Tag: Cowboys rumors (Page 2 of 2)

      Jones says Phillips’ job safe for now

      October 16, 2009 /

      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.

      NFL

      Should G-Men fear Cowboys in 2009?

      August 8, 2009 /

      Our very own Mike Farley covers the Giants for the blog GMENDEN and in one of his recent pieces he ponders whether or not the boys in blue should be fearful of the Cowboys.

      Well I don’t know about you, but I’m equally afraid of Dallas as I am of Philly. It’s not like the Cowboys purged their entire roster. They did get rid of two questionable characters in Terrell Owens and Pacman Jones. But Tony Romo is minus Jessica Simpson and is healthy…you might remember he missed a few games last season, and having Brad Johnson run that offense was like putting a toddler in charge of a nuclear power plant. TE Jason Witten was also hurt for much of the season, though he played through pain. Rookie Felix Jones made everyone forget about Julius Jones, and DeMarcus Ware was just terrorizing QBs with an NFL-best 20 sacks.

      You’ll also remember that while our G-men beat up on the Romo-less Cowboys in November, 35-14, they let a less-than-100% Romo beat them in December during the skid that led to our downfall by a 20-8 score. You rememer that game, right? It was a Sunday nighter, and the Giants managed just two field goals and a safety, as Eli Manning could not get on track.

      So while the Cowboys finished 9-7 in 2008, you have to wonder if they would have won at least two of those games Johnson started in Romo’s place. As much as everyone likes to poke fun at Romo and his tendency to choke under pressure, he’s been mostly very tough against us–tough to take down, and always hitting clutch third-down throws while under pressure.

      The NFC East will once again be one of the toughest divisions in football and as Farley points out, nobody should be sleeping on the Cowboys.

      Personally, I think cutting T.O. will be addition by subtraction, although the spotlight is now on Romo. If he can’t step up and be a leader for this team, then there’s a great chance that their talent won’t be enough again. As much as his fun-loving demeanor is one of the endearing parts of his game, it’s time for Romo to take that next step as a quarterback and put the Cowboys’ success squarely on his shoulders.

      Now, that’s not to say that Romo has to do it on his own. Dallas has one of the more talented rosters in the NFL and Romo is just one key piece. But guys like Peyton Manning, Ben Roethlisberger and Tom Brady know what it takes to get the most out of the talent around them. Romo has failed to do that so far in Dallas.

      NFL

      T.O.: ‘I’ll be the scapegoat for what happened in Dallas.’

      June 26, 2009 /

      Even though he’s moved on to other pastures, Terrell Owens continues to be asked about what happened that led to his release in Dallas, to which the wide receiver still doesn’t understand.

      “(Romo) was the quarterback of the team,” T.O. said during his camp for kids today at Duncanville High School. “I think everybody realized that. It was upon him to adopt that leadership role and carry that out. Obviously, they saw that didn’t happen.

      “So, for whatever reason, I’ll be the scapegoat. I’m not here. Now, it’s his team. You know, and I wish him well.”

      T.O., who famously cried while defending Romo after the top-seeded Cowboys’ playoff loss to the Giants two years ago, claimed to be confused when asked how the relationship between the quarterback and receiver changed last season.

      “Your guess is as good as mine,” T.O. said. “I don’t know what happened. Obviously, somebody is lying somewhere. I don’t know what happened. All I know is that I’m not here. I’m with the Buffalo Bills, and I’ll leave it at that.”

      T.O. is right about one thing – he is playing the scapegoat. The Cowboys obviously felt that Romo could lead the team with Owens still on the roster and decided that the best thing to do was to cut bait and move on. But what Owens fails to understand is how big of a negative effect he had in Dallas.

      What T.O. sees when he looks back on his days in Dallas (and San Francisco, and Philadelphia for that matter) was all the touchdowns, the stats and the receptions. He blocks out the times where he’s humiliated quarterbacks, offensive coordinators and everyone else when things weren’t going his way. He doesn’t see himself as a malcontent, yet he’s been run out of three cities already and fails to see what everyone else sees.

      So yes, he was the scapegoat in Dallas but for good reason – reasons he’ll never fathom.

      NFL

      Silver: T.O. was released so Romo could lead

      June 20, 2009 /

      According to a report by Yahoo! Sports columnist Michael Silver, the real reason why Terrell Owens was jettison in Dallas was because the team didn’t think quarterback Tony Romo could be a leader with T.O. in the locker room.

      Yes, it has plenty to do with Tony Romo(notes). Absolutely, Owens’ penchant for being a major pain in the ass played a role. And, as most of us have suspected, this did come down to his effect on team chemistry. Oddly enough, however, T.O.’s popularity in the Cowboys’ locker room is precisely why he was asked to clear out his belongings.

      The bottom line, team executive vice president Stephen Jones said Thursday, is that he and his father came to this conclusion: For the team’s highly paid quarterback to become a truly influential leader, the big man on campus had to be jettisoned.

      “It’s hard to take over leadership when you’ve got a strong personality like Terrell,” Jones said.

      “If you look back at our old teams [from the 1990s], a lot of people would say maybe Michael [Irvin] was the leader. Then you might say, ‘He was a receiver. What about Troy [Aikman]? He was the quarterback. Wasn’t he the leader?’ And the answer is, yeah, Troy was a leader. But if Michael wasn’t supportive of him, Troy would’ve had problems.

      “A lot of our players thought the world of Terrell – they still do. They loved the way he prepared and how hard he played, and everybody respected his skills and what he’d done in the league. And with him here, I think he was always going to carry that kind of weight.”

      What must be frustrating for the Cowboys is that, as the article notes, T.O. is a hard worker. As a football player, it’s hard to find someone who works harder at the craft than Owens. Don’t forget, we’re not talking about a young player here – Owens is 35-years old. He’s at an age where most receivers are lucky to find a role as a slot receiver and T.O. is still a viable No. 1.

      But the problem is that when things go from great to bad, Owens turns into a cockroach and invests the locker room. He simply can’t lead when it matters most and worse yet, he creates a hurdle that his teammates must overcome. It would be one thing if he couldn’t lead. It’s quite another when he becomes a distraction for others like Romo, who eventually need to be leaders when things go bad.

      Either way, T.O. is gone and Romo is out of excuses. He’s already proven that he’s a good quarterback – now he has to show that he’s a great quarterback. It’s his team and he has to grasp the opportunity that’s in front of him.

      NFL

      DMN Columnist: Is Jerry Jones broke?

      June 3, 2009 /

      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.)

      NFL

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