THE REV SPEAKS – Cowboys Giants Review

THE REV SPEAKS

Matthew R. Fuller

As an ordained Baptist minister I’ve heard my fair share of confessions.  Most are incontrovertibly genuine, with the penitents expressing a deep remorse and a concomitant pledge to turn away from the sins which, without fail, lead to shame, fear, abandonment, and heartache.  Sometimes, however, the mea culpa is more specious than the singing career of Heidi Montag

In these extreme circumstances it takes all of my Christian resolve to refrain from unleashing a thunderous torrent of dog cussing: How dare you defile the house of God with your bleeping mistakes!  Your pathetic excuses are bleeping cowardly!  Get your head out of your butt already! But that’s just me . . .

Which leads us to the embarrassment that occurred in Arlington (and not Dallas, thanks to former Mayor Laura “Madam No” Miller’s childish stonewalling, but don’t get me started) on Sunday night.  What should have been a glorious moment for the Dallas Cowboys was instead turned into a horrifying display of amateur football.  Thanks to the “franchise” quarterback, the grand opening of The Death Star was unequivocally marred.  If Jerry were to ask my advice (and why he doesn’t is beyond me) I’d demand that he pay FOX analyst Troy Aikman whatever he wished to pull a Favre and lace up his cleats just one more time.  (I’d also suggest he fire Wade, a.k.a. Mr. Fix It, immediately.  That’s for another column, however.)  Maybe I’m just sentimental since #8 won three Super Bowl titles during my formative high school years, but at this point any measure, no matter how extreme, should be enacted.  How many times are we devoted and deceived Cowboy fans going to be forced to listen to the mealy-mouthed confessions of one Tony Romo?  After every putrid game he’s delivered the same tired “I promise to protect the ball better” speech.  In Sunday night’s three-INT implosion against the hated Giants he was beyond careless with the pigskin.  He was reckless.  He was feckless.  He was gutless.  (For those who value this stat, Romo’s 29.6 QB Rating was the second-worst of his career after the 22.2 bomb he dropped in December 2007 against the hated Eagles.  The Cowboys would have beaten the Giants by at least a touchdown had Romo only thrown two picks!)  Like all Dallas disciples, I’ve grown extremely tired of Romo’s lip service.  Either you stop throwing the ball to the opposing team at an alarming rate—I don’t mind the occasional turnover that comes in the course of a long season, but there’s a limit to my grace—or stop feeding namby-pamby apologies to the media and the fans.  Call me a hidebound fundamentalist Southern Baptist, but either you sin or you don’t.  (This is a kissing cousin to the Big Bill Parcells theology of it is what it is.)  I am not trying to alarm you, but the Cowboys are a decidedly average 11-10 in their last 21 games.  That’s only ten more wins than the junior college Detroit Lions have posted over the same period of time!  This would be funny if it weren’t so sadly mediocre and true.

Romo still has a very vocal cadre of supporters, and these slimy sycophants are almost as crazy as Pacman Jones at the Joule Hotel.  At least he came out on Monday and held himself accountable for the loss against the Giants. While I admit this Romo reaction is light years better than his illicit Cancun vacation with Jessica “Yoko Ono” Simpson in January 2008, and much improved from his flippant if this is the worst thing that happens to me comment after last season’s win-or-go-home disaster in Philly, Romo could blame himself for the mess that is the Obama Healthcare Plan and I still wouldn’t be satisfied.  Quarterbacking the Cowboys is one of the most glamorous and visible positions in all of sports, along with Shortstopping the Yankees (groan) and Caddying the Tiger (no pictures during his backswing), and Romo treats it like he’s playing Tecmo Bowl on Nintendo.  Whatever.  Then there are the Romo lemmings who are quick to point out that his career has started just like the prototype of all NFL QBs, Peyton Manning (http://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/M/MannPe00.htm).  Except for these salient facts which the lemmings either leave out or forget: Manning played four years at a major-caliber SEC college against many future pro athletes, and he was drafted #1; Romo played at tiny Eastern Illinois against many future rec league athletes and he wasn’t drafted at all; Manning was born with football genes and groomed to be a QB from birth; Romo was born with backward-hat-wearing genes and groomed to be a wannabe golfer from birth.  Again, whatever.

Those laypeople that support Romo are doing him no favors, just as Romo’s own teammates are sabotaging his ability to improve.  In order for a sinful soul to be completely washed clean, the guilty party must be surrounded by a circle of believers who, while offering forgiveness, also buffet him with ample amounts of tough love.  In this case, Romo’s accountability partners and prayer warriors are failing him immensely.  The praise for #9 (and I’ m not talking about the true winner Mike Modano) was effusive from Valley Ranch on Monday and Tuesday (http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/spt/stories/092209dnspocowboysinsider.2cc1f57.html), further complicating the paradox of Romo’s greatness.  Teammates should absolutely stand by each other in times of crisis (and if they don’t they end up in the football hinterlands of Buffalo), but if Romo’s fellow Cowboys truly had his best interests at heart they would sit him (and Terence Newman while we’re at it) down and deliver a come-to-Jesus message: you can be one of the all-time greats if you just learn some discipline.  (Yet another reason Jerry should have hired Norv “Aikman Architect” Turner in 2007, along with the fact that Turner’s electric Chargers are chugging along at 9-0 in December and Wade’s anemic Cowboys are choking along at 3-5 in the coconut-crunching final month.)  Like a group of buddies who stage an intervention for one of their own who is abusing drugs and alcohol, so must Romo’s teammates stage an immediate intervention for the embattled quarterback.  His legacy—and the Cowboys’—depends on it.

There are also those voices who believe that Jason Garrett should “dumb down” the offense in order to make it more Romo-friendly.  This, too, would be a faulty solution.  According to QB Rating (again, for those who value this statistic), Romo’s lofty 94.2 would be third in history (behind Steve Young’s 96.8 and Manning’s 94.9.  Note: in order to qualify, a QB must have 1,500 pass attempts; with 1,363, Romo should easily pass that threshold by October) and makes him the second-best active passer behind Manning.  Should Romo indeed become, as Big Bill constantly preached, just a bus driver, handing off 35 times to his eclectic stable of backs?  As good as Barber, Choice, and Felix Jones are, I’m not sure this is a viable course of action.

A fitting way to color the portrait of one Antonio Ramiro Romo, therefore, is with many brushes, each drawing a patron’s eyes to different sections of the canvas with every look.  Romo is like a work of art by the famed abstract painter Picasso: the sum is clearly greater than the parts.  One week it’s hide-the-women-and-children ugly (http://www.sgallery.net/artnews/data/upimages/2007/08/picasso.jpg) and the next it’s spend-three-hours-in-awe resplendent (http://www.artquotes.net/masters/picasso/picasso_guernica1937.jpg).  In Dallas, however, the only masterpiece that matters is a Super Bowl ring.  (Or at the very least, an NFC Championship ring.  It is naïve to expect more from this heartless bunch.)  Anything less is a complete and utter failure.  While I’m not the ultimate judge, I will say with confidence that Romo’s repeated confessions always ring extraordinarily hollow.  We’re all waiting, Tony.  You’ve repented time and time again, but we have yet to see sustained excellence on the field.  Perhaps we’re expecting too much.  Maybe you just don’t have it between the ears to lead the Cowboys to the promised land.  (My favorite local theory.)  Instead of becoming Romo the Redeemed he’s merely Romo the Recidivist.  The Book of Proverbs (that’s in the Bible, folks) reminds us well: As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly. If Romo throws up many more atrocious games like he did on Sunday night I’ll be throwing up.  And it’d be a travesty to waste the $6 I spent on the cup of Dr Pepper at Cowboys Stadium.

Here ends the lesson.  And all of God’s people say . . . “Amen!”