The stock market and the Dallas Cowboys are headed in the same direction, and it ain’t up. But while Wall Street receives more media coverage when conditions get worse, things aren’t quite the same for America’s Team.
At precisely 3:27 p.m. Sunday afternoon, NFL on FOX lost interest in the Cowboys’ eventual 34-14 loss to St. Louis. The third quarter hadn’t even been completed, but after the Rams — already ahead, 31-7 — intercepted 40-year-old backup quarterback Brad Johnson for the second time, the network cut to studio host Curt Menefee, who put it plainly: “The game has become non-competitive, as we say in the industry.”
FOX then switched to the San Francisco 49ers at New York Giants.
What a fall from grace. Carrying the label of most talented team in the league — and second only to New England, if not rated ahead of them, in preseason expectations — the Cowboys showed their human side and added to their nationwide legion of supporters this summer thanks to the exposure of HBO’s Hard Knocks. Even Terrell Owens became likeable.
But Dallas has now lost two in a row and three of the last four.
The Cowboys are depleted: starting quarterback Tony Romo missed Sunday with a broken pinkie, Felix Jones with a hamstring injury, Terrance Newman is out with groin surgery, and against the Rams, the team lost safety Roy Williams for the year to a broken forearm. Add to that the recent failure of the Adam “Pacman” Jones experiment; the cornerback’s NFL suspension is back on and he’s in rehab.
Owner Jerry Jones might have hoped his toughest project this year was finding a sponsor for his new billion-dollar stadium — the economy certainly isn’t making that any easier — but now he’s got to rebuild his team’s damaged psyche.
“It’s pretty obvious that we need to sit down and look at everything we’re doing,” Jones told the Associated Press. “That’s not to be in any way interpreted as a change of any coaching or dramatic change. It really isn’t about making a lot of changes people-wise, as much as it’s about the change within the people.”
Sounds like a team desperate for a bailout.
