After tumultuous week, Cowboys refuel, reload

After tumultuous week, Cowboys refuel, reload
December 15
Newsday columnist Bob Glauber
"Let's see if we've got this straight:

The owner called the running back with a tough-guy reputation a wimp for not playing last week against the Steelers. Then the diva wide receiver with a history of trashing quarterbacks suggested behind the scenes that his present quarterback was favoring the tight end. Then the star cornerback trashed the coaching staff in a television interview, suggesting they don't take the blame when things go wrong. And the laid-back head coach suggested all was right with the world.

I think that about sums it up.

Oops. Almost forgot. The twice-suspended cornerback likely is out for the season with a neck injury.

There. That's it.

Just another week of drama in Dallas, where the Cowboys have elevated NFL dysfunction to an art form. It didn't seem to hurt last night as the Cowboys beat the Giants, 20-8, in a game Dallas had to have.

With Jerry Jones as the conductor and Terrell Owens as the lead protagonist, the Cowboys again have cornered the market on controversy. The drama kings were in full bloom during the previous seven days, and the locker-room tension was palpable. With reports of a locker-room shouting match between Owens and tight end Jason Witten, the alleged favorite target of Tony Romo, and with Jones looking on in bemusement, the Cowboys entered last night's game against the defending Super Bowl champions teetering on the brink.

At 8-5 and barely hanging on in the playoff race entering the game, the Cowboys decided that creative tension was clearly the best route to continuing their quest to win a Super Bowl for the first time since their memorable run of three titles in the mid-1990s.

The Cowboys held a team meeting Friday morning to try to sort things out, but they wouldn't find out how things worked out until the nationally televised game unfolded.

Seemed to go OK.

"I am not worried about a divided locker room," coach Wade Phillips pronounced as the practice week came to a close. "Everything is set straight as far as I'm concerned. I think the players, too. We'll see."

The ultimate test would be against the Giants, a picture of team harmony now that the Plaxico Burress fiasco is behind them. Evidently, the swirl of controversy didn't take away the Cowboys' ability to stay competitive with the Giants, whose last trip here ended with an upset win in the NFC playoffs last January.

But the Cowboys' deep-seated discord is simply not the best way to operate a football team regardless of what kind of buzz Jones creates with a locker room filled with as many divas and as much drama as a good soap opera. But in this case, it's all real. And as much as Jones loves the attendant publicity - even if much of it is bad - this is not the way you win titles.

Jones and Jimmy Johnson combined forces to win two titles and set up another for Barry Switzer during the swashbuckling 1990s, but the Cowboys had such dominant personnel that they could withstand the occasional circus atmosphere."
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