The 2009 Dallas Cowboys season could have been a Hollywood script. The talented team that is consumed by high expectations and lofty goals. A celebrity quarterback who has yet to prove himself when it counts. A head coach that is constantly under fire by know-it-all reporters. And a season that quickly turned to turmoil when injuries and drama threatened to tear it all apart.
Now the movie is reaching its climax, where the team faces a win or go home game against a bitter rival, on the road in hostile conditions. No one really expects this team to win and if they do win then that's just delaying the inevitable. But it all hinges on what happens tomorrow afternoon in Philadelphia in what is easily the most important regular season game this team has played in since the 1999 season.
At this point in the formulaic sports film either the coach or star player, usually one that has overcome criticism and adversity to put his team in position to win, gives a heartfelt and cliche filled motivational speech to the rest of the team. It usually starts soft and ends with a roar, includes an "us against the world" outlook and hinges on the belief that this game will be a defining moment in everyone's career. This happens in movies and you wonder how close to reality these speeches really are. We've all seen Tashard Choice's famous speech in college, and there are various coaches that are famous for their pre-game and halftime tirades. But just how "Hollywood" could these speeches get?
So I started imagining what would be the ultimate motivational speech Tony Romo (or Wade Phillips) could give his teammates. What if we took the best speeches from all kinds of movies and rolled them into one, singular Mega Speech.
Follow the jump for what should definitely be said tomorrow before the game against the Eagles.
It all comes down to today, and either, we heal as a team, or we're gonna crumble. Inch by inch, play by play. Until we're finished. We're in hell right now, gentlemen. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something...
We're gonna go inside, we're gonna go outside, inside and outside. We're gonna get 'em on the run boys and once we get 'em on the run we're gonna keep 'em on the run! And then we're gonna go go go go go go and we're not gonna stop til we get across that goalline. This is a team they say is... is good, well I think we're better than them. They can't lick us, so what do you say men? If you put your effort and concentration into playing to your potential, to be the best that you can be, I don't care what the scoreboard says at the end of the game, in my book we're gonna be winners...
Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no! And it ain't over now. 'Cause when the goin' gets tough... the tough get goin'! Who's with me!?!? I would rather fight beside you than any army of thousands! Let no man forget how menacing we are, we are lions! Do you know what's waiting beyond that field? Immortality! Take it! It's yours! Fight and you may die. Run, and you'll live... at least a while...But the enemy? His sense of duty was no less than yours, I deem. You wonder what his name is, where he comes from, and if he really was evil at heart. What lies or threats led him on this long march from home, and would he not rather have stayed there... in peace? War will make corpses of us all. Hold your ground, my brothers! I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of woes and shattered shields, when the age of men comes crashing down! But it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you to stand as the Dallas Cowboys!!
Where's the spirit? Where's the guts, huh? This could be the greatest night of our lives, but you're gonna let it be the worst. Not me! I'm not gonna take this... If we don't come together right now on this hallowed ground, we too will be destroyed, just like they were. I don't care if you like each other of not, but you will respect each other. And maybe... I don't know, maybe we'll learn to play this game like men. Let me tell you somthing: you don't let anyone come between us. Nothing tears us apart. In Greek mythology, the Titans were greater even than the gods. They ruled their universe with absolute power. Well that football field out there, that's our universe. Let's rule it like Titans!
But you find out life's this game of inches, well so is football. Because in either game - life or football - the margin for error is so small. I mean, one half a step too late or too early and you don't quite make it. One half second too slow, too fast and you don't quite catch it. The inches we need are everywhere around us. They're in every break of the game, every minute, every second. On this team we fight for that inch. On this team we tear ourselves and everyone else around us to pieces for that inch. We claw with our fingernails for that inch. Because we know when add up all those inches, that's gonna make the difference between winning and losing! Between living and dying! I'll tell you this, in any fight it's the guy whose willing to die whose gonna win that inch. And I know, if I'm gonna have any life anymore it's because I'm still willing to fight and die for that inch, because that's what living is, the six inches in front of your face. Now I can't make you do it. You've got to look at the guy next to you, look into his eyes. Now I think ya going to see a guy who will go that inch with you. Your gonna see a guy who will sacrifice himself for this team, because he knows when it comes down to it your gonna do the same for him. That's a team, gentlemen, and either, we heal, now, as a team, or we will die as individuals. That's football guys, that's all it is. Now, what are you gonna do?