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Wednesday, December 10, 1997

Challenge meant little to Cowboys

By Gil LeBreton

Knight-Ridder Newspapers

(KRT)

FORT WORTH - Amidst the locker room whispers and the sighs of disgust, the hushed words of Cowboys owner Jerry Jones echoed the loudest Monday night.

There were personnel matters to review and changes likely to be made, Jones said, "But that's not for tonight.

"What tonight is about is a recognition of disappointment."

All that money - wasted. All the salary cap sleight of hand - didn't matter. Deion Sanders, Broderick Thomas, Eric Bjornson, Anthony Miller - all for naught.

The owner who likes to boast about his total commitment watched in disgust Monday as his team meekly rolled over and accepted its fate.

Around the locker room, some candidly admitted that they could see it coming.

"We came in last Monday - the Giants had lost and the Redskins had lost - and I thought everybody would be pumped up," a Cowboys veteran said. -We had been granted a reprieve.

"Instead, guys were just wandering around. It was like, 'Just get it over with.' "

For the Cowboys of the '90s, this was uncharted ground. Presented with the challenge of restoring their wounded pride and mounting a final run for the playoffs, some yawned and acted as if it wasn't worth the fuss.

A three-game winning streak - that's all the franchise needed. They could have launched the resurrection on "Monday Night Football" for all of the world to see. And what a consummate Texas Stadium scene the New York Giants game in two weeks would have been - John Madden and Pat Summarall, the NFC East title at stake, Christmas in the air, and the Cowboys' Super Bowl chances on the people's lips.

Instead, they quit. To be more accurate, the Cowboys quit sometime in the second half at Green Bay.

"We practiced last week the same way we've practiced every other week," the veteran Cowboy said. "Maybe worse."

This is not a new story, in other words, as anyone who has watched this Cowboys team has noticed.

Tackle Erik Williams' tired jog to the line as time expired in New York will remain one of the many epitaphs for this season. Think back.

The Cowboys once filled highlight reels with memorable plays. But this season is a blur - a montage of blitzing linebackers dashing past Nate Newton, of Emmitt Smith being stuffed as he tries to slide outside, of new guy Miller unable to shake even the most mediocre of pass defenders and, finally, of quarterback Troy Aikman scrambling and retreating and eventually stumbling, unable to outrun this team's fate.

"I'm frustrated," Owner Jones said, his voice barely rising above a whisper. "I won't say 'angry,' because angry implies I'd be angry at someone other than myself. And I certainly know that the ultimate responsibility lies with me.

"But I am very disappointed. I feel like with the players we've got and with the commitment we've made overall, with what we've done to structure our personnel and the talent we have, we ought to be doing a lot better than we are."

For the often-sugary Owner Jones, this was tantamount to a ringing indictment of his team. He remains stubborn. But he is not blind.

We won't waste space here outlining the myriad reasons why Barry Switzer should and will soon be relieved of his duties as head coach, and possibly replaced by George Seifert. Switzer's daily reflections on the state of the Cowboys continue to veer more and more toward the ridiculous.

The latest Tuesday was Coach Boomer saying that he expects to be back next season, adding, "I want nothing but what's best for this football team."

Oh, good grief. The team is in ashes, and having played the good cop card, the bad cop card, the race card and the you-assistant-coaches-better-shape-up card, Coach Boomer now wants to play the humanitarian card.

Whatever. I'll alert the Nobel Prize committee.

But let's not beat this dead pony any longer. If Switzer comes back, Aikman doesn't, and surely Owner Jones knows that.

Cowboys veterans talk about the poor practice habits of this team and about the lax midweek preparation. Switzer's exact role in that could be argued - though not very positively on his behalf, it says here - but typical of the problem was a random afternoon a few weeks ago. Practice starts, 20 minutes pass, and finally here comes Coach Boomer, emerging from the locker room, sneaking a glance at his printed schedule.

Read into that what you will.

Once Switzer was roundly identified by the media as the season's culprit, players' attitudes underwent a conspicuous change. Fans and the media had their scapegoat, so it was easy for underachieving Cowboys to hide behind Switzer's stumbling footprints.

"What you saw tonight," another veteran player said Monday, "is the same thing that's been building all season long."

It likely will be up to Owner Jones to decide who were the quitters and who will be the keepers from this sorry 1997 team.

"We had everything to gain tonight," Jones said after the loss to Carolina. "Certainly we were absent Deion, but everybody's got injuries. To a man around here, we expected a big effort and a better result."

Instead, it was a night to recognize the Cowboys' failures and to accept the team's fate.

It was everything that they deserved.

(c) 1997, Fort Worth Star-Telegram

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