Monday, December 19, 2005

"How Bout Those Redskins!"

               

Awkward.

Dallas Mavericks guard Darrell Armstrong did the unthinkable.  Before his game last night with T-Wolves...Armstrong wanted to celebrated the win of his [and mine] beloved Washington Redskins over the Dallas Cowboys.

Well, in a pregame ceremony in which Devin Harris addressed the crowd to wish them a happy holiday season.....Armstrong asked for and received the mike.  He opened his mouth and said.....

"HOW 'BOUT THOSE REDSKINS!!!!!" 

Classic.  A player on a Dallas team smacking back on the Cowboys.  But neither the crowd or management were amused.  Armstrong heard a ton of boos and he was later fined $1,000 for his actions. 

For more on the story....go here: Mavs G Armstrong fined $1,000 for cheering on Redskins - NBA - Yahoo! Sports

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Below is a column found here [Star-Telegram | 12/19/2005 | Humiliating defeat could linger for years] about how badly the game went from a Cowboys writer point of view.  Please....enjoy.

Humiliating defeat could linger for years


Star-Telegram Staff Writer

This could be the game that changes Cowboys history. Certainly, it has changed it for this season, at the very least.

But the fallout from Sunday's stunning and humiliating 35-7 loss to the Redskins at FedEx Field might be felt for years to come.

In what was clearly a pivotal game in the Cowboys' drive for the playoffs, they were outplayed and outcoached in every phase of the game; whipped so badly and so convincingly, at this moment it is difficult to even conceive of this team sniffing the postseason.

Considering what was at stake, it has to be the most devastating Cowboys' defeat of the Parcells' era. After he spent last week telling us how much he liked these players, they flat quit on him Sunday.

They soiled their britches.

It is fair to wonder whether such a dismal failure in such a huge game will eventually influence Parcells' decision to keep coaching beyond this season.

"You can only lose a game once," said Parcells, looking on the bright side. "We were just awful.

"We lost this one badly. Now we have to see what we can do."

Plan their January vacations is my guess.

The Cowboys now must win their final two games of the season -- at Carolina and at home against St. Louis -- to have a prayer at a wild-card spot and even that might not be enough, considering the Redskins now own the tiebreaker between them.

After what we saw Sunday, that might be little more than a pipe dream. A Michael Irvin under-the-car-seat pipe dream.

"Nobody's giving up," tight end Dan Campbell vowed in a grim and shocked Cowboys' locker room. "We're not going to roll over.

"But the way we played [Sunday], we don't even deserve to be in the playoffs."

The rolling over already happened. The question is why.

How could a team with so much on the line mount such an inexcusably pitiful effort?

"There's really no way to explain it," Keyshawn Johnson said. "I just know we got the crap beat out of us."

The offensive line should have swapped uniforms with the Redskins cheerleaders. When Torrin Tucker and company weren't being flagged for false starts and holding, they were waving pompoms at the Redskins' defenders as they rushed by.

"It seemed like they were bringing a lot of guys, you know?" tackle Rob Petitti said.

This is a line that is begging to be blown up again this next off-season. Owner/general manager Jerry Jones will have little choice but to oblige, especially if creaking Drew Bledsoe returns at quarterback.

Guard Marco Rivera was taken off on a cart with a strained neck late in the game, but he's not expected to be so immobile that he can't false start again next weekend.

"When we have penalty problems, it's always the same people," said Parcells, dismissing the 90,000-plus FedEx Field crowd as an alibi. "We didn't block them. We got overwhelmed."

Bledsoe, who was supposed to be one of the edges the Cowboys had in this game, was sacked seven times, five of them coming on the first 10 offensive plays of the second half, when Dallas was trying futilely to rally from a 28-0 deficit. He also threw three interceptions and lost a fumble.

Bledsoe looked old, virtually immobile and panicky in the face of the Redskins' constant pressure.

"We never thought we'd see this happen to our team," Bledsoe said. "I didn't think that this team was capable of losing a game like that."

Until he broke off a 51-yard run, his longest of the season, late in the third quarter when the Cowboys trailed 35-0, running back Julius Jones had done nothing, unless you count passes dropped and runs stuffed. He averaged 2.5 yards on his other 11 carries. Marion Barber had a meaningless 30 yards on 10 carries.

Terry Glenn, the one receiver the Cowboys have who can stretch the field, disappeared against a banged-up and depleted Washington secondary. Until the final minute of the game, he had one catch for 8 yards.

Yet, as bad as the Cowboys' offense played, you could make the argument that the defense was even worse.

It didn't come close to stopping the run.

Clinton Portis had 112 yards on 23 carries, leading a ground game that piled up 171 yards.

It couldn't begin to defend the pass.

Quarterback Mark Brunell, suffering through a wretched second half of the season until Sunday, matched his career high with four touchdown passes -- in the first half. He hadn't thrown that many TD passes since 1998.

But why wouldn't Brunell have had a good day? The Cowboys' rush didn't get to him a single time all afternoon. Number of times Brunell was hit: zero.

If there was a game-turning play, it probably came early in the second quarter with the Redskins leading by only 7-0. The 'Skins had just crossed midfield when Santana Moss broke away from cornerback Aaron Glenn inside the 5 to make a skidding, 42-yard catch at the Cowboys' 1.

If aging Joe Gibbs hadn't been dozing and had challenged the referee's spot, a review would likely have showed that Moss actually scored on the play, but it didn't matter. Three plays later, Brunell hit H-back Chris Cooley with a 2-yard touchdown pass, the second of three he caught in the first half.

"That big play that Santana made really turned the tide," safety Keith Davis said. "We haven't been beaten like this all year. Every game we've lost, we've been in right until the end.

"It puzzles me, also. I don't understand it. It's unacceptable."

Very possibly even history-changing, embarrassingly unacceptable.

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