Dallas Cowboys: My tribute to all the sports journalists of my youth ["Scattershooting"]

Scattershooting....... while wondering how the stagecoach ran through December so rapidly? 

As I sit here on this brisk January Sunday morning in tribute to Blackie Sherrod, Skip Bayless, Paul Crume, Dan Jenkins, Randy Galloway, and all others who pecked out their sports columns I read so religiously in my youth; I’m not writing in the Dallas Morning News, but I’m gonna drop a hot sports opinion nonetheless. 

Forty-days and forty-nights have passed since that terrible Thanksgiving Day when we all sat down for a feast of football. So decimated mentally and physically by the Eagles, the Cowboys rebounded and revived into a real contender for the Super Bowl everyone thought belonged to the home team, Arizona Cardinals.

Neither Matthew Stafford’s homecoming nor the feckless home-field advantage of Jerry’s Cowboys will dissuade me from prognosticating wild card success, this afternoon in Dallas. Finally, after wandering in the wilderness of mediocrity and the futility of .500, my precise predictive prowess tells my faithful readers that the Cowboys will win only its second playoff victory in 19 years. 

If kale is the new super-food, the Cowboys are the new Super Bowl contender! Their road may run through the frozen tundra, but a championship game in the wild Seattle northwest, with the despicable denizens a/k/a The 12^th Man is not as daunting in light of the solid win over the Seahawks on October 12.

Am I a home-field hallucinator? A crazy Cowboy, delusional in Dallas? No, I think a dominating offense and an inspired, friendly crowd push the Pokes past the unlucky Lions. Defense is the unanswered question for those who wade into the scary waters of calling a Cowboy victory today; and if Dallas tries to single-cover Calvin Johnson again, Stafford will make the home squad pay as if he was Bobby Layne’s ghost. Ball control will win the day: Murray running-game plus zero takeaways by the Lions, equals another chance at greatness for the Metroplex’s most storied franchise. 

If Jerry-world resembles Disney-land more than Lambeau, the smash-mouth reality of the road to Glendale could mean a better path for the Cowboys, after this game; considering they’re the best road team in football? Like a great book, the story of this season changed drastically after November 27, and it must take another surreal turn this afternoon.

So if Super Bowl XLIX (whatever that number really means) in four weeks, pits Dallas versus Denver, like the big game 35-years ago at the Superdome; I’ll be the smartest man in journalism, and if I’m Arizona dreamin’ on this winter’s day, you’ll forget me like yesterday’s headlines. And so it goes…

©2015 – Mark H. Pillsbury (Fair use of copyrighted work shown herein is not an infringement of copyright law, 17 USC 107)

Ultimate Texans » Photos: Texans fever

Ultimate Texans » Photos: Texans fever:

'via Blog this'

After ten years in this city, the Texan franchise has finally reached the high plateau of the NFL meritocracy, The Playoffs.

Like a contagious disease, Houston's citizens caught fan fever this week, and across the 4th largest city in the US, today they suffer from Texanitis.

As the sun broke over clear blue skies this morning and Houstonians got out to youth games, the grocery store, or the local coffee shop, all the talk was about the game this afternoon at Reliant Stadium, in the shadow of the old AstroDome. Fittingly, the new breed of professional football players see the shrine to the Oilers right next door, the 8th wonder of the world: the AstroDome. The creepy, dark, out-dated, concrete monolith to the past; where the last Houston playoff victory took place over 20 years ago.

There is nothing like the football euphoria of the playoffs. In a town that prides itself in entrepreneurial grit, civic pride, teamwork, courage, and success--which has largely eluded the city on the gridiron since the Texans started ten years ago; this football team overcame years of under-achieving and the hardship of a roller-coaster season to land its first NFL party since Super Bowl XXXVIII was played in Reliant Stadium in February of 2004.

Predictions are bold. Chips and salsa are flying off the shelves. Only the lucky and the patient are actually going to the game. Traffic around my neighborhood will be terrible this afternoon. But the city is buoyant with excitement. Being a life-long Dallas Cowboy fan spoiled me, but not anymore! The Cowboys are no shoe-in, having one playoff win in the last 15 years. Since I arrived in Houston the fall the Texans started, I have followed them closely every year and could not be any happier to see them succeed. Like any of the millions of Houston transplants who want our team to do well, I'm riding high today, waiting for kickoff.

used with permission: ©K. Woolet 

It should be a low-scoring affair, and with our 3rd QB starting the game, the Texans will have to rely on the Defense (led by the last Cowboy coach Wade Phillips). Turnovers usually change momentum, so look for that to be the pivot-point.

The buzz in the city today is red-hot (Battle Red), the fever is true-blue (Liberty Blue), and for one bright shiny day in Houston, we are all Texans!

©Mark H. Pillsbury