Cowboys pronouncement.

As of Monday, October 29th, 2012, I, Phil Keith, a lifelong Cowboys fan, will no longer make excuses for and blindly support Tony Romo, Jason Garrett and Jerry Jones.

Tony Romo

I usually give Tony a pass because I realize it's easy to blame one guy--a critical player mind you--than a team of people. Knowing that, I have given him a long leash over the seasons. I admire his stats and the excitement and unpredictability that he brings to every play. Ultimately, I've always wanted him to succeed so badly. He seems like a bit of a douche but there is a likable quality there, as well. He's the consummate underdog and world beater. But, today, the theme is: a veil is lifted. He's just a guy. He's not a winner. O-line be damned…sometimes you must rise above, consistently make good decisions, and win despite the failings of your teammates. That's what star QBs in this league do. Perhaps this quote from a friend of a media member in our city had to say on Romo summarizes it most succinctly:

"Romo is an enigma to me. Within a game, he is basically the only reason the Cowboys have a reasonable chance of winning. Yet, in the same moment, he is invariably the reason that they lose."

I'm done with Tony Romo.

Jason Garrett

Boy Wonder - The Brain - RedBall. Call him what you will. I'm going to call him the Princeton Con Man. He got his degree in history, by the way. Not mathematics or engineering or physics. He may be book smart but, in all his years of coaching, he hasn't picked up street smarts (read: in-game and clock management). There's no way around it. He's hampered by the dual responsibilities of play-calling and making bigger in-game situational decisions. I shutter just thinking about close games at the end anymore. It's simply too much for any one person, no matter what their IQ level.

And, I'm not sure what his so-called "Cowboy Way" is. But, it's not a way that I like watching. It appears that this team makes many mental errors that result in a helluva lot of penalties. They seem to be winging it half the time. I'll excuse the defense. Rob Ryan has some skills and some players but the other two areas seem wild-assed.

I'm done with Jason Garrett.

Jerry Jones

Jerry will one-day look back on his time as Owner/GM and ask the fans: "Were you not entertained?" Three Super Bowl wins by your favorite team in your formative years will really put some scales on your eyes (mine). But, they have finally fallen away. I'm done with the bullshit promotion and Papa John's commercials and pole dancing in the stadium and a replay screen that's obnoxiously intrusive. I used to think my brain hurt being in the AAC watching the Mavs. That experience pales in comparison to a visit to Cowboys Studium. It's absurd. That screen should be strapped to 10 monster trucks and ripped out of the rafters. I might pay to see that.

Jerry, I don't know if you'll ever give it up. Maybe Stephen will wrestle the team from your Al-Davis-existence someday. I just don't know. I only know that I want it to be over now.

I'm done with Jerry Jones. He's a huckster not a "football man."

In a recent interview with The Atlantic Monthly's James Fallows, productivity guru David Allen underscores the ultimate point. It's a thought that I keep having to remind myself of.

"I guess it really backs down to--and I guess this is going to be my message forever, because I don't know how long it's going to take the human beings to change this habit--but your psyche is not your system, in terms of remembering and reminding. And as soon as you've got more than seven meaningful things that you're trying to negotiate and juggle and manage the relationship between them, and they're all in your head, you're dead. You deal with whatever is yelling longest and loudest and then feel bad about the whole game.

However, when you get all that out of your psyche, it doesn't relieve you of the personal executive responsibility to then say "Okay, how do I allocate my attention and my focus right now?" But what it does is, it frees you up to be doing that with your intelligence. So utilizing your intuitive intelligence is something you're not going to be able to computerize."

It was once said that writers see Father Time as the scolding parent admonishing them for punting away the day with Internet reading and other expensive boondoggles. It’s also been said that children crave structure. I relate to this notion so much that I often imagine a coach-like figure standing over my shoulder during my worst moments, urging me to finish that draft, re-write that damn sentence and, for God-sake’s, run the spell check before submitting that piece!

Bill Parcell’s is My Leader because his is the voice that I hear in my head; that tired, grumpy, never-satisfied New York accent drives me through the muck.

Duane Charles “Bill/Big Tuna” Parcells, the (soon-to-be-Hall-of)famed coach of those 1980s NYFGiants, New England Patriots, New York Jets, and, finally, the Dallas Cowboys. He had a cup of coffee as “Executive VP of Football Operations" of the 2007-2008 Miami Dolphins. He has lived at the Saratoga Springs horse track ever since. 

Many will say that Parcells retired from coaching because the game passed him by. His conservative 3-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust approach would certainly not fit in with today’s pass-happy offensive onslaughts. He would be lucky to get three yards and certainly left in a cloud of Brady’s, Brees’, and Rogers’ dust. Nevertheless, Parcells was and is a leader of men who links us to the wisdom of the past. Here are some gems that I cling to.

“Don’t tell me about the pain. Just show me the baby.”

Absolutely not about actual labor. Parcells is honing in on accountability and the “no excuses” mentality. Most things are outside of our own control. We can only address ourselves—our motivations, actions, and character. Whenever I am tempted to complain about my circumstances, Coach is behind me, arms crossed, head shaking, asking where that goddamned baby is.

Furthermore, Parcells tells a story in his motivational book Finding a Way to Win (Parcells, Coplon, 1995) about coming home from school with a shitty report card.

There were times when my father frowned at my report card and said, “My expectations for you may be higher than your own, and if they are we’re going to have a little problem.”

And, if I claimed that I was trying my best, he’s shake his head like he was stunned. “What do you think you’re supposed to do?” he’d say. “ You don’t get any medals for trying.”

Cuts right to the heart of it, doesn’t it? See there? Parcell’s dad is really my leader. I was on the receiving end of a few of these conversations with my own parents. Maybe not word-for-word, but close enough. I did some pretty stupid stuff and procrastinated like a fiend. It was not uncommon for me to wait until the night before a deadline on writing a paper or doing a project. No medals were being won, certainly.

A few more good ones.

“True candor is measured telling of the truth and not opening rage-filled venting.”

“The road to execution is paved by repetition.”

“Be a teacher, not a drill sergeant.”

“Resourcefulness is essentially resiliency. It’s not giving in the midst of a bleak moment.”

“Measure excellence by performance and not by reputation.”

This last one has really come into focus as I’ve gotten older and I see people around me ride the coattails of what they did in the past. It seems to give them license to just sit there and bask in the glory of yesterday. Meanwhile, the few and proud are working their asses off trying to produce. Glory fades, my friends.

I became very attuned to the Parcells way during his time in Dallas, obviously. He was a fascinating and welcome specimen to the Dallas sports landscape, a direct contrast to the overly-accomodating spin doctor that is Jerry Jones (the de facto coach of the Dallas Cowboys). In fact, I greatly admire Jerry’s moment of clarity in making the Parcells hire in 2003. It brought order to a world of chaos. And, perhaps, that chaos was too much for him in the end. I will forever remember a few things about his time with the Cowboys.

1. He negotiated player management with Jerry with this famous phrase: “If you want me to cook the meal, you better let me buy the groceries.” 
   
2. He dealt with the gifted prima donna T.O. Owens by stripping his ego and simply referring to them in the media as “the player.” (e.g. “The player did this wrong” or “The player hasn’t shown much.”)
   
3. In one of my favorite long-form articles ever, Micheal Lewis profiled him for the New York Times Magazine. It is probably the best thing ever written about him and perfectly captured Parcells in that moment in time.
   

I think the NFL misses men like Parcells. We have his successors in Belicheck and Coughlin—both coaches who are authoritative, command respect, and foster an environment of collective winners (see: Super Bowls 36, 38, 39, 42, and 46).

Finally, I leave you with the famous Bill Parcells assessment quote calling back to the idea of performance. It’s a statement that you should apply to yourself at the end of every week. It slices off all the fat and excuses. At the end of every season, they don’t ask HOW, they ask HOW MANY?

"You are what your record says you are."