Sorry, folks, but ol' Rabble has been a bit derelict in his duties of late. Last week, he was traveling throughout the beautiful state of Oklahoma, where the Interwebs have yet to extend their tentacles. This week, its the end of the semester, and yours truly has had a lot of grading and other academic what not to slog through, with the primary negative effect being that I don't get much time to do what I really want, which is to write stuff for BTB!
This wouldn't usually bother me much, given that the front page is in the more-than-capable hands of Dave, O.C.C., K.D., Keg and Tom. Where it hurts, however, is in the realm of FanPosts, where I am the sole spokesman for FP excellence. For those of you (and I know its a LOT of you) out there breathlessly awaiting the latest installment of our weekly Rabbies, I have no better recourse than humbly to beg your patience--with the hope that this week's top posts will put you in a forgiving mood!
"Let's see them first," you say? Well, alright! Here we go: as any of you who know me are quite aware, I have been reciting a mantra that I adopted from one of the most respected BTB members, Fan in Thick and Thin. Essentially, it goes like this: close games are a crapshoot, so teams that play close games should expect to hover around .500. Thus, what distinguished a good team is not that it has "heart" and wins close games, but that its good enough to blow out a fair amount of opponents, thus limiting the number of games it can lose due to a bad bounce, questionable penalty or blocked field goal at the buzzer.
This week's first honorable mention, VAFan, speaks to this question. Before the Sunday night contest against the Giants, he wrote that he's "Waiting for the Cowboys to show some dominance," noting that there would be "no better time for that to happen than tomorrow night." Alas, we all know that such a performance was not to be--and perhaps not in 2011. I do think Jason Garrett is on the right track (and will be the Cowboys coach for a decade), but it will be a year or two at this rate until this team is good enough to dominate on a consistent basis. But I do think it will come. I hope so. I really do. Thanks, VA!
More of this week's top FanPosts after the break...
The week following a loss follows a familiar FanPost trajectory, with an initial slew of posts bemoaning the loss and lambasting the particular players or units that are perceived to be at fault for the "W," and, occasionally, skewering the entire Cowboys organization. After Cowboys Nation has had a chance to gather its collective breath, a round of more sober posts emerge, asking that we consider the glass half full.
In the past week, two such posts caught my eye. The first of these, authored by jdg4660, asks us not to jump off the building, because there are rays of sunshine peering out from amidst the storm clouds. Specifically, 4660 commends the fine work of Tony Romo, Mike Jenkins, Sean Lee and Tyron Smith and Laurent Robinson. In a similar vein, I am a Romosexual attempts to shift the topic of conversation to what's working. In addition to the players just named, IAAR asks that we offer kudos to rookie kicker Dan Bailey. In sum, all of these guys not only played well in defeat, but offer hope for what we all (along with VA Fan) hope will be a dominant future. Nice work, fellas!
Amidst these was found another category of objective post, one in which the author acknowledges that this year's team has significant limitations and outlines either what those are or what the team still needs. One of these stood out to me: Docchain's short query asking "What are we missing." In short, he proposes two areas of under-performance: a lack of pressure and an inconsistent (sucky, even) secondary. I know, no surprises there. But bear with me; chain's post gets me to this week's winner...
...the often imitated, never duplicated ChiaCrack. Crack had been filling the FanPost pages of late with a new(ish) "Buildng a Cowboys Draft Board" series, in which he takes a long look at a given position, ascertains its strengths and weaknesses and then offers up some names of collegiate players that we should keep our eyes on come the NFL draft. Thus far, Crack has focused on the positions of need that Docchain articulated in his post: in the first installment, Chia took a gander at cornerback; in the two most recent editions of the series, he has, aptly, looked at 3-4 DE's and 3-4 OLBs.
By now, we all know Chia as a guy who has a lot to offer when it comes to the draft; he knows a lot and is passionate about certain players--but he often right about guys. Who was the first BTBer to champion Tyron Smith when nobody knew about the dude last year? Ummmm...that would be Chia. But what impresses me most about his knowledge is WHEN he has things buttoned down: the dude knows the players--guys who I, a pretty hard core draftnik, won't know until March--by mid-October. As a result, he can turn us on to lesser-known players or interesting athletes from small schools early in the season so we can salivate over their forty times for a full six months. Niiiice.
Wanna know not only what the Cowboys need but WHO they need? Go no further than Crack's latest series. Then join me in congratulating this week's FPOTW winner. Way to be, kid. Way to be.