The Dallas Cowboys’ talented trio of Tony Romo, Jason Witten and Terrell Owens appeared to have put their problems aside Sunday night in an impressive 20-8 win over the New York Giants. But both Romo and Witten were no-shows at Owens’ annual birthday party, which has turned into a celebrity fund-raiser in the Dallas area.

Cowboy officials wanted to paint a picture of team unity at this event and cited that both Romo and Witten were receiving treatment for injuries sustained in the game on Sunday as the reason for them not showing up at the charity event.

Cowboys LB Greg Ellis said it was important to send the message that “we are one team. There are not any problems. We are not a team divided and we are sticking together.”

The beneficiary of Owens’ fund-raiser was his Catch-A-Dream Foundation, which raises money to aid 81 families in the Dallas area for the holiday season.

Apparently the reason Terrell Owens broke down on the sidelines during last Sunday’s win over the Bengals was due to a death in the family.

Tuesday afternoon on the Michael Irvin Show (103.3 FM), Owens said the death of a family member and an emotional talk with his pastor, Anthony Gardner, led to his tears.

The night before the game, Gardner told Owens he would cry on the sideline and told him to profess his love for God in the news conference following the game.

“It was a rough week,” Owens said. “I even had a family member pass, and I didn’t make any mention of that.

“That wasn’t anybody’s business. I had my mom call me, and she was very reluctant to tell me that. I was playing with a heavy heart.”

Owens wouldn’t reveal who passed away.

The Cowboys receiver said he was stunned by local and national criticism over the perception that he’s a selfish player.

“I’m not a perfect person,” Owens said. “My life is still under construction, but don’t judge me by what you think I am or what you think I meant in what I said.

“I’ve made my mistakes, and they [media] listen to my comments and they dissect those comments and they make what they want out of them, but I know who I am at heart.”

Nobody should ever criticize another human being for showing emotion following a death in the family, but every week it’s something new with T.O. One week he’s phenomenal and you don’t a peep out of him. The next week he’s throwing Tony Romo under the bus for not looking for him more in the passing game. Then he’s crying in a post-game press conference in defense of Romo. Then he has $100 million reasons not to kill himself. It’s like one nauseating twist after another with this guy.

Jean-Jacques Taylor of The Dallas Morning News writes that Cowboys owner Jerry Jones shouldn’t be the one pumping up his team on the sidelines during games. That job should fall on Wade Phillips and the rest of the Dallas coaching staff.

Jerry shouldn’t be delivering pep talks to an overly sensitive Terrell Owens with 5:14 left in the third quarter because Owens needs a hug while sulking on the bench. Nor should Jerry be exhorting the first-team defense between series.

The same goes for handing out high-fives to Courtney Brown and patting Zach Thomas on the back after Anthony Spencer’s fourth-quarter fumble recovery or congratulating each member of the extra-point unit following T.O.’s key touchdown in the fourth quarter.

After the game, the sweat rapidly rolled down Jerry’s flushed cheeks, staining his snazzy navy and black tie and making his shirt damp.

Jerry crosses a fine line when he’s that involved with the players during the game, because it goes way beyond his duties as owner or general manager.

Blame Wade Phillips. Obviously, the owner thought he was giving the team something it needed.

“It was my emotion,” Jerry said of heading to the field in the third quarter. “In my own way, I was reminding everyone how important – not that they needed reminding – this game was. I added an additional impetus to it. This game was every bit as big as it was against Washington last week.”

I’ve always had mixed emotions regarding this topic. On one hand, it’s the owner’s team. If he wants to be on the sidelines at the end of games and slap high-fives with the players he’s paying millions of dollars to, than he should be able to do that. But where do you draw the line? The owners higher coaches to run the team and should rely on them to keep the players motivated. And besides, if the coaches can’t fire up the players, what makes the owner think he will?

But in the specific case of Jerry Jones, I don’t think there’s anything new here. He’s always been on the sidelines and to me, he doesn’t seem to be a distraction. Do I think it’s ridiculous that he’s giving pep talks to T.O. during a game? Yeah. But that reflects more poorly on T.O. than Owens in my opinion.