- HUGGING HAROLD REYNOLDS has audio of Magic Johnson responding to Isiah Thomas (who responded to Magic Johnson’s book).

- AWFUL ANNOUNCING has video of Terry Bradshaw guaranteeing a Steeler win over the Bengals on Sunday. Oops.

- GUYISM has video of a little girl scoring a goal on her own team in a junior soccer league. It is kind of funny.

- SPORTSbyBROOKS wonders if Jerry Jones looks a little tipsy in a recent photo.

- DEADSPIN has more details about ESPN horndoggery.

Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones says that head coach Wade Phillips’ job is safe for the remainder of the season, according to a report by ESPN.com.

This isn’t surprising news. The Cowboys aren’t lighting the world on fire, but they do have a winning record and there’s no reason to make a dramatic coaching change when it isn’t necessary.

That said, Phillips would be naïve to think that his job is safe past 2009. If he doesn’t get the Cowboys to the playoffs, there’s no way Jones is going to keep him around with Bill Cowher, Mike Shanahan and Jon Gruden waiting on the sidelines ready for another opportunity to be head coaches. In fact, just getting to the playoffs might not be enough for Phillips to hold onto his job.

Despite their winning record, the Cowboys are a mess. Jason Garrett’s offense looks like a shell of its former self and Tony Romo has seemingly regressed as a passer. Making matters worse, receiver Roy Williams hasn’t stepped up to fill the void that the team created when it released Terrell Owens this offseason and Marion Barber and Felix Jones can’t stay healthy.

But it isn’t all doom and gloom for Phillips and the Cowboys. The team is on a much-needed bye week and Austin Miles exploded against Kansas City last Sunday. If he can build off that success, he’ll take the pressure off Williams, who doesn’t seem capable of being a No. 1 receiver in this league. Miles has all the physical talent in the world, but had yet to breakout before last week.

This bye week is crucial for Phillips and the Cowboys. If they don’t come out like gangbusters and build some momentum, then chances are they’ll continue to fall further behind the Giants and Eagles in the NFC East. Phillips knows that the next 11 weeks are pivotal to keeping his job.

After his visit to the new Cowboy stadium last Sunday night, Giants’ linebacker Danny Clark wasn’t too impressed by Dallas owner Jerry Jones’ new castle.

From the Los Angeles Times:

Clark told Sirius XM satellite radio that the visiting locker room inside the stadium features few creature comforts.

“There’s not a lot of hot water in there,” Clark said. “[Jones] cut some corners in the bathroom there.”

Clark also was dismissive of the noise factor created by an NFL-record crowd of 105,121.

“It wasn’t as loud as you would think 105,000 people would be,” he said. “And for [good] reason. I mean, we did a decent job of making some plays so they weren’t all over the place, but I played in Michigan [Stadium] where there’s 100,000 people. It wasn’t crazy.

“I played in New Orleans when we reopened the [Super]Dome in 2006 after Hurricane Katrina.

“That place was twice as loud as this new stadium.”

I’m not surprised by the noise. Michigan Stadium may house 100,000 screaming fans, but the noise goes straight up because of the way the stadium was built. So it’s not as loud as one would expect. I’ve never been to the new Cowboy stadium, but maybe the way it’s structured limits the noise.

That said, what Clark said about the bathrooms was freaking hilarious. Hey, Jones had to cut somewhere to get that big ass TV screen in the rafters.

- SPORTS CRACKLE POP has an embarrassing photo of Mark Sanchez from when he was a kid.

- FIVE TOOL TOOL lists five fantasy busts. (For the record, I really like Ray Rice.) The site also has 10 rules for naming your fantasy football team.

- WITH LEATHER reports that Jerry Jones is reluctant to move the giant video screen in his new stadium even though it has been hit by the punter.

While it remains a long shot of happening, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is actually entertaining the idea of bringing back cornerback Adam “Pacman” Jones according to a report by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Jones apparently isn’t concerned about Pacman’s off-field issues and is willing to look past the fact that he could be facing more legal problems stemming from an incident in which three men claimed that he hired a hit man to kill them in 2007. (Although to be fair, police have said that they’re not actively investigating the case even though it remains open, so it would appear that Pacman won’t be charged with anything.)

Even if it’s a long shot that the Cowboys bring back Pacman, it’s baffling that Jones is even considering it. Outside of the potential headache that Pacman is off field, the Cowboys have a couple of young corners in Mike Jenkins and Orlando Scandrick that they’re trying to develop. If Pacman were re-signed, Dallas essentially risks stunting the growth of those two players and for what? To have Pacman play until he gets into trouble?

I thought Jones and the Cowboys were trying to move away from some of the locker room issues that they’ve had in the past? They released T.O. because Tony Romo and offensive coordinator Jason Garrett couldn’t work with him and now Jones is ready to bring back another potential distraction. It just doesn’t make any sense.

Pacman can still play. When he wasn’t riding out a suspension last year, he was productive in coverage, was a reliable tackler and showed some big-play potential in returning punts. But it’s not a matter of if he’ll get into trouble off the field – it’s when. The guy fights with everybody (including his own bodyguards) and can’t be trusted.

Jones seemingly can’t resist adding talent at any cost and he can’t help but believe that he can turn a troubled player around. But he needs to take a pass on this one and keep his team moving in the right direction. Nobody said he had to fill his locker room with choir boys, but that doesn’t mean he should take a risk by signing (or re-signing in this case) malcontents either.

Jean-Jacques Taylor of the Dallas Morning News raised the question of whether or not Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is broke in his latest column. Then in the first couple paragraphs, he detailed how Jones wasn’t actually broke, but is just tightening his spending in a bad economy.

Wow, what a concept. I guess a lot of Americans are considered broke in Taylor’s eyes.

Taylor then went on to list examples of Jones being more thrifty than usual, but none hold enough water to suggest that the Dallas owner is actually broke. (Or is making decisions solely based on financial reasons.)

DeMarcus Ware is negotiating an extension with the club that should make him the NFL’s highest-paid defensive player. Albert Haynesworth, who signed with Washington in March, currently owns that title with a seven-year deal that guarantees him $41 million, including $32 million in the first 13 months of the deal.

Ware’s deal will and should surpass that. Maybe, Jerry can’t commit to that type of expenditure right now, which is why negotiations are dragging.

If everyone got a nickel every time negotiations dragged out between a team and a player, then we’d all have beachfront property. It’s not a huge surprise that Ware and the Cowboys have been slow to reach a deal in a bad economy.

Releasing T.O. not only made Tony Romo’s life easier, but now Jerry doesn’t have to pay him the $6.5 million he was scheduled to earn. Miles Austin, who will likely move into the starting lineup, is scheduled to earn $1.5 million.

Yeah, and T.O. was also an amazing pain in the ass and many in the organization wanted to oust him from the locker room. The decision to cut T.O. was more about his cancerous attitude and less about money.

When Greg Ellis is officially released, the Cowboys will cut him a check for $1.5 million instead of having to pay him the $4.1 million he was scheduled to earn this year. Anthony Spencer, who was 72.5 fewer career sacks, is scheduled to earn $480,000 this season.

Ellis is also getting up there in age and the Cowboys want to see what they have in Spencer, who is a former first round pick. Not to mention, Ellis was also another poor locker room guy who often bitched and moaned about his role on the defense. Again, the decision to release him wasn’t all about saving money – there were other factors that were considered.

Then there’s the curious decision the Cowboys made on draft day to drop out of the second round and into the third round, where the contracts are typically shorter and less expensive.

It’s curious that a team would decide to trade back into the third round of a weak draft, instead of reaching for a player in the second? Come on.

Add to that the big deal Jerry made about not wanting to trade into the first round because of the financial risk involved and you’re within your rights to wonder whether he’s making decisions based more on money than winning.

Even if Jones was basing decisions more on money, the above examples that Taylor listed could all be explained for reasons that have nothing to do with money. Plus, the NFL could be without a cap next year, so it would make sense for an owner/GM to try and save as much money as he/they could this year so they’re prepared for next year.

But Taylor failed to even bring up the upcoming uncapped year in his article. Instead, he threw out a couple of weak examples to support a half-baked idea and slapped an eye-catching title on it in order to attract readers. Taylor could have done better than this. (I think.)

“You hear all the speculation, and you talk to the owner of the team, and he reassures you, you’re not going anywhere and then, out of left-field … you get blindsided,” Owens, 35, said in an interview with Rogers Sportsnet, to be broadcast tomorrow evening.

“I know whole-heartedly he [Jerry Jones] wanted me there,” Owens said. “There were some people I know who got in his ear that pressured him to make that decision. For that, it’s sad. You let two or three people conspire to get me out of the situation.”

T.O. might have a toxic personality and can be the ultimate pain in the ass, but he’s not stupid. I believe Owens when he says Jones backed out of a commitment to keep him a Cowboy and no doubt had pressure from others inside the organization to release him. In some ways, the release of Owens was a surprise considering one week prior, Jones was essentially telling the media that T.O. wasn’t going anywhere. So quite frankly, I don’t blame Owens for feeling blindsided by the whole ordeal, even though everyone knew that his release this offseason was always a possibility.