Cowlishaw on Romo; JJT on the art of Parcells bashing

A couple of the guys at the DMN woke up and decided to write some articles. Nice work if you can get it. I kid. Those guys work hard, I’m sure of it. By the way, has anybody checked in over at the DFW S-T headquarters lately? Is anybody covering the Cowboys over there? Back to the DMN: Tim Cowlishaw writes about – what else – Tony Romo’s contract. That seems to be a trend lately. Usually, I don’t see eye to eye with TV Tim, but this article could’ve come straight from my keyboard.  

If he has a disastrous season – not expected – then the team doesn't have to worry about having made a $50 million investment in a lost cause.

If he has a great season, then the Cowboys run the risk of not having shown faith in Romo this off-season when they had the chance. That will undoubtedly weigh on his mind.

But as evidenced by the contracts of Jason Witten and Roy Williams, just to name two, when you prove yourself as a Pro Bowl player in Dallas, Jones pays you to stay.

That’s seeing it from both sides. Jerry, at this point, just can’t pony up the bucks that Romo probably wants, just because he’s not forced to yet. Romo is a gambler and believes in himself, so he wouldn’t want to settle for a Matt Schaub deal, he wants to get the top money, front-loaded. So go out and have a good season and force Jerry to spring for the big, guaranteed money. He’ll do it.

I found this JJT Q&A slightly comical. Apparently, JJT got called out by some readers over his recent Bill Bashing sessions. So JJT spends the initial part of the Q&A saying he really wasn’t bashing Parcells and giving an earnest effort in defending himself. It’s all pretty funny because what’s the big deal, everybody reading his articles knows he’s taking shots at Parcells, so why doesn’t he just say it. He’s got a lot of hemming and hawing going on about expectations, players in the wrong positions, players playing hurt or getting worn out, pretty much the same charges that have been leveled by some fans and some players. JJT manages them to work them all into one little Q&A session. It’s almost like watching Oliver Stones’ JFK, which threw just about everybody into the mix as Kennedy’s assassin; I think the Girl Scouts were even in his original draft.

But that’s not the problem I have with it, plenty of people believe that Parcells was responsible for what ailed us last year, everyone’s got an opinion. But after deflecting the Parcells bashing accusations for most of the article, he gets asked this:

Q: I never thought Julius Jones was the man for the job, and I always wished we would have taken Stephen Jackson. What is your opinion on the following: would we been better off with Stephen Jackson or was Julius Jones the better man for Dallas.

I would expect either an answer along the lines of - yes, Stephen Jackson would have been the better man for Dallas or yes, Parcells made a mistake in that draft. I think most people agree that Jackson’s future is brighter at this point than Jones’ future. Or he could have said it’s hard to judge yet, because maybe JJ has a big year and Marcus Spears finally comes on strong. Or anything like that. But no, JJT spends all that time saying he doesn’t have it out for Parcells in his previous answers, and then says this:

TAYLOR: I understand your issue with Julius. The problem with your question is that we don't know how Stephen Jackson would've reacted to the mind games Parcells' put on Julius. This is not to say his mind games were right or wrong, but that they existed. Julius didn't handle them well. Who's to say whether Jackson could've handled Parcells? Maybe, he would've felt like a robot, too.

Shocker! Parcells' wicked Jedi mind-tricks might have turned Steven Jackson into a droid, too. It’s all too much. If Jackson had come to Dallas, Parcells’ Jedi mind-tricks would’ve had him out there thinking – these aren’t the droids we’re looking for – instead of thinking this is the hole I’m looking for. We could have brought back the Triplets - in their prime - but those Parcells’ mind-games would’ve had them playing like the 1976 Tampa Bay Bucs. Oh, the humanity!

OK, I’m done now.