Hey Cowboys! Shut Up!!!!

It never fails. A team under achieves and the head coach or manager is fired and every under achieving player comes out of the wood work to throw the coach under the bus. It become self evident that because of that idiot coach, who had no idea how to handle such an awesome talent, is a complete fool and the new coach is a genius who is going to get the optimal performance out of each and every one of the players who just couldn't bring themselves to try under the old loser moron idiot.

Case in point: My beloved Texas Rangers are terrible. This time last year they were 20-19 on their way to 80-82 third straight third place finish in the AL West. For pretty much the whole year, they looked apathetic and unemotional. Buck Showalter exercised his usual brand of anal retentive managing that drove players crazy. But players can take just about anything if they are winning, but the Rangers (true to their history) were just mediocre. And Buck was fired, deservedly so.

Enter Ron Washington. Also known as, the savior. A funny looking savior, but savior none the less. All during spring training, the players were going on and on about how much looser they will be able to play this year. Washington brings a different attitude to the team and baseball will be fun again. The flowers were going to bloom, birds would sing over the Ballpark, and the World Series was just around the corner. We even had the Buck Showalter affect in our favor! Victory would be ours. Well, apparently, playing looser doesn't mean playing better. They are 10 games under 500 and only the Royals and the Nationals have worse records. Maybe down the road, the change will come and they start to come around, but I'm not optimistic at this point. In fact, I'm feeling really bad about the Rangers, but that's a post for another time.

This post is about the Cowboys. The Cowboys underachieved last year, at least in the last five games in which they got their heads handed to them three times, especially on defense. After four years of decent football, but hardly the excellence that was expected when he came, Bill Parcells quit. He had improved the team from when he got it (3 straight 5-11 seasons under Dave Campo) but only made the playoffs twice and didn't win a playoff game and the team seemed to loose steam down the stretch each year he was here. He wasn't that great of a talent evaluator as his drafts were either ok (2005- Ware, Barber, Canty) or terrible (2004- Rogers, Peterman). So I was personally pleased when Bill left. I was also a bit underwhelmed by his replacement, but I'll reserve judgement.

Some players aren't being so reserved. I can understand being optimistic about the future. This is a talented team who should be ready for a strong season. Expectations will be high for this team and if they fail to make some noise in the playoffs, it will be profound disappointment. They are at this point a Super Bowl contender in a fairly weak NFC. But I want them to shut up and get ready for the season. I'll leave Terrel Owens stuff aside. No one was surprised when he threw Parcells under the bus. But at least he produced (drops aside.) Others who didn't produce are crying about their roles and I'm tired of it.

Julius Jones, a talented back who has not really produced the way we expected when they passed on Stephen Jackson and other backs to get him in the 2nd round.

"Maybe I was being told a little bit where to run and wasn't really able to use my instincts," Jones said at minicamp. "Maybe I listened to (Parcells) a little too much and was kind of running like a robot."

Kevin Burnett, a second round pick at linebacker who made a grade total of 31 tackles, 1 sack, and 1 pick and has seen linebackers drafted in the first round each of the last two years says this

"I don't know where I'm gonna be," said Burnett, who did play inside in college at Tennessee. "Hopefully I'm playing and hopefully I'm a Dallas Cowboy. I want to play. I don't want to be somebody who stands and plays 30 special-teams plays a game. That's not why they drafted me. I damn sure take offense to playing 30 special teams snaps a game.

Add to this the longing for better times from Greg Ellis and Marcus Spears. Now again, I understand disappointment over the last couple of years and high expectations for next year. But here is my message to the Cowboys. Shut up and get ready to play. Just because there's a change, even if it's the right change, doesn't mean that there is going to be improvement. If you improve, win the division (which they haven't done since 1998), win a playoff game or two (which they haven't done since 1996), play for the championship, (which they haven't done since 1995), play for the Super Bowl (which they haven't done since 1995), win the Super Bowl, then complain about Parcells all you want. But by then, it probably won't matter.