Seriously?!?!

Normally, I hate to pile on and kick a team when they're down (unless maybe it's Duke or some other ridiculously overconfident, overhyped, and media-pampered collection of egocentric talents), but the disaster in Philadelphia today can't go by without some discussion. The Dallas Cowboys completely imploded and were humiliated at the hands of the Philadelphia Eagles, 44-6, thereby eliminating themselves from the playoffs that just mere weeks ago this team was thought to be a lock to win.

Let this be a warning to all other teams out there: I don't care how highly touted your assemblage of talent is, unless it is a TEAM, it's just that - an assemblage of talent.

The Cowboys are a group of folks with an abundance of distractions that nobody seems to be able to get a handle on. The owner, however good-intentioned, always comes across as wanting to be the coach. He will almost always hire a coach (like the current one) whose personality will be meeker than his and therefore be run all over by him. The aforementioned current coach will also therefore be run over by many of his players. The players' individual interests are continually coming before the interests of the whole. And the local and national media delight in watching this pot boil over time and time again.

Something has to change.

Now, I don't blame all of those turnovers today on the coaches, but the coaching staff is always the first place that people will point the finger. Today, I will be in that group. Tony Romo was right: the Cowboys were exposed. Something has to change.

Not everything that T.O. does is detrimental to his team, just most of it. His very presence is a constant source of talk that distract his teammates and management away from the game at which all of them say they are trying to succeed. Something has to change.

Do I have all of the answers today? No, of course not. But I know that I am not the only one of the opinion that something has to change. And likely more things than one.

And incidentally... For as much anti-Duke sentiment as I usually have, at least Coach K always has his boys playing like a Team.