Cowboys Country

What’s Wrong With Dak Prescott? A Giants Jinx? Cowboys Notebook

A near-fatal flirting, a most dangerous opponent and a sad Christmas eviction, all in this week's DFW sports notebook ...

Richie Whitt

WHITT’S END: 12.17.21

Whether you’re at the end of your coffee, your day, your week or even your rope, welcome to Whitt’s End …

*Dak Prescott = In slump. On alert. Why? Because through the years Dallas Cowboys’ quarterbacks have experienced horrible health against Sunday’s opponent – the New York Giants.

They are most definitely a "dangerous" opponent.

In 1968, the 7-1 Cowboys lost in New York in a game in which Don Meredith re-injured a knee and was replaced by Craig Morton.

In 1986, they were 6-2 before quarterback Danny White suffered a broken wrist in The Meadowlands and limped to a 7-9 finish.

In 2010, quarterback Tony Romo absorbed an early-season broken collarbone against the Giants on Monday Night Football to send his defending division champs spiraling to 6-10.

Last season, of course, it was against New York at AT&T Stadium that Prescott suffered his gruesome, season-ending ankle injury.

This season has – so far – been a quarterback injury advantage for Dallas in the NFC East. Washington was counting on Ryan Fitzpatrick, who threw only six passes in the season opener before suffering a season-ending hip injury. The Eagles’ Jalen Hurts missed their last game with a bum ankle. And the Giants, who lost Daniel Jones and running back Saquon Barkley in Dallas’ blowout win October, will be without their starting quarterback again Sunday.

The Cowboys have control of the division in part because of their health. And Dak this week proclaimed himself “100-percent healthy,” so the question “What’s Wrong With Dak?” can be answered, Fish and Dak seem to think, by improved footwork.

Anyway, I don’t believe in jinxes. But, just in case, pretend I didn’t write this.

*And to think, two years ago today – with the Cowboys sitting at 7-7 and the writing on the wall for lame-duck Jason Garrett – a certain former college coach was expressing “interest” in coaching Dallas. For the most part, Cowboys fans were urging owner Jerry Jones to consider Urban Meyer. For that matter, also another college coach named Lincoln Riley. According to the Ghosts of Christmas Present: Riley just flew Norman, Oklahoma for USC, Meyer was fired in disgrace by the 2-11 Jaguars and the 9-4 Cowboys couldn’t be happier with Mike McCarthy.

*Dallas Mavericks without Luka Doncic is like Channel 8’s sports without Dale Hansen. I mean, it’s still meat-and-potatoes basketball/sports, just void of the ol’ pizzazz.

*Steph Curry breaking the NBA record for most 3-pointers prompted me to ponder my list of the best long-distance shooters in Mavs’ history. 5. Tim Hardaway; 4. Dale Ellis; 3. George McCloud; 2. Steve Nash; 1. Dirk Nowitzki.

I was in Reunion Arena 26 years ago when McCloud – at time when NBA teams rarely shot 10 triples per game – drained a still-standing team-record 10. And I remember when Ellis was drafted out of Tennessee in 1983 to stretch opposing defenses.

How has the game changed? After 10 consecutive years of declining scoring, in 1995 the league re-drew the arc from 23-feet-9 inches to 22 feet. Big move. Big change. In the Mavs’ inaugural season in 1980-81, they made 46 3-pointers for the entire season. Curry is on pace for his seventh season making 250+.

By the way, as Dallas’ designated sniper on coach Dick Motta’s half-court offenses, Ellis never made more than 63 3-pointers in a season.

*Jerry Jones and Jimmy Johnson finally agree on something: Prescott is in a funk, and needs help to win a Super Bowl.

*Third time’s the charm, right? Certainly hope so for the sake of my alma mater, Duncanville High School. The Panthers play in their third state championship game in four years Saturday at AT&T Stadium against Houston’s Galena Park North Shore. It’s Round 3 between the powerhouse teams, and the first two have been nightmares for Duncanville. In 2018, it lost 41-36 on a final-play, 45-yard Hail Mary so dramatic that it led the night’s Sportscenter on ESPN.

In 2019, the Panthers were forced to play for the first time all season without star quarterback Ja’Quinden Jackson, injured in the previous week’s semifinal. As part of the Class of ’82, I know all too well that DHS has only one football title, in 1998. Sports karma has to give the third matchup to the team already sucker-punched twice.

*Backward blueprint: Just like you – ahem, I meant nobody – figured, the Cowboys’ defense is constantly bailing out its offense.

*Took part in a sad, strange, surreal event this week: An eviction. Friend of mine owns a duplex in Dallas and one of the renters was in arears by a cool $10,000. Shielded by a COVID-forced pause on evictions, the resident was allowed to stay put despite not paying for months. Finally, a judge ruled he had to catch up or get out within a month. He was then given a 24-hour notice to leave the property, or else.

But when three Constables arrived – and a couple of the landlord’s friends, just for support – the renter hadn’t moved a muscle, much less any of his family’s belongings. Instead, he was gone, having backed a truck against the gate and locked a chain on the front door in an attempt to prevent anyone from entering.

The Constables forced their way in, then ordered us to start putting the dwelling’s contents into giant trash bags and stacking them by the curb in the front yard. When reached by phone, the renter said he was “out getting boxes.” But when he arrived an hour into the process – with a 3-year-old son in tow – he didn’t have boxes, but merely Jack in the Box.

Breaks my heart that a dad – given that much warning and time to forge a Plan B – would put his son in that kind of situation. Especially at Christmas. As we left, the man yelled, “You didn’t have to make this a white trash scene!”

Funny, I was thinking the same thing about him.

*Nick Saban. Lou Holtz. Chip Kelly. Bobby Petrino. Steve Spurrier. And now, Meyer. The transition from college head coach to the NFL ain’t so easy.

Kliff Kingsbury? Maybe. Barry Switzer? Umm. Jimmy Johnson? Definitely!

It’s even more difficult to be a good coach when you’re a bad person. During his short time in Jacksonville, Meyer hired a strength coach previously accused of making racist remarks and bullying players, twisted a form of “nepotism” into a roster spot for ol’ crony Tim Tebow, didn’t fly home with his team after a loss to the Bengals and instead went to a bar in Ohio where he was videoed with a woman sitting in his lap, called his assistant coaches “losers” and kicked his kicker, saying “I’m the head ball coach. I’ll kick you whenever I want.” Finally, Jags owner Shad Khan had enough, saying “ … trust and respect was essential. Regrettably, it did not happen.”

Meyer’s legacy? He’s a coach with three National Championships, but a man who is a narcissistic jerk, fraud and failure.

*National signing day was once a big deal, because high-school players made four-year commitments to colleges. But in this era of the what-have-you-done-for-me-lately transfer portal, it’s more like a first date rather than a wedding. Players “committing” to a school are merely making a one-year promise. They need playing time and/or NIL money or, poof, they’ll be gone to greener pastures. Oklahoma’s preseason Heisman Trophy candidate Spencer Rattler was benched and is fleeing for South Carolina. TCU star running back Zach Evans is leaving Fort Worth. And, even after starting 10 games and leading the Aggies to an upset victory over Alabama, quarterback Zach Calzada is skipping Texas A&M for a new, yet-to-be-determined home.

*Hot.

*Not.

*Who needs Luka? One of the most entertaining games of the NBA season and one of the wildest endings in 25 years climaxed Wednesday night with a flurry of unlikely overtime 3-pointers from … Wayne Ellington, Maxi Kleber (off the glass from straightaway), Russell Westbrook and finally, undrafted rookie Austin Reaves.

Dallas isn’t good enough to not do the little things. Up three with less than five seconds remaining, Kleber and Kristaps Porzingis fought each other for a rebound which slipped out to Ellington for a shot that forced overtime. Then at the end of the extra five minutes in a tie game and under 10 seconds remaining the Mavs – with a foul to give – inexplicably didn’t foul.

Check that, the Mavs desperately do need Luka. The more I watch this team, the more I get the feeling this season isn’t going to end well. Or in the playoffs.

*Excuse my space geekdom, but next week – perhaps on Christmas Eve –NASA is launching an unfathomably powerful James Webb telescope aimed at answering two fundamentally mammoth questions: 1. Where did we come from? 2. Are we alone? Whereas the Hubble telescope is positioned 340 miles from Earth, Webb is gonna park exactly one million miles from home. It will be able to peer back in time, to the beginning of the known universe. Around Memorial Day we should be getting images … and answers. Can’t. Wait.

*Micah Parsons is so good he made us – and the rest of the NFL, apparently – forget about Jaylon Smith. After being released by the Packers on Nov. 2, the former Cowboy remains a free agent.

*There are Cowboys fans who wanted their team to hire Meyer and not draft Parsons. That’s why they are fans.

*Climate change in action: DFW didn’t dip below 32 degrees until Dec. 12, three weeks later than normal and the latest first-freeze date since 2007. I’ve had the A/C on in my car while Christmas shopping. Bah humbug.

*I kid you not, there are 42 college football bowl games this year. And exactly 39 of them don’t mean diddly squat. Nowadays coaches leave, stars skip and any ol’ company can slap its name on a bowl game. For the first time we’re getting a game named after an actual person. Papa John isn’t real. John Hancock is an insurance agency. But this year’s “LA Bowl” will officially be called the “Jimmy Kimmel LA Bowl.” There are other games sponsored by potatoes, smoothies and wasabi, deteriorating bowl names into something won for $50 at some cluttered silent auction table. The names sound like something out of a Monty Python skit. And, did I mention there are 42 of them?

*You know who deserves coal in their stocking this Christmas? The thieves that broke into and robbed the White Rock Center of Hope, a 30-year-old East Dallas nonprofit that provides food, clothing and financial assistance to the less fortunate. They basically stole Christmas from poor people who can’t afford Christmas. Naughty list, and then some.

*So here’s how it works: The worst NFL team gets the No. 1 pick and drafts the Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback, who ultimately leads it to the Super Bowl. At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work.

Spoiler alert: That’s how it never works.

Some team will draft Alabama’s Bryce Young and likely go nowhere fast. The last quarterback to win the Heisman and lead the team that drafted him to win the Super Bowl? Roger Staubach.

Maybe it happens with Kyler Murray and the Cardinals. But history says bet against it.

*Out of the blue this week I received a Facebook message from a girl I graduated high school with, but haven’t spoken to in almost 40 years. More bizarre, she wanted a favor. Seems her son has just graduated from college in Florida and wants a job in sports, so she asked if I “have any good contacts” to help him land a gig. I was polite and all, but as rule I save my “good contacts” for folks who don't let four decades pass between communications.

*Couple of familiar interested observers in Sunday’s game that have ties to both the Cowboys and Giants. One, I wonder who Garrett will root for? Two, Chris Canty played for Dallas and New York, and these days is a sports radio talk-show host in the Big Apple. Good on him.

*I’m totally lost on USAA’s TV ad campaign, the one that pays Rob Gronkowski handsomely to be its celebrity spokesman. The message: If you’re not in the military or a member of a military family, you can’t buy the product. So … commercials that pound the other 85 percent of Americans over the head with “Sorry, we don’t want your business.” How is this a good strategy? Is it supposed to make me jump up and join the Marines so I can get their fancy insurance?

*No problem with every scholarship offensive lineman at the University of Texas getting paid $50,000 a year as part of a new “Horns with Heart” NIL deal. Money is now on the table instead of under it, capiche? But apparently one of the school’s former coaches does. Gene Chizik, Texas’ assistant head coach on the 2005 National Championship team, took umbrage via Twitter.

Same guy, mind you, that accepted a $7.5 million contract buyout after being fired by Auburn. The coach paid not to work now has a problem with players being paid to work.

*Was watching the shocking devastation caused by the Midwest tornadoes this week and a mayor of one of the Kentucky cities says “What we need most right now is prayer.” Really? More than food and water and federal emergency financial aid and, ya know, places to live for families whose houses have been blown into toothpicks?

I understand how “thoughts and prayers” can be comforting. But wouldn’t it be simply divine if prayer was pro-active effective and not just post-trauma passive? As in, instead of praying for help after the tornadoes, pray instead before that a slew of tornadoes a mile wide and 200 miles long would never again touch down and ravage cities and kill 100+ Americans. Amen?

*How wonderfully chaotic is the NFL’s playoff picture? For the first time since 1970 each conference has a three-way tie for best record through Week 14.

*I got the COVID booster last week and, I’ll be honest, for 24 hours I felt like a brawled a Grizzly. Body aches, general lethargy, the works. But totally worth it. The U.S. surpassed 800,000 COVID deaths this week. Doctors say roughly 165,000 of those could have been prevented by the vaccine. Staggeringly stupid to decline life-saving medicine that is free and readily available ... all because you don’t want to be told what to do.

*This Weekend? Friday let’s do some Christmas shopping at actual brick-and-mortar stores. Saturday let’s root on DHS at AT&T. Sunday let’s watch the Cowboys rout the Giants. As always, don’t be a stranger.

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Richie Whitt
RICHIE WHITT

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