays were the fist pumps, the smiles, and the winks we came to know and love from MJ, instead replaced by a look of exhaustion and a look one could almost describe as "dazed."

However, no matter how drained he looked, as Paxson so aptly put it, Jordan would "summon something from within" to keep on going, and would play each play as if it were 1987 again.

As the exhausted Jordan continued to battle a possessed and driven Stockton-Malone combination, the back and forth continued, and the ball ended up in the Bulls' corner with the game tied with under 30 seconds to play. Sure enough, despite being exhausted and flu-ridden, dehydrated and drained, the ball swung to Jordan, who nailed a three-pointer with 26 seconds to play that the Jazz would never answer.

Game over. Chicago takes the 3-2 series lead. Jordan's game winning three represented his 36th, 37th, and 38th points of the contest.

Calmly and briefly, He raised His hands above His head, and promptly collapsed into Scottie Pippen, who proceeded to half-support/half-drag a stumbling Jordan, the savior of the Chicago Bulls, off the court to the locker room.

At that moment, the God of Basketball looked vulnerable, looked tired, looked...mortal.

However, on the heels of one of the most superhuman performances in the history of the NBA Finals, that vulnerability reminded everybody in the world that, yes, Michael Jordan was human, despite the fact that no human being should have been able to do what He did that night in Utah.

Paxson explained the feat by saying Jordan simply "summoned something inside" to overcome the virus that threatened to sap every ounce of energy from his body every minute of that game.

In conjunction with the amazing statistical offensive and defensive dominance mentioned above, that one game more than anything solidifies and clarifies the very desire to win that makes Jordan the greatest ever.

Jordan never gave up. He would never accept failure. He would never lose. No matter what. Period.

And it is that factor that led to the final and most relevant indicator of Jordan's greatness:

1. Unrivaled and Unequivocal Dominance

Michael Jordan was in a class of his own. He had no rival. He began to lead the league in scoring in 1987, and didn't have another offensive equal until he won his third championship and retired out of boredom.

Jordan had no true "rival" once he hit his prime, because rivalries can't exist if the other side never wins.

An entire generation of superstars stepped up to Michael Jordan, and he sent countless Hall of Famers home for good with every single thing they could ever want accomplished...except for winning that ring.

Jordan beat down Charles Barkley and sent him home ringless. He prevented Ewing and John Starks from ever reaching the NBA Finals (and took time to poster-ize them in Madison Square Garden while he was at it).

He let Stockton and Malone get tantalizing close twice, but sent them home ringless too.

Reggie Miller never even got a shot at one, because MJ would always come to town and end his season early.

Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler only won because Jordan retired the first time.

David Robinson and Alonzo Mourning didn't win a ring until Jordan left for the second time.

Gary Payton and Shawn Kemp and one of the most explosive offenses in NBA history thought they had a chance too. Jordan had other ideas.

He beat down Magic for his first championship, beat down Drexler for his second, Barkley and KJ for his third, announcing his dominance over the remnants of the previous generation.

Then utilized his second run with three championships to assert his dominance over his contemporaries, having already smote the giants of the past.

Literally, no player in the history of the NBA has completely beaten down every single competitor that rose to challenge him like Jordan did. It's irrelevant to talk about anybody else in the '90s besides Jordan, and that absolutely is not the case now.

The NBA is experiencing a renaissance due to the multitude of talent on display right now. Kobe and Shaq were kings briefly. Duncan has had his run, but other than that, nobody has been on top as firmly and as long as MJ was.

Nobody besides Russell has won six championships, let alone six championships in eight years in an unsegregated and fully competitive NBA landscape.

Nobody has so fully dominated an era in the NBA like Jordan did, which makes the seemingly hyperbolic anointment of a god in disguise all the more accurate.

I apologize if anybody was offended by the overtly religious tones of this article, as I am sure I have handled them as delicately as the Wachowski Brothers did in The Matrix trilogy.

However, in basketball terms, if everybody else was on a lower level than Him, and He resided on His own level Himself, what image fits that classification better than Jordan being the basketball Deity over the rest of the league's painfully obvious mortality?

The pure omnipotence of Jordan's game warrants this religiously-toned prose, and I feel like it is necessary to truly elucidate just how much greater Michael Jordan was than anybody before or after him.

The book on the Next Generation has been written. It is still too early to start this conversation about The Future, as too much of their careers remain to be seen ahead of them.

But the fact remains, the comparisons need to stop. No matter how tempting the story or angle, no matter how juicy the justification or subject matter, just stop.

There is no comparison.

Nobody has displayed such competence and pure dominance in all aspects of the game like His Airness has. He is the greatest scorer of all time, and arguably the greatest dunker and defender as well.

That is why I felt the need to invoke such religious overtones in my crusade to stop the ridiculous temptation to compare every young superstar to Michael Jordan.

Because, in the grand scheme of things, its flat out blasphemous to mention anybody in the last 15 years on the same level as Michael Jordan, considering Larry freaking Bird considered him a God.

So this is a call to all out there.

Stop the comparisons.

Stop the stretch justifications.

Stop being wishful or disillusioned and look at the facts.

Michael Jordan was the best basketball player that ever has, and probably ever will, play the game. That needs to be declared once and for all.

In one final attempt to justify the purpose and style of the article, let me fall back on one last piece of religious vernacular that I think succinctly puts it best:

There is only one basketball God but Michael, and I guess, for today at least, I am his prophet.

A Celebration of the Fanatic: A Fresh Perspective

Mike Carley — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 21:53:34 -0400

Unequivocally, regardless of the context or background, the word "fanatic" has a subtle yet undeniably negative connotation. It implies levels of irrationality bordering on psychosis.

It implies a departure from reason bordering on dangerous. It implies a state of reality completely distorted by the unbridled emotion and passion found solely in something one believes in unconditionally.

In most walks of life, fanatics have been pushed towards the fringes of society by "normal" level-headed people. Religious fanatics in this country generally give anyone in the room the creeps through their blustering and predictions of fire and brimstone.

Political zealots immediately make any conversation simultaneously awkward and inflammatory regardless of circumstance.

It is the above two facts which have made me a staunch believer in the phrase, "The two things you don't talk about in a bar are religion and politics."

However, there is a brand of fanatic that is welcomed and in fact appear to populate fine drinking establishments throughout the nation.

A brand of people who paint their face like ancient warriors, hating rival clans and bellowing battle cries to rival those of the fiercest Aztec or Viking war parties.

Yes, my friends. That ridiculous streak of historical hyperbole was indeed referring to the Sports Fanatic. If you think the warrior analogy doesn't fit, just look at the guy in the picture for this article. I mean seriously.

Not only is he wearing shoulder pads, he has adorned those shoulder pads with skulls...with spikes to further dissuade any swipes from possible attackers if the psychological warfare of the skulls fails.

And to top that all off, his construction helmet covers any remaining vulnerable surface area that the skull-pads leave unguarded, making him literally invincible from aerial attackers.

If you combined the beach at Normandy, Thermopylae, and Iwo Jima, it still wouldn't be as well protected as this guy's dome.

The huge fat guy with blades for arms in "300" thinks this guy is ridiculous.

Yet it's undeniable.

In some circles, clashes between rival sports team results in an intensity of emotion more fit for an ancient battle ground than a viewing party of an athletic contest between a number of ridiculously talented steroid/non-steroid induced participants.

However, for those more "sane" individuals, those individuals who are content to check the Saturday Sweet 16 scores on their phone, those "hyper-rational" individuals who don't let a crushing loss to a rival team bother them for more than five minutes, and even to the very athletes who participate in these contests, these fanatics are regarded with the same scorn and condescension as their religious and political counterparts. After all, "it's only a game."

Well I have a message for those "casual" fans, as well as a message for the athletes who play this game as well.

To the casual fans? My message to you is simple: You are missing out.

Allow me to quote a passage from the phenomenal speech Jimmy Valvano gave in the ESPY's in 1993:

"To me, there are three things we all should do every day...No. 1 is laugh. You should laugh every day. No. 2 is think. You should spend some time in thought. And No. 3 is you should have your emotions moved to tears. Think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that's a full day. That's a heck of a day. If you do that seven days a week, you're gonna have something special."

For those who don't know, Jimmy Valvano gave that speech as he was suffering from a terminal cancer that would eventually take his life.

I really try to make sure to pay attention when somebody like that has something this insightful and enlightened to say about the value of life, because nobody is more aware of that value than those looking death straight in the eye.

It seems almost blasphemous to paraphrase such prose as wonderful and powerful as those beautiful words above. However, I will attempt to for the purposes of this argument.

I believe Valvano was describing how best to feel alive, a feeling so much of us take for granted, and that only the truly condemned can appreciate. If those three components are as essential to the human experience as both Jimmy V and myself believe they are, then is there really a more common or accessible conduit to induce laughing, thinking, and crying than following your favorite team?

Now don't misunderstand me.

There are plenty of things out there besides sports that allow you to reach those emotional peaks and valleys so necessary and vital to truly feeling alive. But how many of those activities can you do every single day/other day/weekend? How many of those activities can truly stir such emotional extremes with so little truly invested?

As a Cowboys fan, I can say that the Romo Bobbled Snap game against the Seahawks was one of the single most devastating experiences of my life. I don't think I talked to anybody for two hours after that game. I don't think I smiled for 24 hours after that game.

To this day, I can't churn up the imagine of Tony Romo, sitting upright on his butt on Seattle's 1 and a half yard line and clutching his face mask with both hands, without a little piece of whatever happiness I had generated for that day disappearing (either that, or I want to run to the nearest living organism and kill it, but I figured the former reaction was more appropriate for the tone of the article).

Yet the casual fan, who was able to shrug off the loss five minutes later, would undoubtedly look at such emotional devastation with a mixture of amusement and incredulity. How could a simple game upset a simple "fan" so much?

However, I believe crying is as essential to life as laughing and thinking because, as the old maxim goes, the sweet isn't as sweet without the sour.

Yes that Bobbled Snap loss was devastating. Yes it probably ruined the next week or two of my life.

But you know what? When the Cowboys actually do put something nice together, when they are able to finally come through and win another Super Bowl (god forbid I'm sure most of you are saying but I'm over it), the die-hard fan will be able to reach a level of euphoria completely inaccessible to the casual fan.

The aggregation of all the horrible times and let downs will be completely erased by a feeling of joy 10 times as strong.

Now granted I'm only 24, and I have a lot of life experience ahead of me, but right now I would liken a Cowboys Super Bowl Victory, and the level of euphoria that would accompany it, to be so great that only the day of my engagement, wedding, birth of any of my children, and the revelation that 2pac was really alive would surpass it.

The thing is, all of those other activities are once-in-a-lifetime experiences. Conversely, I have the potential to reach that level of joy by following my favorite sports team every single year of my life.

I would compare it to a horror movie. The only way to truly be scared by a horror movie is to go into a room, turn off all the lights, make sure its going to be quiet and fully emotionally invest yourself in the film. That's when the scares and deaths and everything else that make horror movies scary truly becomes effective.

However, even if you are watching the scariest movie ever made, if you are watching it in the middle of the day in a brightly lit room only half paying attention and talking to your friends the whole time, more than likely any scare the director does try to pull off will come off as cheesy and forced.

It is precisely this dichotomy that exists between the "fan" and the "fanatic": the fan who refuses to fully emotionally invest himself into the fate of a team will not be as bothered when that team doesn't live up to expectations.

However, they will be completely unable to truly tap into the immense joy that does develop when one's favorite team actually does come through, a level of joy that is only surpassed by once-in-a-lifetime experiences.

So to all those "casual" fans who roll their eyes at crazy guy who takes a game too seriously. Just know that the fanatic has a chance at a life-changing experience 2-3 times a year depending on how many favorite teams they have, and that makes all the despair and disappointment more than worth it.

I also have a message to the very athletes of our undying adulation, who scoff incredulously at the thousands of people pounding beers, swearing and yelling and wearing their jerseys all around the city.

To the snarky head coaches who barely deign to answer inquiries about fantasy football or fantasy baseball, refusing to admit the relative importance of that aspect to their very livelihoods.

To the next superstar who messes up, refuses to try, or doesn't show up prepared or motivated to a contest and then responds to the choruses of boos and curses with "Those fanatics need to get a life."

I have a message to all of the athletes who seem to think their ability to get paid millions upon millions of dollars to roll out of bed every morning and play a game for a living would exist in a vacuum without the support and attention of the very same beer-drinking crazies that they regard with scorn whenever things go bad.

We all already have lives. Us regular folk occasionally have to worry about things like the ability to pay bills, losing our jobs and/or homes, and an ever-dwindling supply of disposable income. Yet sports is the vehicle which the sports fanatic utilizes to distract him/her from the worries and activities of day to day life.

Sports is the liberating emotional release from the monotonous psychological rut our regular, non-superstar-athlete professions threaten to entrap us in every week.

We turn to sports with such vehemence not because we don't have lives, but rather because for the most part our daily lives don't provide us with the emotional peaks that Jimmy V told us were so essential to truly enjoying life.

So we turn to sports both as a distraction and as a vehicle of hope, hope that we can experience a level of joy that would be otherwise inaccessible in every day life.

Whether that is watching your team beat a rival, or pulling out a close victory in fantasy football, sports provides a level of drama to life that would be otherwise non- existent.

That is why, despite the aforementioned ever-dwindling supply of discretionary income, families making $50K a year still decide to use some of that cash flow to patronize sporting events throughout the country, to purchase memorabilia of their favorite players, and to buy sporting packages on satellite TV.

All of these activities directly fund the extravagant salaries of athletes who nowadays seem to think their salaries are harvested from a money-tree the owner has growing behind his mansion.

It blows me away how, at the end of every half and every NBA game, one superstar player after another ignores row after row of clamouring fan reaching down from the bleachers for something as simple as a high five.

Now I know the NBA game is exhausting, but I have to believe that the enlightened NBA player could spare the energy to simply extend his arm above his head for 20 seconds to give high fives to the very fans that allow him to drive around in Bentley's and live in mansions just for rolling out of bed and getting paid to do an activity that most of us around the country do for either exercise or pure enjoyment. It's honestly ridiculous.

Mike Shanahan was one of the most ridiculous characters when it came to fantasy football. Never did I see a coach who so staunchly refused to appreciate the significance of fantasy to the NFL.

I can unequivocally tell you that I (and I'm sure thousands, maybe millions of others) would have not tuned into a single Broncos game last year had I not had Brandon Marshall and Tony Scheffler on my fantasy team.

And the less people tuning in to watch your Broncos, the less valuable that advertising space, so crucial to the success of the NFL, becomes.

If I was an NFL GM, I would be doing everything possible that wouldn't compromise the competitive integrity of the game to spur as much interest in fantasy football as possible.

But NBA superstars still refuse to acknowledge the sources of their income screaming for high fives every night. NFL coaches and players still seem to dodge or shrug off questions regarding fantasy football, even though it pulls in fans that would otherwise be completely disengaged from that team.

And all groups above can write off their behavior by simply stating to themselves, "Anybody who would get that bent out of shape by my behavior needs to get a life."

Well, that's the thing. We all have lives that largely rob us of the joy we fanatics experience following our favorite teams. We choose to give you our money/attention solely because we need a distraction from life.

And that is the reason the drunk fat dude in the 12th row is yelling all of those deplorable things about your mother when you jump offsides for the 3rd time on a crucial drive in a game (cough Flozell Adams cough).

That is the reason that Barack Obama should have less of a personal guard in Philadelphia than Terrell Owens. That is the reason countless people throughout the countries spend large amounts of their free time screaming at television sets and yanking their hair out in frustration.

So to those athletes who still refuse to acknowledge this fact, I implore you, recognize that it is not us who needs to get a life, but you who needs to recognize that we give you YOUR life, and that should be worth a measly high five, or two minutes out of an interview to talk fantasy football ramifications.

Because sports is the vehicle which allows the true fanatic to experience the emotional peaks and valleys that are so undeniably crucial to truly experiencing everything life has to offer.

So to all you fanatics out there agonizing over schedules that don't start for another four months. To all of you who need a little more extra time to get to sleep when your favorite team loses to a rival.

To all of you who feel the need to paint your face silver and adorn yourself with spiked-skull shoulder pads, I want to let you know one thing:

I get it.

To the rest of you who simply can't seem to understand how another human being could have so much emotional capital invested in the plight of a sports team they never have nor will play for, I would point at that in the case of sports, the "fanatic" should be an enviable position, not an object of scorn and ridicule.

Otherwise, I hope you have found some other channel with which to move your emotions just as greatly and as equally, and have found something as great as sports that allows you to truly experience the full emotional spectrum this life has to offer.

I know Jimmy V would have wanted it that way.

Lee Evans Vs. Dwayne Bowe: Which WR Benefits Most From Offseason Acquisitions?

Mike Carley — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 15:26:22 -0400

As any avid fan will testify, football is absolutely the ultimate team sport. In no other athletic endeavor does one man's success depend so heavily on the success of 10 others.

You can be the best wide receiver in the league. But if the quarterback/center mess up the exchange, or the offensive line makes a protection error, or if the running back doesn't pickup the blitz correctly, or the quarterback flat-out sails the ball on you, all the talent in the world will not yield results of any merit whatsoever.

This synergy is what makes football so unique, with either far-reaching success or abject failure, depending on the ability of those 11 players to create an output far greater than the simple sum of their parts.

This synergy would explain why a Cowboys team with 14 Pro Bowlers didn't make the playoffs, and an Atlanta team with a rookie quarterback and nowhere near the star power out of an equally-competitive division did.

GMs and owners around the league would do well to keep this in mind, because the art of adding and subtracting players has far more extended and complicated consequences than a simple addition or subtraction of that player's aggregate statistical production.

Every player you add to the offense/defense will affect every other player on that side of the ball, and it is precisely this factor that is so interesting when examining the two biggest marquee player movements in the 2009 NFL offseason.

A Kansas City Chiefs team finally solved its rampant musical chairs problem at the quarterback position by acquiring Matt Cassel from the Patriots.

The Buffalo Bills' offense went from stagnant to multi-faceted and promising with the addition of talented-but-bellicose WR Terrell Owens.

However, these two teams have something else in common besides the fact that both decided to break out the checkbook for some serious star power.

Both teams are homes to two of the brightest and most promising young wide receivers in the league in Dwayne Bowe and Lee Evans. True, Evans has been in the league a little longer than Dwayne, but Evans' complete lack of a quarterback and offensive line for the vast majority of his early career would put him on the same level as the third-year receiver from Kansas City.

Both receivers are young with dazzling natural talents. Both receivers have made spectacular plays, posted big games, and caught the attention of fantasy nerds and casual fans alike.

Both receivers have recently received radical upgrades in key positions that look to imbue their respective offenses with flashes of both competency and entertainment that have largely been absent in both franchises for the last few seasons.

However, the question remains: Which marquee acquisition will have the most palpable (and promising) effect on these two young up-and-coming superstars? To understand this effect, one must first examine the relative strengths and weaknesses of each receiver to fully understand the ramifications that these huge acquisitions will have on their overall production.

All concrete data is provided by Scouts, Inc., courtesy of ESPN's Insider Web site.

Lee Evans is a small yet incredibly athletic wide receiver. At 5-foot-10-inches and 197 lbs., Evans uses his burst off the line and has exceptional quickness to beat coverage off the line. He also uses this speed to effectively stretch deep zone coverage.

Evans also is an excellent route runner who has picked up the nuances of setting up the corners with his body before making his break. That, combined with his excellent quickness, grant him the ability to really create gaps in coverage. Lastly, his ability to track the ball on deep patterns and make the necessary adjustments to catch the ball away from his body make him a phenomenal deep threat.

Even in spite of his ridiculously inconsistent quarterback play, Evans has managed to post an average of 58 catches per year, with an average of 16 YPC. To put that in perspective, 16 YPC in 2008 would have been good for 11th overall in the league.

However, Evans' slight build sometimes leads to problems blocking in the run game, as well as leaving some room for improvement in his run-after-the-catch ability.

According to Scouts Inc., the two things that are preventing Evans from becoming a "Top 15 WR in the League" are a well-balanced offense and consistent quarterback play for an entire season.

Enter Terrell Owens. It becomes quite apparent from cursory visual inspection that Owens and Evans look to be perfect complements of one another. Evans is the smaller, quicker deep ball receiver that can break ankles on deep routes and really separate from coverage, with reliable hands to boot.

Owens is the huge, physical presence that Evans can never become, able to beat cornerbacks in the run game as well as turn a five-yard slant into three broken tackles and a touchdown.

The fact that teams like to take T.O. out of the game by bracketing him with a corner on the line and a deep safety should leave Evans with plenty of single coverage deep. Evans can then capitalize on his quickness and route running to get loose deep up the sideline before the middle of the field safety can rotate over.

Combine that with a solid running game fueled by Marshawn Lynch, and Trent Edwards has a plethora of short-, medium-, and long-range options to really get this offense cracking.

However, let's quickly re-examine the two things Scouts Inc. dictated were necessary for Evans to realize his potential. T.O. can make enormous positive contributions to both of those areas. However, he could very easily detract from both of those factors as well.

If you haven't experienced the media maelstrom that occurs every time T.O. has less than four catches and/or 50 yards in a game, pay attention to the first time this happens in Buffalo. The speculation about T.O.'s happiness/rapport with Trent Edwards will start, and who knows if the young rookie will be able to handle the constant questioning and pressure? Hence, consistent quarterback play is thereby endangered.

And who's to say that, in order to avoid such confrontations and issues, Edwards doesn't go out of his way to force T.O. the ball in situations where other players are open? Both Tony Romo and Donovan McNabb were accused of zeroing in on T.O. unnecessarily just to keep him happy, and if Edwards does the same, it could seriously endanger the "well-balanced offense" Evans needs to break out.

Therefore, while T.O. seems to be the perfect complement to Lee Evans, and looks to pull more coverage over to his side of the field, thereby allowing Evans to play to his strengths, the possible negative externalities T.O. brings with him to the locker room could do as much to hamper Evans' development as his wonderfully complementary talent would do to boost it.

Now, let's examine the natural talent Dwayne Bowe brings to the field, and how/if Matt Cassel's abilities will boost Bowe's production and effectiveness.

At 6-foot-2-inches and 221 lbs., Dwayne Bowe is a much different receiver than Lee Evans. Bowe, whose speed is referred to as "deceptive" (an underhanded compliment if I've ever heard one), is much larger and stronger, and uses his size and body position to shield smaller defenders from the ball.

However, despite not being as fast as Evans, Bowe is renowned for his phenomenal quickness and agility for his size, especially at the top of the stems of his routes (quick definition: the "stem" of a route is the portion of the route the wide receiver runs straight up the field before he makes his break.) What that means is that he doesn't need to blow past the corner with his straight line speed to get open.

Keep in mind that no matter how good the cornerback is, he is always in a reactionary mode, and will always be half a second behind the wide receiver, who knows what he is going to do from the get go.

Therefore with Bowe, even if the cornerback is step-for-step with him on the initial stem on the route, Bowe is able to break on the post/corner/out so quickly that by the time the corner realizes he isn't running a streak, Bowe is already out of his break with enough separation from the corner to give the quarterback enough of the window to get the ball to him.

Also, Bowe is an extremely physical wide receiver, who uses his size to power through press coverage. He has also understands how to leverage his size advantage over smaller corners, and frequently is able to increase this advantage with his ability to catch the ball away from his body.

Combine those factors with his phenomenal sideline awareness and his ability to track the the ball on the fade, and Bowe is the ultimate red zone jump ball target.

According to Scouts, the two main things Bowe needs to improve to take that next step are his ability to convert patterns in disguised coverage and expanding and improving his route-running ability.

In the NFL, wide receivers are frequently given two to three different routes to run on the same play, and decide which route they have to run mid-play by reading the rotation of the defense. An easy example would be the tight end "bender" route in a Cover 2 vs. a Cover 3.

In a Cover 2, the two deep safeties each expand towards the sideline, leaving the middle of the field wide open. In this case, the tight end would bend the route slightly, like a shallow post, to place himself perfectly in the gap between the two deep-and-wide safeties for a reception.

In a Cover 3, the two deep safeties screw down into the middle of the field so one safety is playing 5-10 yards directly behind the other safety. Therefore, if the tight end decided to bend the route into the middle of the field, he would bend right into the coverage zones of the two safeties.

He would then eliminate the bend in the route and continue directly vertical up the seam, gradually expanding away from the middle of the field to hopefully run past the two middle safeties (because only one has deep responsibilities) to get open over the top, an area that wouldn't be open if the safeties were dropping into a Cover 2 zone.

Now keep in mind it is easy to see where the safeties line up before the play is run and make an initial read of what coverage it looks like they will play, but that's the thing about the NFL. Almost never do NFL defensive coordinators line up initially in the defense they are actually going to run.

They will line up their safeties over each other Cover 3-style, but on the snap of the ball both safeties will bolt towards the sidelines because they are actually playing Cover 2.

If a lazy tight end was running the "bender" route, and just assumed the safeties were playing Cover 2 based on his pre-snap read, he would naturally try to bend the route into a post at the top of his stem when he should have kept straight, thereby sending him out of the open area of the field and right into the coverage zone of the two safeties in the middle of the field.

It is a very difficult thing to for a young wide receiver. Not only is a receiver trying to remember what route he has while running the route, he is supposed to be avoiding bumps in the coverage, running a route full speed, and on top of all that trying to read the rotations of the safeties to determine which of the three assigned routes he needs to run based on how the defense rotates.

Keep in mind the window a receiver has to make this determination, considering on routes like curls, comebacks, and deep outs, the quarterback needs to throw the ball before the receiver even makes his break.

Therefore, if a wide receiver runs a streak when in actuality if he read the coverage correctly he was supposed to run a comeback, the quarterback has already got rid of the ball before he realizes the receiver didn't make the correct in-play read of the defense and ran the wrong route.

Those are the interceptions you see where it looks like the quarterback is literally throwing the ball directly to the cornerback while the wide receiver cruises up the sidelines, completely oblivious that the ball has been thrown.

This is precisely what Dwayne Bowe struggles with when they say he needs to improve his route-running ability against disguised coverage, and this is precisely where Matt Cassel's experience and knowledge of the game can really be useful.

Cassel spent four years on the bench at Tom Brady/Bill Belichick University (a term I have gladly borrowed from one of my favorite sports writers, Bill Simmons). While his actual game time experience was minimal, his knowledge of the game and ability to read defense should be unsurpassed when learning from the offensive juggernauts that have led the Pats to three Super Bowls this decade.

That is knowledge Cassel can pass on to Bowe directly, giving him little tips and tricks he has learned along the way to help Bowe recognize coverage mid-route more quickly and accurately.

Cassel also displayed his accuracy as a quarterback last year (even if you disagree with that, I don't think numbers go high enough to express how many times more accurate Cassel is than Tyler Thigpen).

If Bowe needs to improve his route running, that means that he is initially creating separation from the cornerback with his quickness, but isn't getting out of his breaks as cleanly as he could be, giving the cornerback a larger time frame to react, realizing what route he is running, and using his make-up speed to close the distance and break up the pass.

Also, this implies that even if Bowe does have a step on the corner, there is a very small and limited window for the quarterback to fit the ball in, as an inaccurate throw will either be way out in front of the receiver, or behind the receiver, allowing the trailing defender to either pick the ball off or at least get a hand on it.

By bringing his dramatically-improved accuracy to this team, Cassel has the natural tools to really mitigate that weakness of Bowe's as well. He has the accuracy that Thigpen lacked to fit the ball into a tight spot, which should lead to more completions over the middle for Bowe.

And until Bowe improves his route running a bit more, the windows over the middle will continue to be tight, and pairing a young Dwayne Bowe with a supremely accurate quarterback will do wonders to boost his productivity and effectiveness this year.

So, who comes out on top? Which of these young wide receivers look to break out and take the league by storm?

To recap, while Owens provides a perfect complement to Evans, the baggage he brings could cause problems for Edwards. Cassel brings experience and accuracy that will directly augment Bowe's production by mollifying and hopefully improving the two glaring weakness in Bowe's game, but he could turn out to be a one-year wonder without the accuracy or power displayed in New England.

However, for the purposes of this article, I will assume he will bring similar production from New England to Kansas City, and, if that is the case, Cassel brings tons of tools to help Bowe, with none to hold him back. Unfortunately, that can't be said for their contemporaries up in Buffalo.

Look for Bowe to have an outstanding year and make his first Pro Bowl. I can also predict great things for Lee Evans in Buffalo. But, at least for this year, it remains to be seen whether the T.O. Show will help or hurt this brilliant developing young talent.

I believe I have covered everything I wanted to cover in this analysis, brought up every relevant argument and refutation that I could muster. However, after the copious amounts of research, typing, and analysis I poured into this article, no matter how hard I try, there remains one smoldering ember of a question that I can't seem to extinguish.

Is it September yet?

I'd Never Thought I'd Say It, but Good Riddance Terrell Owens

Mike Carley — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 16:17:23 -0400

I am terrified to write this article. Make no mistake. Every essence of my being is quivering in terror and anticipation for the deluge of "I TOLD YOU SO"'s that this article is inviting into my life.

I expect to be torn down by friends, family, strangers, animals, and many types of fungi alike. However, it needs to be said.

Despite my copious amounts of chest-thumping and soap-boxing, defending T.O.'s antics against media and fan speculation alike for 3 years with the fervor to match any 20th century dictator that comes to mind, I can now finally see the forest through the trees.

I can now bring myself to view the situation with at least a modicum of objectivity and rationality. I can now finally bring myself to say it.

Good riddance, TO.

This is coming from a tortured fan who vividly remembers Clint Stoerner noodle-arming wobblers 30 yards down the field to Rocket Ismail. This is coming from the same bemoaned supporter who watched Quincy Carter try to run the option...in the NFL...with Troy Hambrick.

Drew Bledsoe to Keyshawn Johnson.

Jason Garrett to David LaFluer.

Chad Hutchinson/Drew Henson/RYAN LEAF to Antonio Bryant.

These are the quarterback/WR tandems Cowboys fans have had to suffer through since their last playoff win 12 years ago. The reason I felt the need to dredge up all of these terrible memories (believe me it wasn't easy, I am still hyperventilating into a paper bag as we speak) was to elucidate just how ridiculous it is for a Cowboys fan to utter the words "Good Riddance" to a talent like Terrell Owens.

The only other "marquee" receiver the Dallas Cowboys have had since Michael Irvin has been Joey Galloway.

I'll let that sink in for a second.

I watched Jerry Jones give up not one, but TWO first round picks for Joey Galloway in 2000. Terrell Owens scored more touchdowns (13) in his first season with the Cowboys than Joey Galloway (12) did in his entire four-year career with the team.

That beautiful dichotomy encompasses the precise reason why I am still in utter disbelief as the words flow from my fingertips.

Good riddance to Terrell Owens, the only WR to have 1,000 yards and 10+ TD's for the last three years.

The man who is firmly sandwiched between the likes of Cris Carter, Jerry Rice, and Tim Brown in virtually every statistical category (not even going to attempt the "push over" sarcasm again I don't feel like having my house burned down by readers who take everything too literally and think I would actually call Jerry Rice a push over).

Anybody can see the effect T.O. has on the field, and nobody can argue that, without his production, the Cowboys would absolutely not have had the past regular season successes that they did.

I would liken the term "regular season to success" to such other blindly optimistic terms as "tallest midget" or "smartest pre-schooler," yet I digress.

After T.O.'s release, I was completely torn. You can't just find 1,000 yards and 10 TD's a year in the NFL. You just don't fill that void with the likes of Miles Austin and Patrick Crayton and Sam Hurd.

However, all it took was the first "T.O." sighting in Buffalo to snap this whole issue into unprecedented and brilliant clarity.

I saw T.O.'s name scrolling along ESPN's bottom line, and, for the first time in three years, I didn't have an aneurysm. My stomach didn't turn over.

My fists didn't clinch in anticipation of some ridiculous accusation or parable detailing Terrell Owens' moral bankruptcy (I felt the need to channel some of the hyperbole usually reserved for the mainstream media breaching this topic).

It was that moment of realization that allowed me to finally take a step back and quantify the subtly oppressive atmosphere that T.O. brings to any club house or locker room.

When T.O. got to Buffalo, it wasn't a second year player in James Hardy respectfully relinquishing his number to one of the greatest wide receivers ever to play the game.

Instead, it was T.O. coming into a brand new clubhouse and "stealing" or "demanding" the number from poor little James.

How many players in the league do you think skipped the first voluntary work out of the off season conditioning program? In that same vein, how many players in the league need an offseason conditioning program less than Terrell Owens?

Yet, I've heard as much about this missed work out as I did the A-Roid scandal, Spygate, and Victory in Japan Day combined.

I greatly underestimated how consistently oppressive such unrelenting negative coverage is to a team's fan base, and I'm sure 49ers fans and Eagles fans will agree with me.

Yes, I will lower my defenses long enough to agree with Eagles fans on this one thing.

I'd like to add the one caveat that, while T.O.'s past experience has made him an easy target (which is no one's fault but his own), one must acknowledge the amount of speculation in these stories are absurd.

I guarantee not one member of the media witnessed the exchange between James Hardy and Terrell Owens over the No. 81. True T.O. did give a smug quote proclaiming 81 as "his number," but that sheds absolutely no light on how delicately T.O. actually handled that exchange.

But that is precisely the point. Despite the fact that not one member of the media was in the Bills locker room to witness that exchange, that didn't stop a plethora of "T.O. bullies No. 81 out of James Hardy" stories from the media.

Regardless of what T.O. actually does, his horrible history with team chemistry has made him such an easy target that any lazy journalist can turn even the most asinine action by the mercurial receiver into any sensationalistic "T.O. Is Tearing The Team Apart" story he pleases.

On the field, Terrell Owens is a fantastic and one-of-a-kind talent that should be applauded and respect.

Off the field, T.O. is a self-perpetuating engine of negativity that gradually poisons any light-hearted locker room by suppressing any good stories that might arise with a maelstrom of negative coverage that he has absolutely invited and warranted regardless of how he is actually behaving.

It is a confirmed fact that, after the game in which Tony Romo had his chin split open, he pulled over (in the rain I believe but I could be making that up) to help an elderly couple change a tire.

That should have been a national story in a time where most modern day athletes would refuse to change their own tire, let alone a stranger's.

However, it is a lot easier to write about how T.O. flipped out on the sideline, or about how he only caught three passes and if it happens again he is going to explode, than it is to write a human interest piece on Tony Romo. It's just a fact.

That is why, after over a decade without a playoff win, after countless disappointing seasons and miserable shortcomings, after bobbled snaps and playoff losses to division rivals, I can look at a on-of-a-kind talent like Terrell Owens and finally be able to utter the words...

Good Riddance.

Why Duke-UNC Basketball Is the Greatest Rivalry in All of Sports

Mike Carley — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 01:24:00 -0500

Allow me to channel my inner 10th grader and begin this article as such: Webster’s Dictionary defines a rivalry as a “competitive or antagonistic state or condition.” Doesn’t sound like exactly the most appealing “state or condition” to find oneself in does it?

An “antagonistic state” in a relationship would illustrate a situation where your significant other hurls projectiles at your head every time you gingerly cross the threshold.

Such a state in international politics would illustrate a condition of either constant or constantly impending warfare.

Such a state in Xbox Live would be the Madden player with vast amounts football knowledge and skill being beaten by a mongoloid who plays with the best team in the game and finds one unstoppable play out of 5 WRs set and runs on-the-ball offense all game and invariable ends up in 4th and inches every series and gets it every time and makes me want to run towards the nearest living thing and extinguish its life force.

Regardless, if we are to accept the above definition, a “rivalry” seems like a rather unpleasant and avoidable endeavor whose very existence should invoke misery and lamentation.

However, like with so many other things, sports has become the filter that makes the ordinarily unacceptable acceptable, allowing us to indulge in the raw and unbridled human emotions that would usually be repugnant or even socially prohibited in every day life.

Sports allow us to “hate” without truly hating.

Let’s take a step back and examine just how significant that accomplishment truly is. Cowboys fans say the “hate” Redskins fans. Yankees fans say they “hate” Red Sox fans. But is this truly hate?

Agamemnon hated Paris and the Trojans. Jewish people hated Hitler and the Nazis. Michael Scott hated Toby Flenderson. THAT is true hate.

We call the feelings between rival sports teams and fans “hate,” but in reality it is at most a brittle façade of that powerful emotion.

As a Dodger fan, do I “hate” seeing Giants fans in Chavez Ravine? Do I “hate” the drunk dude in front of me who turns around and screams GO GIANTS in my face every time they do something good? Absolutely.

Would I knowingly choose to not save the life of a Giants fan in a fire if I had the chance? Would I seriously take joy in seeing gruesome bodily harm come to another human being just because they cheered for a different team? Absolutely not.

Therein lies the rub. Rivalries in sports allow us to indulge in the guilty and primal feelings of what we could call “hate” and “rage” without truly surrendering oneself to such unpleasant and bellicose states of mind that would be ordinarily unacceptable or flat out deplorable in all other theaters of life.

This is why rivalries are so celebrated in sports, because they lend us emotional peaks and valleys that would be unreachable watching a regular matchup.

Dodgers-Giants is more fun to watch for anybody than Dodgers-Royals. Vikings-Bears is more fun to watch for anybody than Vikings-Jets. Lakers-Celtics has such a broader national appeal than Lakers-Magic.

Amazingly, rivalries make people excited about teams they ordinarily wouldn’t be excited about. Doesn’t sound very unpleasant to me.

Rivalries in any sport rise and fall according to constantly fluctuating talent levels between teams (i.e. Lakers-Kings was an AWESOME rivalry for 3-4 years at the turn of the millennia, but by no means would you consider it a “historic” rivalry).

However, there are a few select rivalries that have withstood the test of time, a few select teams that have been electrifying fan bases and polarizing cities for as long as professional sports has existed.

I would pose that there are three essential components that make any rivalry great:

1. Historical Context: how long has this rivalry been played? How long have these teams/fan bases “hated” each other?

2. Competitive Balance: the Harlem Globetrotters have been playing the Washington Generals for almost a century. The Generals have won exactly once. I wouldn’t call that a rivalry.

Not only is the split between teams important, but one must take into account how well they perform against the rest of the league they are in. Considering both factors would determine how “important” each rivalry game is. Nobody cares about Bengals-Browns if they are both 1-12 every time they face each other.

3. Localized Intensity Translating to National Appeal: I highly anticipate getting blasted on the comments board by die hard fans of one team or another due to this exact fact. Tons of rivalries are beyond intense where the rivalry takes place, but really don’t translate to broad national appeal.

I live in Las Vegas. UNLV and BYU fans HATE each other. I highly doubt anybody in New York is updating the UNLV-BYU conference championship game every two minutes on espn.com. If non-fans of either team living 2,000 miles away will go out of their way to either turn on the game or check the score, then you truly have a great rivalry.

Judging by the above criteria, I will argue that the greatest rivalry in all of sports is unequivocally Duke-UNC men’s college basketball. But before we examine why, let’s break down the other historically significant rivalries in professional sports to see where/why they fall short of the legend that is Duke-UNC.

LAKERS-CELTICS – Historical Context

In the 80’s, this was one of the most amazing rivalries in all of sports. It put the NBA on the national stage in a way it had never been before. It has the star power, the competitive balance, and had phenomenal national appeal. But the NBA has been around a lot long than 10 years.

Aside from that period (and a yet-to-be-seen-but-very-possible resurgence in the next few years), it was basically Bill Russell rampaging through the league eating up championships like Sour Patch Kids, or Shaq and Kobe strangling the life out of the entire league while making the Eastern Conference 100% irrelevant for a 3 year period with the Celts wallowing in the draft lottery.

I cannot deny that this is the best rivalry in the NBA between unarguably 2 of the 3 most marquee teams in the league. However, very rarely in the history of these storied franchises have they both been championship contenders in the same year, and that is the problem.

YANKEES-RED SOX – Competitive Balance

The past 4 years aside, I think this goes without saying. As a Dodger fan I could talk for hours on how amazing Dodgers-Giants is as a rivalry, with history dating back almost as far as Yankees Red Sox, but this northeastern throw down is unequivocally the greatest rivalry in all of baseball. The hate is palpable between the fan bases. They have been playing this rivalry longer than any other on this list.

However, last few years aside, the Curse of the Bambino casts a pall over an otherwise brilliant rivalry. The Red Sox didn’t win a title for 86 years, and were handed many a post-season defeat by none other than the hated Yankees. Such a long-period of one-sided success really is a black eye for this storied battle.

A different point in the same vein: the very nature of baseball deadens the intensity of this rivalry. While the season-long soap opera in the standings between the two ball clubs is compelling, the teams play against each other like 736 times a year. How intense really is one individual Yankees-Red Sox game? How long do fans in this rivalry have to wait to avenge a backbreaking defeat? Usually only a single day (and if they fail then they get another shot the day after).

Imagine watching one regular season Red Sox Yankees game, when you know they have 4-5 more series’ against each other coming up yet to be played. Now imagine watching one regular season college football match up between Michigan and Ohio State, with a Big Ten title on the line and not another shot to avenge victory for an entire year. The comparison is not even close. This illustration also provides a nice segue into my next discussion.

ALL COLLEGE FOOTBALL RIVALRIES – Local vs. National Appeal

These are the fan bases I was most terrified of when I decided to write this article. College football rivalries are UNQUESTIONABLY more intense than anything on this list. The history of various universities provides the historical context. The feeling of loyalty to one’s school provides the ridiculous fanaticism. The fact that teams will typically only get to play each other ONCE in a 12 month time period lends each chapter in these rivalries a RIDICULOUS level of intensity. A horrid loss will linger and putrefy in the hearts of a fan base for an entire agonizing year before their squad gets another shot to make things right, and that is ridiculously brutal.

However, due to the regionalized nature of football itself, I don’t think college football rivalries gain nearly the national appeal of others on this list. Aside from the few out-of-conference games in a season, teams only play teams inside of the what-I-would-guess-to-be 500 mile radius of their conference.
Teams from the Pac-10 don’t have to cross the Mississippi River for an overwhelming majority of their season.

When Florida played Oklahoma for the national title this season, it is the first time those two teams have played….ever. Two of the most historically significant programs ever, and they had never played once in the 119 years the schools have been contemporaries.

When is the last time somebody living in Utah saw Ohio State play in person?
I grew up in Los Angeles, and I saw North Carolina basketball play, in person, not once but twice (once against USC, once against UCLA). Outside of the Rose Bowl, I really can’t imagine having a chance to see anybody but Pac-10 teams play in person.

Any average fan without satellite TV probably won’t get to see too many other great rivalries outside their conference because all college games are played on the same day.

Chances are if you are watching your team/whatever team they show in the market you live in, you aren’t getting a chance to revel in all the other amazing rivalries in the game. Hardcore LSU fans aren’t going to go out of their way to watch Michigan-OSU if it means missing an LSU you, and because in football all games are played on the same day, unfortunately fans are forced to make choices like that. In sports where games are spread out through the week, fans can take the time to enjoy other compelling match ups outside of their favorite squads on nights that their team isn’t playing. Football doesn’t leave fans with that luxury sometimes.

For that reason, is Michigan-OSU really that much quantifiably better than the Red River Shootout, or Alabama-Auburn, or Florida-Florida State? I bet you would get different answers in Texas, Ohio, and Alabama.

Because of that, I would argue that not one singular rivalry (not even Michigan-OSU) could be named the greatest in all of college football, let alone in all of sports.

COWBOYS-REDSKINS and PACKERS-BEARS – Localized Intensity vs. National Appeal

After much deliberation, I have narrowed the NFL rivalries down to these two as the most significant. However, much of the same points used against the college football rivalries can be re-applied back to the League.

The intensity of each game is unreal because division rivals only get to see each other twice a year.

However, due to the very small number of games, very few non-division rivalries exist. Also, the NFL is arguably the most inaccessible professional sport to go to for the common fan due to the small number of games and ridiculously high comparative ticket prices.

The largest blight on these rivalries, however, is that unless they are featured in Prime Time and/or a motivated individual has the NFL package on DirecTV, any fan in any other market will never get to see these epic battles realized. All NFL games (Prime Time aside) are played on Sunday, making it almost impossible for the average fan in Kansas City to watch his Chiefs play on one day, and get to devote 100% of his attention to enjoying one of these otherwise sterling rivalries the following day.

I love watching the Dallas Cowboys more than anything on Earth. I am a bigger NFL fan than anything. However, the comparative inaccessibility of the NFL game to the average fan really limits the realization of the national appeal that rivalries this intense and storied truly deserve.

ANY HOCKEY RIVALRIES – No Comment

I am not a hockey hater. However, I will admit I know absolutely nothing about hockey. I can appreciate the skills it takes to play but I just can’t get into the NHL. What I do know is this: whatever the greatest rivalry in all of hockey is, if games have to be played outside in the snow on HD to be televised on anything more prime time than OLN, than your sport can’t hold the greatest rivalry in all of sports.

There. Successfully weaseled my way out of talking about the NHL. Always a blessing.

Logically, after discussing why all other rivalries aren’t the greatest in all of sports, its time to examine why the throw down on Tobacco Road is worthy of such an enviable mantle.

DUKE-UNC

College basketball has the perfect structure to allow the intensity in this epic engagement to reach Olympian elevations. The games are spread throughout the week, allowing the average fan access to watch a much greater number of teams than in football, increasing the national appeal.

The teams only play 2-3 times a year, making each individual game absurdly important and intense.

However, Duke-UNC trumps all other rivalries for these reasons:

Historical Context: These two universities have been playing twice a year since January 24th, 1920. The fact that these are two universities instead of professional teams allows this rivalry to become rich with wrinkles and sub-plots unique to the college game, such as the difference in funding (public school vs. private school), the fanatic loyalty of college fans, and the fact that these teams play a paltry 8 miles apart.

Wikipedia starts listing their memorable games and moments in 1968, and has one for seemingly every year until 2007. This hatred has ancient roots indeed (in basketball terms at least; ancient might be excessive with the hyperbole as I sincerely doubt Plato ever but his love for the Tar Heels in his famous epistles).

Competitive Balance: No other rivalry in sports has a competitive balance as equal as Duke and UNC, nor does any rivalry have opponents as consistently dominant against other opponents apart from their arch nemesis. The numbers are staggering.
North Carolina has appeared in 17 Final Fours, Duke in 14. Those numbers are good for, say, 1st and 3rd in all of college basketball.

Carolina has 4 National Championships (4th all time), and Duke has 3 (tied for 5th all time).

In their 89 year history, Duke and Carolina have combined to win an astonishing 79% (!!!) of the regular season ACC titles, and have combined to win 59% of the ACC Tournament Titles.

The dominance these two teams have consistently shown against the rest of college basketball is unprecedented. Take a look at those figures again. The implications are unheard of.

For the entirety of the rivalry’s existence, the outcome of the Duke-UNC match ups have decided the ACC regular season title almost 80% of the time.

The last time these two teams played and were both unranked? 1955.

The battles between these rivals are absurdly competitive as well. North Carolina leads the overall series 129-97. A 30 game lead in a series where 226 games have been played and talent fluctuates as much as in college basketball is nothing. These games include years where one team was ranked and one team wasn’t. Yankees-Red Sox had an 86 year period of one-sided dominance. 30 games on UNC’s behalf is laughable in comparison.

However, in the 65 times the teams have met when both were ranked in the top 25, North Carolina leads the series…..33-32.

No other rivalry is as dominant against other competition, or as consistently well-balanced and competitive between the rivals, as Duke-UNC. Period.

Local Intensity vs. National Appeal: The duality inherent in this rivalry is beautiful when it comes to this point. The teams are freaking 8 miles apart. Nobody outside of that county, let alone that state would care about this rivalry if it wasn’t justifiably epic. Every time these teams play, the games are some of the highest rated college games shown every single season.

The ridiculous amount of star power that has flown into this rivalry in the past 30 years has sent the national appeal of this event skyrocketing.

Michael Jordan. Grant Hill. Sam Perkins. James Worthy. Elton Brand. Vince Carter. Trajan Langdon (trying to see if you are still paying attention…and if you weren’t I’m sure that got your attention. My last attempt at subtle sarcasm in my last article failed miserably so FYI I’m kidding about Trajan Langdon.)

Also, these teams play coast to coast in multiple games in pre-conference play, showcasing their talents to the entire country before they finally slug it out for the first time in the ACC regular season.

It is precisely this aspect that the college football rivalries lack, which is why Duke-UNC has such broader national appeal than any of the college football match ups.

The above reasons should clearly elucidate why the ancient combat waged between these two universities on the hardwood is unequivocally the greatest rivalry in all of sports. No other showdown has as strong and well-balanced mix of history, competitive balance/dominance, and national sweeping appeal that Duke and UNC possess.

Ridiculous.

Thousands of words celebrating the hatred and vitriol of fan bases and cities embattled with one another for centuries. To the ignorant such an act would be deplorable and unthinkable.

But to the die hard sports fan, rivalries are the butter to sport’s bread, the life blood pumping through the otherwise bland schedules of countless accumulations of valiant athletes and warriors, pitting city against city, brother against brother, father against son on a daily basis with absolutely no bloodshed or other negative externalities to speak of.

Composers can have their operas and their symphonies. Artists can have their murals and collages. Bards, scholars and philosophers have for centuries engaged in endeavors and proclivities far less bellicose than reveling in the hate flowing off that hardwood.

Me? I’m fine with my rivalries.

How Jason Garrett Murdered the Dallas Cowboys

Mike Carley — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 19:16:53 -0500

"You don't win games on paper." Anybody who has been associated with any sort of athletic endeavor has had maxims such as this bellowed, preached or commented to them at some point or another.

However, it is this particular aphorism that applies most directly to the travesty that was the 2007-08 Dallas Cowboys.

There is a particular reason "you can't win games on paper" applies to the Dallas Cowboys, and it should be apparent to anybody with eyeballs and a semi-functional frontal cortex.

The level of underachievement, Romo injury aside, of this Cowboys team was historic.

It was unfathomable.

Last year's Cowboys team has to be arguably the most stacked team ever not to make the playoffs. However, they were only the most stacked team on paper.

The elephant in the room now becomes apparent: if the Cowboys looked so good on paper, how did a fully stocked Cowboys offense get blown out of the playoffs 44-6 by a Philadelphia Eagles offense on which every single offensive skill player outside of Brian Westbrook and Donovan McNabb would be a back-up in Dallas?

The "obvious" reasons have been beaten into the ground.

Romo is too reckless with the ball.

Terell Owens is a cancer.

Jerry Jones loves emasculating Wade Phillips in front of the team and the media any chance he gets.

Wade Phillips is the biggest figurehead since Queen Elizabeth II, or that King from Lord of the Rings who looked like he was made out of concrete and had the creepy dude make all the decisions for him.

Sorry, its easy to get carried away on the Wade Phillips subject.

However, while those might be the most obvious explanatory variables, they are also the easiest. Any lazy sports analyst can sit in their recliner and place the blame for an underachieving team on the quarterback (KNEE JERK: "A quarterback gets too much credit for wins, and too much blame for losses. Told you there were a lot of them.)

Any unobservant critic can point to the "cancerous" player with a checkered history and bust out six columns in an hour and a half without the slightest shred of research.

Any somnolent pundit can bluster about the head coach of an underachieving team and march out the same cookie-cutter objections that have been attributed to failing head coaches for decades.

However, Wade Phillips really was only responsible for the defense (Jerry Jones is the head coach; everybody knows that).

The Cowboys' defense ended up ranked eighth overall, was home of the NFL sack-leader in DeMarcus Ware, and after about week four, played solidly for the rest of the year.

Unquestionably, the underachievement of the 2008 Dallas Cowboys was due to an absolutely stacked offense that was run into the ground by a stubborn and hubris-infused offensive coordinator whose unwillingness to change or adapt any of his schemes to the adjustments of the defense wasted possibly one of the most talented offenses ever assembled.

I believe there are three components to any team's (or in this case, offense's) success:

The Roster (aka how the team looked "on paper")—And on paper, the Cowboys offense was absolutely stacked (more on that later).

The Chalkboard (aka the schemes, plays, and adjustments the coaching staff devises to utilize the talents and strengths of their roster)

The Field (aka the synergy of the chalkboard and the roster)— It is also here that relationships between players and coaches also comes into play (aka chemistry), as team chemistry can't be seen in either the media guide or the playbook.

An obvious counter-point to my upcoming argument would be that the Cowboys couldn't figure it out on the offensive end due to a complete lack of team chemistry.

Whether it was TO dividing the locker room, too many egos, lack of leadership from Romo or the head coach, I am not discounting any of it.

However, anybody who has ever been in a locker room knows that the only way to truly understand team chemistry (or lack thereof) is to be part of that team on a day-to-day basis.

Contrary to popular belief, there isn't a comically huge "team chemistry" meter posted in the back of the press room to keep media members constantly updated on the All My Cowboys saga.

Consequently, any discussion regarding matters of disruptive players and team chemistry on my part, while not necessarily irrelevant, would be pure conjecture, as I have regrettably never been employed by the Dallas Cowboys or been within 50 miles of Valley Ranch.

I will therefore not address the topic, and anybody who has a problem with that knows exactly where to stick their objections—in the "comments" section at the end of the article. It's a pretty self-evident tool to use, so I don't think further elaboration is necessary.

So, if the Roster is awesome, and the play on the offensive side of the field is still lacking, the finger needs to point directly at the X's and O's, and in Dallas' case, that buck would stop straight on the top of Jason Garrett's crimson dome.

Allow me to explain.

As stacked as the Cowboys' offense is, it is hard to argue their most explosive weapon is Owens, whose combination of size and speed make him Dallas' most effective game breaker.

Consequently, the "TO Defense" was employed by the Packers for the first time in week three, the sole purpose of which was to completely lock down TO and let the rest of the Cowboys team beat them.

Let me take a second to explain the basic blueprint of this defensive tactic.

The freakish combination of size (6'3", 218), agility, and breakaway speed is what makes TO such a unique talent, and it is why, despite his pugnacious personality, he is No. five all-time in yardage behind pushovers like Cris Carter, Jerry Rice, and Tim Brown.

That combination forces a difficult choice on most defensive backs (a vast majority of which are under 6' tall).

Usually a large wide receiver isn't as agile or as quick as a smaller one, which allows the DB to play the WR off of the line of scrimmage.

That way, if the taller wide receiver is running a go route or a post, the DB has plenty of time to see it coming and get into good position to neutralize the height advantage.

Conversely, if the big wide receiver runs a shorter, underneath route, the smaller, quicker DB playing off will have both the quickness and the angle to undercut the route and break up the play.

With really small but really fast WR's (a la DeSean Jackson), DB's are usually the same size as them, if not bigger.

If a DB plays off of a smaller, speedy WR, they will guard against the go route but will get torched on the quick underneath routes such as slants, ins, quick outs, and curls. That is why it is smartest for a DB to play press coverage on speedy WR's and jam them at the line and throw them off of their route.

Due to the speed of the NFL game, timing on offense is of monumental importance. The quarterback needs to have the ball released in two or three seconds or he is toast.

All it takes is for a DB to get into a WR's chest to throw off the WR for a half of a second, and in most cases that is enough to completely invalidate that WR as a read in plays where the quarterback doesn't break out of the pocket and scramble.

However, this is where TO's physical advantages come into play. He is so big and so strong that DB's in single coverage can't press him or they risk getting tossed off the field of play like a dodge ball and leaving TO wide open in the gap before the safety.

If DB's play off of TO to prevent him from getting past them, TO is quick enough to break off a slant, in, or stop route before the DB has a chance to react.

His ability to run after the catch is also a rarity for somebody his size, and that fact presents yet another dilemma for the DB when playing off of TO.

The way teams overcame this problem allyear was to "bracket" TO. Bracketing entails taking a DB and putting him right on the line in press coverage to bump TO and to guard against any underneath routes. The defense then takes one of its two safeties and plays him directly behind that DB, but 10-15 yards off of the ball.

Ordinarily, if TO breaks the press coverage Romo can hit him right away before the safety can rotate over.

When the safety is in bracket coverage, he is already in position to take over coverage on deep routes (go routes, posts) while the DB who was in press coverage can now jump TO if he breaks off on any shorter or underneath routes.

I watched every minute of every Cowboys game last year. After the Packers utilized it in week 3, (they lost, but TO had just 2 catches for 17 yards) it was the go-to defense for literally every single team they played for the rest of the year. Every. Single. Team.

While the Cowboys had an extremely successful offense game against the Packers (outside of TO), the offense never regained the swagger it had when it hung 41 points on the Eagles in week two.

Say what you want about Romo's decision-making ability, but I am telling you the Cowboys' offensive stagnation came much more from the fact that there was literally nobody open.

It looked like every defense was one step ahead of Jason Garrett every week of the season, and the plays called (a beef mentioned by many Cowboys players) were completely ineffective, leaving Romo with nowhere to go with the ball.

In fact, Garrett's play calling became so predictable, I can tell you exactly what a typical Jason Garrett series would be like:

First down—Incomplete pass

Second down (aka most obvious running down ever)—force Marion Barber on a draw between the tackles for one or two yards

Third down (aka most obvious passing down ever)—Defense usually drops 60 people into coverage, Romo ends up hitting Barber on the check down for four-to-six yards. Time to punt

Every single drive followed that same formula. Never once did I see any crazy trick plays, flea flickers, or anything that would spark the stagnant offense from the monotonous rut it had plummeted into.

The notion that, in the NFL in 2008, you could run the same basic defense against the same team for an entire season, and that defense would be just as effective in week three as it was in week 17, is patently absurd.

Strategically, football is much more a chess game than any other professional sport.

Every coach and team has a basic play book. However, unlike in Madden, you do not run the same 300 plays in the same 300 ways out of the same formations in every single game.

You learn the basic playbook, and then customize a certain group of plays in the playbook to best attack the perceived vulnerabilities of the defensive unit you are facing that week.

Coordinators (should) spend hours upon hours analyzing defensive game film to try and discern the weakness, vulnerabilities, and seams in the defensive schemes.

They then revisit the playbook and take the vast (but still downsized) group of plays that will exploit the weaknesses of the other teams the most.

They then add tons of wrinkles, motions, and new formations, ending up with a specific game plan on how their offense will attack that certain team.

That is why it is absurd that the same defense worked equally as well in week three as it did week 17.

After the same defense is run on you for two-to-three straight weeks, you think you would be poring over game film either figuring out how to get TO out of the bracket, or figuring out how to utilize the multitude of other offensive weapons that now become exposed due to the defenses commitment to TO.

It becomes even more apparent when you examine the effect bracketing one offensive player with two defensive ones does to the remainder of the defense.

There are 11 players on defense. If you take two and put them on TO all game, that leaves you with nine to take on the rest of the offense. Assume that (at least) four will rush the passer, which leaves five linebackers/defensive backs remaining.

Now let's march out the Cowboys in their standard three wide receiver, one running back, one tight end shotgun formation.

There are now five linebackers/DB's remaining to guard four skill players (everybody but TO). That leaves the defense man-to-man on Roy Williams, Patrick Crayton, and Marion Barber/Felix Jones/Tashard Choice, with one deep safety.

The other safety, in order to bracket TO, is already shaded to TO's side of the field. That forces the remaining safety to either choose to shade to the middle of the field, or shade to the sideline at the snap of the ball.

If the safety shades to the sideline, then the middle of the field will be wide open for seams and deep posts, and, wouldn't you know, Dallas has arguably the best tight end in the game to do just that.

If the safety plays the middle of the field, then the entire sideline is open, and, wouldn't you know, Dallas acquired Roy Williams to out-jump and out-run any single coverage that would result from bracketing TO.

If the defense decides to drop a linebacker or two, then the draw up the middle is wide open because everybody is in pass coverage, and, wouldn't you know, the Cowboys have one of the hardest runners in the league to do just that in Marion Barber.

They also have two other game-changing backs in Tashard Choice and Felix Jones. It's a pity Garrett didn't start to utilize Choice until he ran Marion and Felix into injury.

I apologize if the above point was long-winded, but hopefully you will see its veracity. By bracketing TO every play, the defense severely cripples itself to guard all the rest of the players on the field.

Garrett doesn't even have to figure out how to spring TO because he has so many other weapons that the defense is leaving more exposed to go to.

(Aside: The point that Garrett neglected the plethora of other options on offense in order to get TO the ball to keep him happy is another explanatory variable that could be looked to instead of Garrett being too proud to change. However, it would fall firmly in the "team chemistry" argument, and, as I said, I resist the urge to use points such as those because I have no clue what really goes on in the Cowboys locker room).

If the Cowboys didn't have talent at the other positions it would be one thing. But Dallas is probably the most talented offensive team in the league.

Think I'm exaggerating? Let's do a quick run-down of the other offenses in the league that out-performed the Cowboys last year.

I'd like to emphasize this is an on paper comparison, considering every offense I'm about to mention out-performed the Cowboys offense this year statistically in terms of yards-per-game. I am comparing the Cowboys No. 1 WR with Team X's No. 1 WR, the Cowboys No. 1 TE with Team X's No. 1 TE, Patrick Crayton to Team X's No. 3 WR, and so on.

Patriots: Even with Matt Cassel, they out-performed the Cowboys. Bill Belichick is known to be a master of the half time adjustment (insert prerequisite Spygate joke here), which is why he was able to take the 2007 Patriots offense and rampage through the league for 14 weeks until teams finally started to come up with a blueprint before the playoffs.

With Brady, their passing game is just as good, and probably better. But they have no tight ends or running backs as productive as Jason Witten or Marion Barber.

Advantage: Cowboys.

Saints: Tell me Drew Brees wouldn't consider Witten an upgrade over Jeremy Shockey. Tell me Marques Colston and Devery Henderson are as talented a one-two punch as TO and Roy Williams. On paper, there is no comparison. In reality, the Saints scored 101 total points more than the Cowboys—almost a touchdown more per game.

Dolphins: Not sure I really need to say anything here, besides the fact that I think Dallas held on to the wrong assistant coach. The Miami offense seemed to overachieve every game by coming out with a new wrinkle in the Wildcat Offense that kept defensive coordinators on their toes.

Houston: I will admit right now that Andre Johnson is better than any wide receiver on the Cowboys. But Dallas is more talented on paper at every other skill position (Steve Slaton looked great, but he needs to put together another year or two before he's on Barber's level). However, Houston scored as many points as Dallas this year, and out-gained Dallas' offense by 40 yards-per-game.

I think my point here should be evident. So many teams in this league did so much more with so much less than Jason Garrett had it is mind boggling.

The Philadelphia Eagles this year scored more points than any team in Eagles history, even the TO Super Bowl team. You have Donovan McNabb, Brian Westbrook and his duct-taped together body, a promising but rookie wide receiver in DeSean Jackson, and then a corps of wide receivers who wouldn't see the field in Dallas.

Anybody who knows the track record of rookie wide receivers not named Randy Moss can recognize what a superhuman achievement it was to have a record-setting offense in Philly with a rookie wide receiver as McNabb's No. 1 option.

Let's take a closer look at just how putrid Dallas' promising offensive turned out to be.

(All offensive stats I discuss will not include the games Brad Johnson started. As much as I want to, I can't hold Garrett accountable for that. Nobody saw how bad Brad Johnson would be coming. He hadn't played for so long, I guess nobody had taken stock of his talent decline in awhile.

I would liken it to sitting in a weird position and having your foot fall asleep unknowingly, then you have to get up really quickly and unexpectedly and crumple into a pathetic heap because your foot is so asleep it's physically unable to support you.

Brad Johnson was the sleepy foot of the Cowboys offense for three games. It's metaphors like that that have drawn my numerous comparisons to Faulkner.)

The Cowboys went into the year predicted by some to win the Super Bowl. Well, to get to the Super Bowl, you have to beat playoff teams. Against playoff teams this year, after the week three Packers game in which the TO Defense was enacted, the Cowboys scored exactly 15.75 points-per-game.

To put that into perspective, only Cleveland, St. Louis, and Cincinnati had lower points-per-game numbers for the season, and I'm pretty sure you could pump your eight-year-old cousin Jenny up on Red Bull and have her call your plays for you in Madden and still put up more than 15 points-per-game.

That is a number that signifies an offense that is completely ineffective. And that is the production Garrett got out of this stacked Cowboys offense against the very teams he would have to beat to get to the Super Bowl.

Even when you add in the patty-cake games where Dallas ran up the score on teams like the Niners and the Seahawks, the Cowboys still only averaged 22.9 points-per-game with Romo at quarterback.

That is good for a smooth 18th overall ranking, behind such offensive juggernauts as the NY Jets, Flacco-led Baltimore, Minnesota, and (wait for it) Chicago.

I literally had to check the Bears website to see who their leading receiver was for the year—and it was Devin Hester. Captain Hook has better hands than Devin Hester.

My head just exploded.

On paper, the Cowboys offense looked phenomenal. In practice, the Cowboys offense, which could have been one of the greatest ever, ended up sandwiched between Miami and Tampa Bay in the yards-per-game standings.

The underachievement is obvious. Wade Phillips has taken his heat. Romo has been discredited at every turn. TO has been vilified in every form of print and electronic media imaginable.

But for some strange reason, the real puppet master behind this colossal failure has gotten a veritable free pass out of the blame storm.

Jason Garrett took one of the most talented offenses in the league and ran it into the ground after being seemingly one step behind every defense he faced last year.

His steadfast refusal or inability to change or spice up his offensive schemes led to the manifestation of a cookie-cutter defensive scheme that team after team rolled out and that Jason Garrett either couldn't (guilty of ignorance) or wouldn't (guilty of pride) figure out.

By no means am I saying Jason Garrett is the only reason for the Cowboys underachievement.

However, I believe all the other reasons have been beaten into the ground, and that this is one of the main components of the Cowboys failure that for some reason has been given little to no coverage.

So many teams did so much more than Garrett with so much less. Garrett deserved a free pass on this no longer.

Brad Miller, John Salmons: Five Reasons To Love the Bulls' Trade

Mike Carley — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 12:18:28 -0500

The Chicago Bulls finally pulled the trigger before the trading deadline...it just wasn't the eye-popping blockbuster most were expecting from recently maligned GM John Paxson.

However, what this trade lacked in star power, it more than makes up for in substance. Both John Salmons and Brad Miller bring qualities that will synergistically improve the Bulls in ways much greater than the simple aggregation of their per-game statistics to the Bulls' existing roster.

Here are five concrete reasons to love this trade if you are a Bulls fan:

1. Brad Miller

Brad Miller is a veteran big man that will do a lot more to help the Bulls than his current 11.9 PPG and 8.0 RPG would suggest.

Brad Miller has the girth (7'0", 261 lbs) that the current Bulls front line completely lacks (outside of Aaron Gray). However, unlike any other Bulls big man, Brad Miller has a silky offensive game, and a mid-range jumper that will increase the efficiency of the pick-and-rolls Vinny Del Negro likes to run.

Joakim is steadily improving, but with no outside jumper to speak of, it completely eliminates the pick-and-pop option. I can't tell you how many times I've watched Noah's man overplay on the pick-and-roll only to have Noah pop out instead of roll, catch a beautiful feed from Derrick Rose 20 feet from the hoop, and then freeze like a third-grader with stage fright and completely derail the offensive flow of the possession.

Noah is getting better and finally starting to attack the rim, but he still renders the pick-and-roll much more two dimensional than it should be. Miller's ability to either cut to the hoop or pop out and hit the 20-footer will make the already impressive pick-and-roll game with Derrick Rose that much more exciting.

It will also be nice to have a big man that weighs more than an anorexic supermodel to march out against the Shaqs and Dwight Howards of the world.

2. John Salmons

Salmons is a candidate for Most Improved Player of the Year.

This acquisition provides a 6'6" swing man to replace Nocioni's minutes off the bench backing up Deng at small forward. He might not possess the gritty defensive toughness that Nocioni did, but offensively it wouldn't be a stretch to consider Salmons an upgrade.

In 37.4 MPG for the Kings, Salmons is averaging 18.3 PPG and shooting 41.8 percent from beyond the arc. That is bench production that is hard to ignore, and his slashing ability provides a nice change of pace from Deng, whose production largely comes from jump shots. He will also take up the minutes that Thabo Sefalosha has been disappointingly unable to capitalize on, especially on the offensive end.

3. Tyrus Thomas

Tyrus is finally starting to figure it out.

After the first 15 games of the season, I was ready to have an aneurysm every time Tyrus bricked a 20-foot jumper that he had no business taking, and he was doing this three to four times a game for some reason.

However, give Vinny Del Negro credit.

He nipped that problem in the bud, and now has Tyrus attacking the basket every chance he gets instead of settling for a jumper he can get at any point in the shot clock.

Thomas is averaging 17.8 PPG and 10.6 RPG in February. He is combining this fantastic (albeit very recent) offensive development with the fact that his length and athleticism give him the presence of a seven-footer in help defense, and he is finally starting to look like a No. 2 overall pick in the draft.

Tyrus was the centerpiece in any deal that Paxson could have offered for Amar'e Stoudemire. There were even rumors of packaging Thomas in a deal for Chris Kaman or Marcus Camby. After months of rumors it seemed Paxson couldn't make a move for a superstar like Amar'e.

The next best thing is to make a deal that significantly improves the team, while keeping the young starting nucleus intact. By holding on to Tyrus and making this deal with the Kings, Paxson did just that.

Bulls fans everywhere should be breathing a sigh of relief, because I personally can't take trading away another young draft pick a season or two before they become an All-Star.

(Caveat: I'm not saying Tyrus will be an All-Star in two years by any means, but the possibility, however remote, is there. The only thing keeping me sane about the last 10 years of Chicago Bulls basketball is that Tyson Chandler has reverted back to his Chicago Bulls days.)

4. Identity

The most frustrating thing about the Chicago Bulls this year, and a big reason for their underachievement to date, has been a complete lack of team identity.

Were the Bulls an offensive team or a defensive team?

Compare Ben Gordon (incandescent scorer but a liability on defense) to Chicago's young big men like Joakim Noah (great in help defense and on the boards but looks confused with the ball anywhere outside five feet from the hoop).

Derrick Rose and Luol Deng are decent on defense but are definitely offensively oriented. Thabo Sefalosha plays great on the ball defense but has been way too timid on the offensive end and his jumper hasn't been falling all year.

This dichotomy inherent in the Bulls' identity, combined with an inexperienced head coach, has really been holding this team back from realizing its potential. Don't get me wrong, I am by no means intimating that teams shouldn't be well-rounded. However, I believe it is a psychological advantage for a team to be able to go into a game knowing truly where their strengths lie.

When crucial moments come up in games, it helps for a team to be able to feel supremely confident in either their ability to score at will, or their ability to completely lock down the other team.

While neither are defensive liabilities, both Miller and Salmons are definitely our players with strengths skewed towards the offensive end of the game. Their addition will give the Bulls a much more offensively oriented team than they had previously, and I believe that will help immensely in the home stretch.

Knowing that they need to go into every game and outscore everybody will have the offense flowing.

You will see improvement from the first half, in which half the team went in planning to win by scoring and the other half went in planning to win by defense. The Bulls should increase the tempo of their offense, and should be looking to score in the high 90s every night, and I believe that will be beneficial to the Bulls in the long run.

5. 2010

It seems impossible nowadays to write an NBA article and not mention the famed free agent class of 2010.

Brad Miller's $11.3 million will come off the books in two years, and that along with Larry Hughes' $12.8 million should give the Bulls some serious room to make a move at one of the big three free agents in 2010.

Unlike the Knicks, Paxson chose to make a move that will keep the Bulls competitive until 2010 while still leaving them the flexibility to be a major player in the 2010 free agent market.

While the Bulls didn't end up with the dream team of Derrick Rose and Amar'e Stoudemire, Paxson was really able to step up and make a meaningful move that will substantially improve the Bulls for the remainder of this season. Amazingly, Paxson was able to pull off such a move while retaining Tyrus Thomas and keeping the door open for the 2010 free agent market.

I haven't been the biggest Paxson fan of late, but I have to say that if he couldn't land a superstar, a move like this was the next best thing.