Sports

I was really impressed by the rookie Julius Jones on the Monday Night Game last night. I even stayed up for the whole game and was rewarded by an unbelievable comeback by Dallas.

He will help the offense a bunch by finally providing a credible running threat.

Some notes on the Monday night coverage by Michaels:

• He kept going on about the receiver (Keyshawn) being out of the endzone on the touchdown that got Dallas back in the game with a couple of minutes left. They kept playing the replay over and over to analyze whether his elbow hit out of bounds before his foot was in. They missed the obvious fact that he was pushed out which made the elbow position a moot point.
• He kept saying that somebody on Seattle should have called a fair catch on the onside kick. The problem with that is that the ball had bounced right after the kick and as far as I know you can’t call fair catch once the ball hits the ground (great kick by the Dallas kicker by the way). The better commentary would have been about how poor the Seattle special team was in covering the kick. Whitten recovered it in the air and wasn’t even challenged.

Overall it was a great game. First NFL game I’ve watched all the way through in a long time.

An interesting question came up as I thought about Dave Wannstedt quitting as head coach of the Miami Dolphins in the middle of the season and read the Page 2 article by Skip Bayless. When a team wins a Super Bowl, everyone is trying to hire the assistants, hoping to catch the magic. The question is “What makes a great coach?”. Is it a fiery dictator, like a Ditka or a Lombardi, or is it an architect of offenses or defenses, like a Walsh or a Belicheck? “That and a pair of testicles,” as The Dude would say.

It was probably inevitable, but the Dallas Cowboys stadium initiative passed in Arlington last week. This corporate welfare will be paid by the taxpayer and the majority of the benefit will go to Jerry Jones and associates. To the credit of the opposition, they put up a good campaign against it and kept the voting close.

The stadium will be paid for by an increase in the local sales tax and the other usual suspects (rental car and hotel taxes). These taxes are well known to anyone that travels to Houston and takes a look at their hotel or rental car bill. Hopefully in the long run it will keep conventions and other type business out of these cities.