MJD’s take on an amusing annual NFL tradition:

You know what I’ve found strange about every team in sports that’s won a championship since around 2001? They have all been the victims of heaps upon heaps of disrespect. No one thought they could do it!

Imagine that. All these hundreds of champion athletes, and all these millions of fans, and never once did one fan think one athlete was capable of a championship. It’s crazy! It’s truly a statistical anomaly. Especially since there are only 30 or so teams per league, and one of them has to win the championship. You’d think at least one of these tens of millions of fans would catch on.

It’s an odd coincidence, isn’t it? That every championship team has also been demeaned by the public and the target of unprecedented insolence?

I know this sort of sports propaganda can fire up a team, but is it less motivation to win to know that your legion of fans, as well as many prominent sports pundits, think you are perfectly capable of winning the championship?

Maybe it’s because it’s Christmas eve, but my eyes got a little watery reading this (via Liberally Lean.) Sometimes, especially around this time of year, it’s nice to read about people just being good to each other in ways that are small yet remarkable.

As much as I cut people slack for dumb things they say or do (kettle being black and all) I don’t quite know how Donovan McNabb didn’t know that there are ties in the NFL. That’s just weird.

Earlier in the week I lauded Obama for his courageous stance on a college football playoff system. Tim Colishaw takes umbrage with Obama’s position in today’s column:

We have just sent a dangerous man to the White House. Let’s not kid ourselves about it.

Say all the positives you want about the feel-good story of President-elect Barack Obama. The bottom line is this is a man … who wants a college football playoff.

Obama said that very thing at halftime of ESPN’s Monday Night Football . And we elected him, anyway.

What were we thinking?

Ha. The rest of Colishaw’s column is worth reading, but really I don’t see how his defense of the BCS doesn’t just boil down to a “this is the way we’ve always done it so let’s stick to it.” I’m definitely not a fan of over-inclusiveness when it comes to playoff systems. Major League Soccer’s system, where most teams will make the post-season, is a joke (though to be fair, that was more of a business strategy, and low-seeded teams routinely make it all the way to the championship game thanks to excessive league parity.) Something similar could be said for the NBA, where no team below the sixth seed has ever won the finals. Still, as far as I’m concerned, letting in a few teams that will prove only to be warm-ups for higher quality teams, is much more preferable to letting computers decide your champion.

 Cowboys WR Terrell Owens on the election, with a message that I’m pretty sure all of us, left and right, can get behind:

“Very emotional and historical moment. There was a change and hopefully that can trickle on down to our season.”

On the odds that the Cowboys will make the playoffs, I propose adopting the Obama catchphrase “Yes we can!” 

Now I have two reason to be happy that the Redkins lost last night; apparently in the last seventeen Presidential elections, a preceding Redkins loss has meant doom for the incumbent party. To my glee, the Redkins were trounced last night by Pittsburgh.

UPDATE: On Monday Night Football’s halftime show, Obama came out in favor of a college playoff system. Is there any more convincing evidence that Obama is the right man to be President?

If you’re a Cowboys fan, today feels less like Christmas eve and more like the day after a funeral. The Giants buried the Cowboys yesterday, winning comfortably 35-14, and while the playoffs are not out of the question, the Cowboys now occupy the cellar of the NFC East and are looking at needing to win five out of the remaining seven games to even make the playoffs, and that stretch includes games against the Redkins, the Eagles, the Giants, Pittsburgh and Baltimore, any or all of those games being potential losses given how the team looks now. Clearly, whatever ailed this team going into last year’s playoffs has not been cured by the off-season, or by convincing wins at the outset of this season. Things got so bad yesterday that Brad Johnson, who you may recall won a freaking Super Bowl with the Buccaneers, was pulled in favor of third-stringer Brooks Bollinger (to sadly predictable effect.) A defense which secured the win last week with a spectacular fourth down stand despite numerous injuries, was was effective at slowing down Manning but couldn’t stop the run. Overall, the Giants looked like Super Bowl champions, and the Cowboys looked like a team that will be lucky to finish .500. At the beginning of the season the only real question seemed to be whether this team could succeed in the playoffs like it has in the regular season. Now we are forced to wonder whether they will even make the playoffs at all, and it’s hard to imagine the fury and disappointment that will follow any such failing.

Self-immolation is staved off for one more week, as the Cowboys gut it out yesterday with a win over the Tampa Bay Bucs, 13-9 to go 5-3 and stay above .500. I already know that I’m a little old-school, but for me a massive defensive effort is the most inspiring way to win a game. Sure it would’ve been nice if Brad Johnson had come in and lit the place up for 300 or so yards and two or three touchdowns, but to me nothing shows more grit than a defensive stand to seal the win,and that’s exactly what we saw yesterday. It’s even more satisfying to see some guys who normally wouldn’t be on the field bring that sort of effort to the game, what with injuries and suspensions depleting the ranks of the secondary (Newman and Williams out, Jones suspended, Anthony Henry hurt during the game.) And very nice to see the newest edition, WR Roy Williams, get his first TD in the winning effort.

Oh, and as a bonus here’s Cowboys punter Sam Palescu laying into Buc Clifton Smith on a punt return. My favorite thing in the world is to watch a punter/kicker lay into a guy (I’ve always loved to root for the little guy, literally); combine that with the defensive effort yesterday, and I pretty much have nothing to complain about.

So I, and most other people around these parts, thought last week was a bad one for the Cowboys. A narrow loss to Arizona, Romo hurt, Felix Jones hurt, Terrence Newman hurt, Adam “Pacman” Jones suspended for getting in a fight (with his own bodyguard!?) The Cowboys go out and pick up Detroit’s impressive young WR Roy Williams, and are looking at facing the horrendous St. Louis Rams on Sunday…great chance to get back on track, right? Uh, not so much. I’ll confess to not watching more than about 2 minutes of this game, but that was enough. The first minute was the 42-yard catch by Donnie Avery that tied the game at 7-7, and the second minute was at the end of the first quarter(!) when I saw that the Rams were leading 21-7. So instead of getting back on track, the Cowboys have jumped off the rails and into the fire…and worse yet, they face Tampa Bay’s impressive defense next Sunday. At this point, keeping backup QB Brad Johnson alive for the duration of the game should be a priority. 

It was a good weekend for Dallas sports franchises, as the Dallas Cowboys got their first win ever at Lambeau Field (seriously?) and FC Dallas thrashed the Chicago Fire. I can’t believe the Cowboys have visited Green Bay only six times in their history, given how frequently they’ve played them throughout the years (including one of the most famous games in NFL history.) The team turned out a solid performance , giving up the first touchdown only at a meaningless point in the 4th quarter. The rest of the NFC East is doing well too though, so 3-0 is only good enough to stay tied with the Giants for first in the division and a game ahead of the Redskins and the Eagles (though the Cowboys own a tiebreaker against Philly thanks to last week’s win.)

FC Dallas got off to a great start, with new forward Jeff Cunningham scoring in the first ninety seconds of the game. He scored again before the end of the game, along with Pitchkolan and Guarda to finish with a 4-1 win in Chicago. The win permits fans such as myself to maintain the illusion that FC Dallas could both get in the playoffs and do well there, but a win and an uncertain future is always better than a certain premature end to the season.