Did we watch the same game?

I really shouldn't make a big deal about this. I really shouldn't be drawn offsides by the national media, but I just can't help it. One of the upsides to the Cowboys winning on Monday night was that I could listen to sports talk radio and read the blogs and sports writing and be happy. After a Cowboys loss (say after the Giants playoff game last year), I will not read the newspapers or blogs, listen to the sports talk show idiots, or anything else. But I was sure after Monday night's game I would enjoy a little ESPN radio praising the greatness of the previous night's game and the strength on the Cowboys and just laugh while reading Peter King and others venerate the Cowboys. But instead of praising the Cowboys, the Colin Cowherd of ESPN and Peter King of SI evidently quit watching the game after halftime when the Eagles were ahead 30-24 and assumed that it was misprint that the Cowboys outscored the Eagles 17-7 in the 2nd half. They worshiped at the shrine of Donovan McNabb who was great until about 10 mins to go in the game when he evidently got tired and quit being able to complete passes longer than 10 yards. In fact, the longest play for the Eagles late in the game was a ten yard pass to a TE on a 2nd and 18 (the series ended in a punt). The fumble was clearly Donovan's fault as he was seemingly unable to decide if he was going to give it to Westbrook or to the receiver on the reverse. It was that choke job that turned the tide towards the Cowboys. Cowherd trumpeted over and over how the Eagles were able to get yards when they needed them. However, he failed to mention that the Eagles got inside the Cowboys 25 five times and had to settle for field goals in three of them. Two of the Eagles TD were a direct result of Cowboy turnovers, both of them really unforced, but rather bad plays by Tony Romo. So the absolutely awesome Eagle offense scored 23 points. Hardly the stuff of domination. Also, they talked about the return of Donovan McNabb, but they evidently missed the stats about his performance in Sept. the last few years. He's been dominant. There is a good questions whether he'll be able to keep it up. The Eagles better hope so.

Another group that got a ton of praise from the national media was the vaunted Eagle defense. But Tony Romo emerged from the game almost completely untouched (except, of course for the unforced errors of the fumble and the pic). The Cowboys showed their offensive strength by being able to almost completely stay away from TO and still move the ball at will against the Eagles. It opened up Marion Barber to get 51 yards on 11 carries in the 2nd half after just 12 on 7 carries in the first. Jason Witten made their line backers and safeties look silly and the Cowboys lower rung guys like Martellus Bennett, Patrick Crayton, Miles Austin, and Tony Curtis made plays as the Eagles payed their attention to TO.

I could go on. It's still early. The last several years the Cowboys have been great until the calendar turns into December. And all this won't matter if they fall apart down the stretch and there are things that concern me. Tony Romo being the crazy gunslinger is one and the penalties (which make me think of their lack of disciple) is another. But I want the national media to realize that the Eagles are good and maybe the 3 best teams in the NFL are in NFC East, but the Cowboys were clearly the best team on Monday.

The Sports of Hate or Why I don't root for Tiger Woods

As I've said before on this blog, for me sports is almost as much about who I hate as to who I love. In fact, my love for my teams causes me to hate with a passion teams that drive me crazy. Because I love the Cowboys, I hate the Giants, Eagles, Redskins, 49ers, etc. I am much more of a fan of my teams than I am a lover of sports. This brings me to Tiger Woods.

I am not a big golf fan. I have a set of golf clubs and I fool around with some friends every once in a while, though I haven't played this summer. For many of my friends and lots of people on sports talk radio, the golf majors are appointment television. Actually, it would be more correct to say that the majors are appointment television if Tiger is in contention on the last day. For me, golf is switch off no matter what the situation. I listen to coverage, though hardly ever watch it on TV hoping that Tiger is loosing or struggling.

As the US Open played out yesterday, I heard several sports talk radio guys say something along the lines of, "If you're a sports fan, you have to root for Tiger" or "How can anyone root against Tiger?" And I thought, it's pretty easy. For me, Tiger represents almost everything that is wrong with sports. I say almost everything because there is one thing that he is an example of everything good about sports. For an immensely talented individual, he is very much a grinder. For most pro athletes if they don't have it, they'll say, it's not my day, go through the motions, and be satisfied with that. Tiger works his butt off on the course and it's not satisfied with anything less that being champion. That's the epitome of what it means to compete.

Now, the wrong things about Tiger and how it relates to my hatred of other things in sports:

1) The media beats everyone upside the head with Tiger. The only way they'll pay attention to golf is if he plays. He is ubiquitous on commercials- the Gatorade commercial of him on the moon drives me crazy for some reason. He almost as bad as Jordon in that they won't turn down an opportunity to sell himself for a few bucks. I can't listen to sports talk radio after a major because they bow down at the altar of Tiger. In other sports, the media takes a team or player and just beats them to death as if the only teams that matter exist in the Northeast or on the West coast. In baseball, it's minutia of the Yankees and the Red Sox and if the Cubs are even in the zip code of contention then we are inundated with articles of what those teams need to do in order to win the whole thing and what kind of problems they have and what their blowhard owners have to say about anything. I can't watch ESPN baseball tonight because the biggest question is always what is happening with those teams. If Joba Chamberlain was a Colorado Rockie (is this right? Should it Rocky?), we would have no idea who he was and not have five million article written as to whether or not he should start or relieve. Of course as teams fall out of contention, the question becomes can any of their players help the Red Sox or Yankees or Cubs or Dodgers achieve the greatness that is preordained for them? The only media darling I like the Cowboys. If I wasn't from Dallas and therefore a licenced Cowboy fan, they would be as bad or worse than the Yankees. I accept this level of hypocrisy.

2. I'm sorry, it's not fun to watch the same guy win all the time. It's really boring. The question yesterday was not if Tiger was going to win, but how. And sure enough, he choked away a three shot lead, fell behind, made a birdie put to tie, and won on the sudden death playoff hole. Technically exciting, but it's like we all knew the ending we just wanted to see how he was going to pull it off. It's Revenge of the Sith all over again. We know Anakin becomes Darth Vader we just didn't know how and hopefully they'll give us a little drama for good measure. When the Lakers and the Celtics made the finals this year, it wasn't fun, it was expected. And of course the media just drooled all over themselves as two marquee teams were in the playoffs. Too bad the NBA sucks. The NBA where boring happenings.

3. Can anybody win alot and appear to enjoy it less? Maybe Bill Belicick. Sure he cusses and throws his clubs when he messes up and pumps his fist when he wins, so obviously he cares, but he's basically one of the guys down at the municipal course who is better than everybody else but doesn't have fun doing it.

At the end of the day, I don't care about golf, but when I pay attention, I hope Tiger loses. But if Tiger's not there, I care about it even less! So maybe their diabolical plan has succeeded. Imagine what happens to golf if this knee injury is really bad and he doesn't play in the next two majors? If a golf tournament happens and Tiger isn't there to play it, does it really happen?