The Sports Bizzo

By Jon…

I’ve been running the same question through my head for over a month now, and I think I finally figured out the answer.

The question I was asking myself was this:

Do I hate the Cowboys?

The answer: Yeah, kinda. But I should clarify.

Here:

My displeasure with the Cowboys is three-fold.

First fold: They haven’t won a playoff game since I was a sophomore in high school.  I’ve learned and forgotten Algebra twice in that span of time. And yet somehow every year I get duped into believing they’re gonna win the goddamn Super Bowl. This year was the worst. This year they really did have the talent to do it. And they were on “Hard Knocks”. That’s what sealed it for me. I love all that behind the scenes bullshit. I like trying to figure out which players I think would be fun to hang out with, and finding out who hangs out with whom. Which leads me to….

Second fold: Jerry Jones fooled us all. I would say that a fairly significant portion of the Cowboys faithful grew up in the Video Game Era. Most of us grew up playing Madden, running franchise mode drafts and putting together the most unstoppable teams imaginable. We’ve grown up with this idea that players skills are number rankings from 1 to 100, and the higher the ranking the better the player.  Ego never comes into play in video games. You could put T.O next to Roy Williams next to Jason Witten next to Romo next to Marion Barber…and you would have one badass team…on Madden. But not in real life. And that’s where Jerry fooled us. He put together a Madden team so he could sell tickets. He spent money to make money. And now he’s got himself a pretty, new castle for his little minions to play in. And he’s happy as a clam. He’s a shrewd business man. He always has been. He knows what he’s doing. That’s why he let HBO in for “Hard Knocks”. He knew there was a lot of skepticism about his team getting along. So he let the cameras come in and show all his good little boys playing nice and playing with their babies and playing pranks on the rookies. And we all bought it. I know I was. I had a Romoboner from here to Dallas by the end of the “Hard Knocks” finale. This bring us to….

Third Fold: Where do they go from here? There are too many unanswered questions for next year. In the last week, 7 or 8 players who played significant time last season were either released or defected to other teams via free agency. Who are we replacing these guys with? I know chemistry is the buzzword down at Valley Ranch right now, but are they going to continue to sacrifice talent in the name of chemistry? How do they intend to replace these guys? Jerry traded away two first round picks for Roy Williams, so it’s unlikely that the draft will pay immediate dividends, and I don’t think we’ve picked up anyone in free agency. Maybe Jerry’s got some big, draft day plans.

I hope so. Because I’m on guard this year. I’m not falling for the same, old crap.

So, yeah. I do kinda hate the Cowboys right now….until the end of April when the draft rolls around…