The problems with the Cowboys

In an article headlined "Crappy New Year" in the current issue of the Dallas Observer, Richie Witt argues (or at least this is what I think he is arguing) that asking Dallas Cowboys coach Wade Phillips to undergo a personality transplant is akin to asking Terrell Owens to ignore a live microphone or a television camera. Can't be done. Shouldn't even be tried. So what should be done? I guess Witt is suggesting the Cowboys should fire Wade Phillips.

Too late for that now, I says. Not only that, firing Phillips won't solve the problem.

There's a telling paragraph in Witt's story. In discussing the Cowboys' 1-3 showing in December, Witt wrote "Quarterback Tony Romo significantly regressed in ball security, body language and gritty leadership. Flozell Adams repeatedly forgot the snap count. Owens dropped passes. Roy Williams ran lazy routes. Ken Hamlin missed tackles. Andre Gurode lobbed mistimed snaps. DeMarcus Ware disappeared."

A simple change in one football coach is not going to correct all these problems and besides the best coaching candidate out there for the Cowboys -- New England offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels -- has already been snapped up by the Denver Broncos. (I kept thinking to myself, if McDaniels could craft Matt Cassell, someone who had not started a football game since high school, into a quarterback of an 11-5 NFL team, imagine what he could do with Romo. Ahh, but it's not to be.)

Let's face it: The Dallas Cowboys are not a football team, they are an ego-driven cast of a bad soap opera about a family more dysfunctional than the Sopranos. This is an outfit that needs to be imploded and then completely rebuilt if it ever intends to regain any sense of credibility. Unfortunately, I do not anticipate that happening because of Ego No. 1 and that, of course, is Jerry Jones.

Jones is a supreme businessman, one of the best this town has ever seen. As a football general manager, however, he is a disaster. The Dallas Cowboys are the only team in the NFL -- the only one -- whose owner is also its general manager. Whaddya think -- that all the rest of the NFL operates incorrectly and the Cowboys are the only ones doing it right? I don't think so.

If the Cowboys are to reach the level that Whitt and a lot of others demand, then Jerry Jones must concentrate on the business of running the Dallas Cowboys organization, hire a top-notch football brain to be the team's general manager, let that new GM hire a football coach with whom the GM can work and let them assemble a football team to replace the individual characters who currently take up place on the Cowboys roster.

The alternative is that the Cowboys maintain the organizational status quo, hire another hamstrung coach (Whitt claims "respected, credible candidates abound -- Mike Shanahan, Bill Cowher, Marty Schottenheimer..." but I think those three are way too smart to operate under Jones.) and continue being this disunited bunch of characters who somehow manage to have a slightly better than .500 record and may make it every now and then to the playoffs where they will lose on the road in the first round.