Maurice Jones-Drew is a local hero in my neighborhood. He attended De La Salle High School before going on to star at UCLA and with the Jacksonville Jaguars in the National Football League. He is not only a great player, but he is also a great guy in every sense of the word.
And this great guy said one of the dumbest things I have heard this football season on Sunday night after the Dallas Cowboys battled to a 40 to 40 tie against the highly regarded Green Bay Packers.
“Who is to say these Cowboys couldn’t contend for the Super Bowl?” Jones-Drew said to his broadcast partner Chris Rose on the NFL Network. “I mean, they just got edged by the Philadelphia Eagles in their opener and now have almost beaten the Packers. I like their chances,” MJD added.
This is a perfect example of an overreaction to a bad football team catching a couple good teams looking past them. Note, Dallas didn’t actually win either the game against Philadelphia or Green Bay and in their other two games got blown out by the Chicago Bears and needed overtime to edge the New York Giants on their home field.
The closeness of the Cowboys games against the Eagles and Packers is not an indicator that Dallas is good, but rather two superior teams looking past Dallas while anticipating an easy win.
The Cowboys are not going to get close to vying for a Super Bowl berth this season … will be eliminated before the playoffs begin and still have not assured me that my preseason bet of them winning more than seven games is secure. Dallas is not a good football team.
Yes, quarterback Dak Prescott had an outstanding game on Sunday night while putting up 40 points, but after the game did you see the reactions of the two teams in a game that did not decide a winner? The Packers filed off the field and held postgame press conferences like they had lost. Prescott beamed from the front of the room in the post-game mix with the media like he had just won the Super Bowl.
I recall a tie in my first season with the Oakland Raiders in 1973. We met the Denver Broncos at Mile High Stadium and traded points with the Broncos that included a game ending Jim Turner field goal that knotted the final score at 23. The Broncos and their fans celebrated that tie like they won, while John Madden got on the plane ride home, looked at me and said, “A tie feels like a loss.”
Why?
Because the Raiders were a championship team and any game that didn’t end in a win was a loss. The Broncos were a second-tier team and battling the Silver and Black to a push was a moral victory.
That’s what Prescott and his Cowboys had on Sunday night, a moral victory. Jones-Drew saw the result as reason to elevate the Cowboys well above their actual talent level, I offer a more sober evaluation of Dallas.
They have trouble running the ball and a defense that is a swinging gate for their opponents.
What more evidence of my ranking of the Cowboys?
How about this, Jones-Drew will not be singing their praises this Sunday night after they become the first victim of the New York Jets and new head coach Aaron Glenn.
Qoxhi Picks: New York Jets (+2½) over Dallas Cowboys