Going into the 2010 NFL Season, one of the goals of the Dallas Cowboys was to be the first team to play a Super Bowl in their home stadium. However, a 1-5 start to the season and now Tony Romo’s broken left collarbone (out 6-8 weeks) has made the Super Bowl or bust season now officially a bust! How does a team with this much “talent” come out and begin the season with this record? Everyone on the team had to know going into Monday night’s game against the Giants that this game was going to determine which way the season would play out. The defense came out strong taking advantage of two early Eli Manning interceptions, but the offense could only manufacture 10 points on those turnovers and that was a telling sign of things to come. The Giants answer with a touchdown, Dallas scores the next 10 points, including a 93 yard punt return by Dez Bryant. However, during this time, this is when the rookie from Arizona, Chris Gronkowski, forgot to pick up a blitzing Giants linebacker, Michael Boley, resulting in Romo getting drilled by the linebacker with a 10 yard running start. This play represents the Cowboys season perfectly. “How did things get to this point,” is a question that has been asked by many. I think there are three main factors.

          

            Accountability or lack thereof, is the first factor. The Cowboys have been leading the league in penalty yards and this past week they finally brought in officials for practice. The fact that they were not only making all of these penalties, but at very inopportune times, was a major issue that has gone unresolved and non-penalized. The Alex Brown holding penalty at the end of the Redskins game and the pass interference call against Mike Jenkins last in the Vikings game are two of the most glaring penalties this season.

           

           The second is a lack of leadership on the team. Steve Young on ESPN’s pregame show made a point of calling out Romo and his excuses for every mistake he has made this season. Young said that instead of just taking the blame for the mistakes, he was justifying each one with a response of the receiver ran a wrong route or something very weak. Young thought that if Romo would stand up to the media and admit fault on all of these errors, fault or not, he would become a locker room leader. DeMarcus Ware comes across as the leader on defense after playing late last year with the neck stinger, but his leadership seems to be more by example than vocal. Many former Cowboys, such as Tony Dorsett, have been very vocal that this team is a lot of front runners who don’t perform under pressure. There is no Michael Irvin, Charles Haley, Ken Norton, Troy Aikman on this team to tighten the reigns with things get off track. This team seems to still be looking for that leader and I am not sure he is on the roster currently.

           

             The final factor is the coaching and front office. The perception to many around the NFL is Wade Phillips is a great defensive coordinator, but not very good as a head coach. To put things in perspective, Wade is 81-54 (.600) as a head coach, but 1-5 in playoffs while John Fox is 71-57 (.554) and 5-3 in the playoffs (Thanks T-Bone). Wade has a higher regular season winning percentage, but I would be willing to bet a lot that if both coaches are not retained in 2011 by their respective teams, Fox will be hired much more quickly for another head coach position. If the players do not respect the coach, like Bill Parcells was previously, why are they going to play hard for the coach? Also, how many times do I have to see Jerry Jones during a broadcast? He is the owner of the team. Maybe it is about time for Jerry to step back away from the day-to-day operations, as he did with Parcells, and bring in a strong coach and general manager. Jerry has dome it once before and it worked well, and if Daniel Snyder can be successful in letting go, Jerry should be able to do so again.

           

            Now that the problems have been addressed, how do we resolve these issues? The players have to first look in the mirror and determine are they doing their best on every play and then turn to their teammates and ask the same of them. The players need to begin policing the locker room themselves. Leaders are not made, they are born. There has to a be a leader on the 53 man roster and if there is not, that says more about the front office moves than anything else. If the difference between winning and losing is that close, than maybe a couple of small changes can turn things around for 2011.       

 

 

            Speaking of bust, Brock Lesnar’s run as UFC Heavyweight Champion came to an abrupt end in the first round at the hands, literally, of Cain Velasquez. Velasquez took an early bull rush from Lesnar and caught Lesnar with some heavy punches, and put Lesnar away with strikes at the 4:11 mark of the first round. Many have said that Lesnar is great as the aggressor, but he does not like to get hit and that was very evident Saturday evening. Lesnar’s defense has been to overpower and overwhelm his opponents with his size and strength, but once his opponents get their footing and sustain that initial push, Brock has been hurt in the first round of his last two fights (Shane Carwin). Velasquez is still undefeated and his first title defense will be against another undefeated heavyweight in Junior Dos Santos. This title fight could be one of the most entertaining and anticipated heavyweight fights of recent UFC history, as both of these guys like to go at it. It will also be interesting to see what Lesnar does from here. Does he learn how to take some shots because if he continues to fight, he is going to get hit.

The fight that left many of scratching our heads was the first trip into the UFC octagon for Jake Shields versus Martin Kampmann. Watching the fight live on PPV, Shields came out early and got Martin to the ground and controlled the first round. The second and third rounds appeared to myself and friends to have been won by Martin, as Shields was clearly out of gas in round three. Martin could have chosen to stand and bang with Shields, but it was as if Martin wanted to try and beat Shields at his own game. Dana White has made a point to tell fighters to not leave decisions in the hand of the judges and that is what both of these guys did. Shields ultimately won the fight via split decision, but the most shocking thing was one judge had the fight scored 30-27 for Shields. Obviously, this judge had a much different view of the fight than we did. I also thought it was very interesting how Joe Rogan did not interview Shields in the ring after the fight. That is the first time I can recall a winner of a co-main event was not interviewed.

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