WASHINGTON — There was simply too much drama to digest in an eight-hour span Sunday, from a concussed Ben Roethlisberger being carted from the field in Pittsburgh to Tony Romo symbolically collapsing in the shower of the visiting dressing room in Philly to the Patriots winning their 11th game of the season and missing the playoffs to the Chargers playing like perhaps the best team in football just to reach 8-8 and sneak into the playoffs.
By 11 p.m. Sunday the Browns had fired their GM, the 49ers had hired on a full-time basis their interim coach, the Lions had become the first team to lose all 16 games in a season and seven teams that missed the playoffs last year had played their way into the 2008 postseason. By 10 a.m. today, the Lions, Jets and Browns had fired their coaches.
Rarely has the NFL finale provided theater at such a high level, and so much of it. The regular season finally ended when Norv Turner, who probably deserved to be fired a month ago, got a celebratory Gatorade bath after his Chargers hung 52 points on a Broncos team whose end-of-season choke lasted an unprecedented three weeks.
Even so, it doesn’t rank with Dallas’ meltdown the last two weeks, an epic gag that has pretty much exposed the current bunch of Cowboys as total frauds. Five Dallas turnovers, three by Romo, led to a 44-6 beatdown by the Eagles and the Cowboys’ ninth consecutive loss in season finales. The Cowboys, with their loaded and high-profile roster, began the season as the betting favorite to win the NFC, not to mention the darling of every stargazing fan and media anointer with an interest in the NFL. Yet, Sunday’s TKO in Philly prevented the Cowboys from even making the playoffs, qualifying them as a stunning failure. Afterward, the great Terrell Owens said, “I don’t have all the answers but I’d love to be part of the solution.”
Any solution should include, early on, dumping T.O. And maybe owner Jerry Jones will have to dump some problem-child players if he’s going to follow through on his threat to keep Coach Wade Phillips. Time and again in the visitors’ dressing room after the defeat, Jones told reporters, “There will not be a new head coach.”
Well, there ought to be. The Cowboys were certainly underachievers before he arrived but they’re a squabbling, petty bunch now. It’s silly enough to have T.O and Romo in a late-season tiff over who gets how many passes, but the sight of bad boys Tank Johnson and Pacman Jones jawing at each other Sunday with the Cowboys hopelessly behind ought to be too much even for Jones. The killer was Phillips making the boneheaded decision, down 27-3 and facing fourth-and-inches, to send out the punt team, only to have Romo wave them back to the sideline because at least he knew they had to go for it. What Jones should do, after a couple of weeks to let this disastrous end settle, is have Phillips announce he is “resigning… for the good of the Cowboys” (of course) and send him away with the nice little parting gift of a fully paid contract. Wade Phillips is a pretty darn good football coach, but the Cowboys will never win with him on the sideline because leading this circus is beyond his reach. Anyway, if he returned and started 1-2 in Jones’ new palace, Phillips could never outrun all the screams for his head.
For that matter, it’s also fair to wonder if the Cowboys can win with Romo at quarterback. For all his considerable skills, Romo has spectacular failings in December and January, whether it’s botching a hold for a field goal or throwing interceptions or fumbling. Romo’s late-season resume suggests he belongs more to the Cardinals or Bears than the once formidable Cowboys.
At any rate, all those people jumping off the Cowboys’ bandwagon have to land somewhere. A good many will latch onto the Eagles, who can win when Andy Reid deigns to run the ball and who won’t when he wants to throw it 75 percent of the time. Who would have guessed only a week ago when the Eagles lost to the Redskins tht we’d see Reid, whose expression hasn’t changed in 10 years, gesturing for the fans in The Linc to make more noise?
Personally, I want a seat on the Ravens’ bandwagon. Baltimore plays, to borrow an expression from ESPN’s Ron Jaworski, “manhood football.” The Ravens bear little resemblance to the 11 other teams in the playoffs, who (except for Pittsburgh) are grounded in offense. Though the Baltimore offense is coming along under rookie quarterback Joe Flacco and a rhino of a running back named Le’Ron McClain, the Ravens are still at their best when Ray Lewis and Ed Reed are destroying offenses. It’s truly fun to watch the Ravens play defense. On a local note, it’s also amazing that the Ravens have won a Super Bowl since the Redskins were even close to being in one, and could get back with an entirely different team and coaching staff before the Redskins catch a whiff. (That said, the Redskins need to stay the course for the foreseeable future. The Detroit Lions need to change. The Redskins need to work hard and get better.)
The Ravens, though they are only the No. 6 seed in the AFC, are perfectly capable of taking out the Dolphins Sunday in the playoffs because they can mangle quarterbacks and cover the best of receivers, and do it without bickering or posturing or promising everybody how great they’ll be without ever delivering. Then again, that is exactly what separates the regular-season pretenders, like Dallas and Tampa Bay and Denver, from the serious contenders who will get down to serious work Saturday.
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