Dear ESPN, Can We Officially Stop Talking About the Cowboys and Vikings Now?

“It’s time to stop talking about 1-6 and 2-5 teams and instead start talking about 5-2 teams.”

I heard ESPN football analyst Jon Gruden say this right before halftime of tonight’s Texans-Colts game and I couldn’t agree more.

It’s time to stop talking about what’s wrong with the Cowboys and the Vikings and start talking about what’s right with some of the well built teams who actually look like contenders this season, like the Patriots, Giants, Steelers and other successful teams around the league who have actually gotten it done on the field this season.

ESPN needs to stop sensationalizing and devoting so much focus to these two poor performing squads. Neither looks like they have what it takes to be factors this year.

Sure, it was great that all the ESPN analysts and experts paid them so much love and promised such big things for the two in the preseason. But I’m sorry, things just didn’t pan out.  

I understand ESPN is in bed with the Cowboys and loves to give them coverage with reckless abandon. But there’s a point where you just have to say enough is enough. America’s team or not, most NFL fans simply don’t care about them anymore. They’re not even interesting enough to hate at this point.

After Jacksonville ran through, around, and over the Cowboys this past weekend, Jaguars quarterback David Garrard, who looked like Warren Moon against a downtrodden Cowboys defense, was quoted as saying that he thought the Cowboys seemed like they had packed it in for the season and just weren't putting in the effort anymore.

Well, if the Cowboys players don’t care enough to show up and make their game check worth a damn on Sundays, then why should we care enough to talk about them during the week?

Wade Phillips is done, Tony Romo's hurt, Jerry Jones is mad, OK we get it. No need to keep rehashing the same stories.

We as viewers surrender, the white flag is being waved!

The Vikings are a different story. This is a team that was a snap away from the Super Bowl last season and came into the year looking like a contender. Plus, they actually have had some interesting developments worth taking a look at and discussing, even though most of them have centered on negative, off the field issues.

For example, you have whatever it is Brad Childress is doing these days. I wouldn’t go as far as to call it coaching, but it’s definitely something.

There was that fun little Randy Moss experiment that made the Minnesota front office look like simpletons.

There’s the ever impressive Brett Favre soap opera that seems to have more drama than the latest episode of All My Children.

Penises, chins, ankles; I feel like I’ve learned way more than I should about Brett Favre’s body this season.

The season of Hell for Brett could be great fun to watch. It’s the downfall of an overblown, media legend and those are the best kind of meltdowns to watch.

Maybe we could scale things back just a bit, though. Never before have I seen so much coverage and built up faux intrigue concerning whether or not a quarterback for a 2-4 team was going to start a game.

Over the last five years or so, ESPN has redefined the term “going overboard” when it comes to the Brett Favre coverage.

Let’s take a breather for a few weeks and see where we’re at around Week 12. No need for the hourly breaking medical reports to tell us that there’s no new information.

I guess that’s why I love being a college football fan. There, the debate centers around all the good teams. Who’s the best, who should be No. 1, is this team worthy, is this undefeated team really a contender?

The Minnesota Gophers are 1-8 this season, and 90% of football fans around the country couldn’t name one player on the team. Why? Because they’ve had maybe ten seconds worth of coverage the whole year. And that’s exactly the way it should be.

If you don’t get it done on the field, we don’t pay attention.

Nobody is trying to figure out why Notre Dame is sucking this year. Yes, everyone’s aware that they're sucking, but nobody really cares enough to go into detail about it. They don’t matter this season, and if they start to matter again in three years, then hey, we’ll show them some love and attention again.

Florida’s having a particularly off year this season, and you know what? Nobody really cares. It’s rarely discussed outside of SEC country. Tim Tebow’s gone, we kind of figured it would be a bit of a down year for the Gators, so be it. Let’s talk about Auburn and Cameron Newton instead.

In college football, we’re caught up with trying to figure who the best is, and often times I’ll hear pro football fans try and downgrade the sport because of it.

College football gets put down because there's no "true" champion, or because rankings are decided off the field. What the critics don’t understand, though, is that the debating and posturing makes up a good deal of the fun.

It’s fun debating whether Boise State is actually worthy of a National Championship berth, or whether an undefeated Pac-10 team should be valued over a one loss SEC team.

It’s a lot more interesting to me than having to see Wade Phillips’ pudgy face or Brett Favre’s never ending press conferences every five minutes on ESPN.

Who knows, maybe the NFL can take a page from college football and start debating who the best team is in the sport instead of focusing on franchises like the Cowboys and Vikings—two teams that don't look they’re going anywhere quick.