Poor Mac Engel, he joins the rest of the herd out in Dallas, those who need to write something about the Drew Henson story that begs for some controversy. I'm still a little stunned by the inability of any of these guys to write the obvious. Parcells often takes shots at the local media that they really don't watch practices; they just meet up and jabber at each other until it's over so they can get quotes from the locker room. Now, I'm beginning to believe him. Maybe it was my own experience out at training camp this year, where I watched every practice in its entirety and took notes on what each player was doing. It changed everything for me; it was easy to see that Romo was much better at running the offense than Henson. I also correctly identified Sam Hurd and Abram Elam as players to watch very early on, the mainstream guys were still writing about Terrell Owens' every move, no matter how insignificant. This brings me to my point, why can't any of these guys write these words: In training camp in Oxnard, Drew Henson didn't look like a very good quarterback. Instead, we get doses of stuff like this:
No, there really is no debate on that. Does anybody really believe that Bill Parcells would actually take a chance on tanking a regular season game just to prove a point? This is absurd. Parcells is the guy who insisted on playing Drew Bledsoe, for the entire game, last year against the Rams when the game meant absolutely nothing because the Cowboys had just been eliminated from the playoffs. This was a perfect opportunity to evaluate Tony Romo in real game conditions, but Parcells wouldn't do it. The thought of losing a game because of experimenting just doesn't occur to him. The Henson game came in the middle of that 2004 season, granted the Cowboys were 3-7 at that point, but mathematically they were still in it. However unlikely, they could've reeled off 5 wins in 6 games, gone 8-8 and possibly made the playoffs. Also, Testaverde was a little nicked up going into that game, so it wasn't a decision out of the blue to start Henson. Does anyone seriously believe Parcells said the season is over, this Henson kid is really bugging me, I'm going to play him in this game so he will fail, but I'm going to keep him on my team for two more years? What kind of logic is that? Is Parcells so powerful that he could accurately orchestrate a situation where Henson starts, plays poorly, but the Cowboys defense keeps them in the game, so he switches to Testaverde to get the win? If that's true, maybe Parcells should have been in The Lord of the Rings playing Gandalf the Grey, Gandalf the White, and Gandalf the Silver and Blue.
Before, I get too far out on a limb here; I'm not a Drew Henson hater. Regular readers of this blog know that I was encouraged by Henson in NFLE, at least I saw that he has some tools. I also thought he may challenge Romo for the #2 spot, before I went to Oxnard. So it's a mystery to me why these guys who watched the same things I did refuse to mention what was on display in those practices. A QB who had spent 3 years with the Cowboys but still couldn't get it done. Maybe Parcells had secretly set it up in those practices for Henson to fail. Let's see if someone writes that over the next few days.
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote an article about how the press was working overtime to manufacture controversy about the Terrell Owens injury. I said that it's really not an issue until the final couple of weeks of the preseason; if Owens still wasn't practicing then, it would become an issue. Well, were not far from that point and things aren't looking good. So I've officially joined the slightly worried crowd. Parcells may be forced to make a decision about his "no practice, no play" rule. I'm guessing he gives him a pass for the first game, wanting to get him out there and see what happens. But if this injury continues on into the early season and keeps him from practicing, depending on the outcome of the games, we'll have our first real opportunity at an Owens/Parcells explosion. The DFW S-T has more on the Owens injury.
Buck Harvey over at the San Antonio Express-News has an intersting take on the whole issue. He posits that not only has Owens tweaked his hamstring, but he's tweaking Parcelss' brain. That's pretty funny.