Tag: Dallas Cowboys (Page 38 of 62)

      Cowboys to release Terrell Owens?

      January 15, 2009 /

      According to Ed Werder of ESPN.com – who must have a little cot set up at Valley Ranch – the Cowboys are considering releasing receiver Terrell Owens so that the team will have better chemistry in the locker room next season.

      Terrell Owens“I think we all know that chemistry is the problem with this team more than the schemes or anything else,” a Cowboys source said. “Are we going to continue to allow talent to outweigh everything else in the decisions we make with players and putting the roster together? We’re like the Redskins used to be when they signed every player they wanted. There’s more to it than talent. It has to be more about the team.

      “The big one [Owens] didn’t get discussed yet, but I’m sure it will and real hard.”

      The Cowboys released twice-suspended cornerback Pacman Jones last week and Tank Johnson is expected to depart through free agency. Both decisions are at least partly related to the renewed emphasis on creating a different atmosphere in the locker room. The Cowboys began their ill-fated 2008 season with three players on the roster who had been suspended by the league or their previous teams — Jones, Johnson and Owens.

      At least two sources believe that vice president Stephen Jones will attempt to convince his father that Owens should be finished with the Cowboys. But Jerry Jones just last year invested a $12 million signing bonus in Owens, which means there would be salary-cap fallout. In fact, Jerry Jones has suggested that there might be enough damage that the team would find it difficult to sign NFL sack leader DeMarcus Ware to a new contract.

      “I think some of people want to just cut our losses and get rid of all those guys … T.O., Tank, Pacman,” another Cowboys source said. “But I really think Jerry likes the thrill of trying to make it all work.”

      After what happened at the end of the season with the Tony Romo/Jason Witten/Terrell Owens saga, some people (mainly Owens) will read this and say, “There’s that Ed Werder again – making sh*t up.”

      But think about it, Werder is in Dallas 24/7 reporting on the Cowboys for ESPN. I swear the guy is required to sleep on site just in case any story breaks and it’s not like he can go around stirring the pot with fictional stories because then nobody would talk to him. So anyone that thinks this is just Werder trying to get a quick headline needs to get a grip.

      The possibility of Jerry Jones wanting to change the culture in the locker room is very real. He has a new stadium ready to open and despite having some of the best talent in the league every year, the Cowboys never win. If Jones really wants to make a change, parting with Owens might be the first step. It’ll be interesting to see how this story develops this offseason.

      NFL, Rumors & Gossip

      The World’s 10 Most Valuable Sports Franchises

      January 14, 2009 /

      Forbes.com put together a list of the world’s 10 most valuable sports franchises.

      Real Madrid
      No. 1 Manchester United
      Soccer
      $1.8 billion
      An annual powerhouse with a true global brand, Man-U fetched the highest price ever for a sports franchise when Malcolm Glazier forked over $1.45 billion for it in 2005.

      No. 2 Dallas Cowboys
      Football
      $1.6 billion
      Owner Jerry Jones smartly broke away from the NFL merchandising collaboration several years ago, leaving the Cowboys to run their own league-leading operation. A new state-of-the-art stadium awaits for 2009, with a Personal Seat License (PSL) plan that could bring in upwards of $700 million. The rough economy–a naming rights deal still hasn’t been done–may scale back expectations. But only so much.

      No. 3 Washington Redskins
      Football
      $1.5 billion
      Since taking over in 1999, owner Dan Snyder has had mixed results on the field. But he’s turned the Redskins into the NFL’s leading revenue machine through heavy marketing and by selling the naming rights to Jack Kent Cooke Stadium to FedEx. The stadium has sold out every game during its 12-year history.

      No. 4 New England Patriots
      Football
      $1.32 billion
      New England’s value has roughly tripled since 2000, following three Super Bowl titles and a 97-31 record over the past eight years. Seven-year-old Gillette Stadium includes 6,000 club seats and 87 luxury boxes.

      No. 5 New York Yankees
      Baseball
      $1.3 billion
      Baseball’s only billion dollar club benefits from its own cable network, huge market and storied history. No wonder the Yankees have made the only real noise around the league this winter, throwing more than $400 million at three premium free agents. The tight economy may have the team scrambling to sell the last few luxury boxes at the new Yankee Stadium for 2009, but expect the place to be a revenue machine over the long haul.

      Given soccer’s popularity around the world, I’m a little surprised only one futbol team made the top 5. (Although Real Madrid and Arsenal were No. 6 and 7, respectively.)

      I’m shocked at how much the Washington Redskins are worth, especially considering they’re sandwiched between the Cowboys and Patriots.

      MLB, NBA, NFL, Soccer

      ‘Oh sh*t – that’s Michael Irvin!”

      January 14, 2009 /

      According to the Dallas Morning News, Michael Irvin had a gun pulled on him by a motorist traveling in the car next to him Monday night, but the gunman let the former Cowboy receiver go after realizing who he was.

      Michael IrvinThe Pro Football Hall of Fame member was not injured. He told police he stopped at a red light in the 18200 block of Marsh Lane, near the Bush Turnpike, about 9:30 p.m., when the driver of the vehicle next to him rolled down his window, the police report said.

      Irvin put down his window because he thought someone wanted to talk to him and saw the passenger in the other vehicle raise a gun, the report said. Irvin said in an interview Tuesday night that he feared the men had planned to rob him and changed their minds when they saw who he was.

      “The passenger pulled out a semiautomatic and I knew what time it was,” Irvin said. “But he said ‘Oh, that’s Michael Irvin, with the Dallas Cowboys.’”

      Despite being scared, Irvin said he tried to keep the conversation going.

      “So we started talking about the Cowboys and everything,” he said. “Then they got back on the highway.”

      “I tell you what, I’m glad he was a Cowboy fan,” Irvin said.

      Let me get this straight. A man pulls a gun on Irvin, realizes who he is, decides not to rob/shoot/kill him and Irvin proceeds to talk Cowboy fever with the guy? You would have seen smoke from my tires as soon as the man put the gun down.

      But I guess that’s the difference between Michael Irvin and I; he has the decency to talk a little football after a man tries to rob him at gunpoint. And that’s why I’ll never be a Cowboy…

      General Sports, NFL

      One and done: Cowboys cut Pacman Jones

      January 8, 2009 /

      The Pacman Jones experiment in Dallas has come to end after just one season, as the Cowboy released the cornerback on Wednesday.

      The Cowboys traded for Jones despite the cornerback’s suspension for the 2007 season after multiple off-field incidents while with the Titans. He was given another chance and cleared to play in 2008 by commissioner Roger Goodell.

      But on Oct. 7, Jones got into a scuffle with a bodyguard who was part of a team-employed security detail. A week later, Goodell suspended the cornerback indefinitely, which eventually turned into a six-week suspension. Jones missed a seventh game later in the season with an injury.

      The 25-year-old Jones spent part of his time away from football taking part in an alcohol rehabilitation program.

      Kind of funny that when the Cowboys desperately need cornerbacks to make a playoff push late in the year, owner Jerry Jones did everything in his power to get Pacman reinstated again after his most recent f-up. And now he’s promptly shoving him out the door.

      Despite Pacman netting zero interceptions and just a 4.5-yard average on punt returns, I think Jones got everything he needed out of the delinquent one. He got a rodeo clown for his circus (i.e. HBO’s “Hard Knocks”) and a warm body when the Cowboys were hurting with injuries late in the year.

      Fantasy Football, NFL

      If NFL teams want better defenses, they better build outdoors

      January 6, 2009 /

      Georgia DomeLast Sunday a couple friends and I were watching the Ravens-Dolphins playoff game and we were talking about how good both Baltimore and Miami’s defenses were this season. Then we started to gab about other top defenses in the league and the thought dawned on me – all the good defensive teams play outdoors.

      Think about it. What teams had the best defenses in 2008? Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Washington and the Giants all ranked in the top five – all outdoors teams. Granted, Minnesota was No. 6, but the next dome team was Indianapolis at No. 11.

      Out of the eight dome teams (I’ll count both Dallas and Arizona as dome teams), five of them (Arizona, Atlanta, New Orleans, St. Louis and Detroit) finished in the bottom half of the league in total defense. In 2007, six of the eight teams finished in the bottom half. In 2006, five teams finished in the bottom half. In 2005, four of the seven dome teams (Arizona was outdoors before 2006) finished in the bottom half and in 2004, six of the seven dome teams ranked in the bottom half defensively.

      Here’s a breakdown of how each dome team has done defensively since 2002:

      Arizona 2006-2008: 29th; 17th; 19th
      Atlanta 2002-2008: 19th; 32nd; 14th; 22nd; 22nd; 29th; 24th
      Dallas 2002-2008: 18th; 1st; 16th; 10th; 20th; 13th; 9th; 8th
      Detroit 2002-2008: 31st; 24th; 22nd; 28th; 32nd; 32nd
      Indianapolis 2002-2008: 8th; 11th; 29th; 11th; 21st; 11th;
      Minnesota 2002-2008: 26th; 23rd; 28th; 21st; 8th; 20th; 3rd; 6th
      New Orleans 2002-2008: 27th; 18th; 32nd; 14th; 11th; 26th; 23rd
      St. Louis 2002-2008: 13th; 16th; 17th; 30th; 23rd; 21st; 28th

      Let’s recap:

      – Of the eight dome teams, only three of them have ever finished in the top 10 in total defense since 2002.
      – Only two of them (Dallas and Minnesota) have ever finished in the top 5 in total defense since 2002.
      – All of them have finished in the bottom half of the league in total defense at least once.
      – Atlanta, Detroit, New Orleans and St. Louis haven’t cracked the top 10 in total defense once since 2002.

      Granted, there are several huge factors that work against the theory that dome teams are worse off defensively than those that play outdoors. First and foremost, there’s a larger sample size of outdoors teams than dome, so of course they’re going to have better overall defensive rankings. Secondly, 2002 to 2008 might not be a long enough time period to definitively say that dome teams are worse defensively.

      But think about it – when has a dome team ever had a consistently good defense? Chicago, Tampa Bay, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New England have always been known for their defense. Outside of the “Purple People Eaters” when has a dome team ever been known for its defense? Never. And this plays into the fact that dome teams struggle to make Super Bowl appearances.

      Why? It can’t be that these teams have ignored their defenses over the years or have just had terrible luck in the drafts. Free agency has allowed teams to rebuild in just one offseason, so it’s not like these teams haven’t had the opportunity to re-tool their defensive units.

      The simple explanation is that teams can obviously move the ball better when they don’t have to deal with weather conditions, so therefore dome teams are more susceptible to giving up more yardage and points. But is that it? So dome teams are just doomed defensively for the end of time? They best they can do on a consistent basis is finish 11-16 in total defense?

      Obviously this research is largely incomplete, but it’s an interesting topic.

      NFL

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