Robertson’s Mediocrity Exposed

You get the sense after watching that the local pitiful excuse of an NFL football team (the Texans) figure out new ways to lose each week, that frustrated Comical writer Dale Robertson has just been waiting for Dallas to stumble so he could write this snippy little column (Cowboys’ Mediocrity Exposed) about the Cowboys.

How lame (or, even better, mediocre).

Sure, the Cowboys stunk it up on Thanksgiving. No doubt about it.

And the naysayers who were strangely silent after they beat Carolina last week can all come out and say Dallas’s record is just a fluke, I guess.

But their record of 8-4 is still good enough to have them very much in the hunt for the playoffs (and even the NFC East title), and when you have the #1 defense in the NFL after 12 weeks of the season, it’s hard to call that a fluke. You can’t say any of those good things about Dale Robertson’s hometown boys, the Texans (the same Texans, he likes to remind us, who beat the Cowboys last year).

Do the Cowboys still have deficiencies? Yes, absolutely. They don’t have a single running back on the roster who deserves more than spot duty, yet someone has to start. Injuries on the offensive line have hurt its efficiency. The special teams have been mediocre. The defensive line could use another playmaker (or two). But nobody said this team was a Super Bowl contender. It’s not. Until recently, nobody even really said it’s a playoff contender.

But at 8-4, that’s exactly what they are: playoff contenders (and, because of that, above mediocrity). They may still not make the playoffs. They may get in, and lose in the first round (which seems most likely to me). They may even get to the second round somehow. Nobody should expect them to get to the Super Bowl. That’s reality.

However, none of the “experts” had ’em picked even to win 8 games to start the season; and most “experts” figured Parcells would have Ray Lucas or Vinny Testaverde in Big D by now. Instead, Quincy Carter is developing into a decent NFL quarterback, and even in a pitiful team effort on Thanksgiving, the guy made some really nice throws that he couldn’t make a year ago. They’ve developed some defensive lineman. And they’ve figured out they need to bolster their running game. That’s a pretty good start for Parcells, whose teams typically have not contended for the playoffs until his second year of rebuilding. By that track record, the Cowboys are well ahead of schedule. And, we might add, well ahead of Dale’s 4-7 Texans.

(Update) Maybe Robertson really meant to write about our mediocre Rockets, whose lofty record to start the season came at the expense of teams who mostly have losing records now, and who have not fared as well against better teams of late.