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IRVING, Texas - Greg, Greg, Greg.
Still complaining. Can't let it go.
Now you guys know me, I like Greg Ellis. Always have. Thought he was a fine player for the Cowboys the past 11 seasons. Upstanding guy. Good in the locker room. Good with the young players. A respectable NFLPA player rep for the team.
Oh, and I know, you guys got tired of him complaining about his money the last, what, three off-seasons, and many of you were, well, like, good riddance when the Cowboys finally released him in May, since hooking on with the Oakland Raiders now about a month away from turning 34 years old. And I'm guessing he can still play, maybe fulltime but for sure as a situational pass-rusher.
Money is a volcanic topic. Many of you probably know. When you don't think you're getting paid what you're worth, well, it's hard to swallow. Equally hard when you get released with one year left on your contract, left sitting in limbo, not knowing if your NFL career is done or not. So he complained. And complained. And complained.
Still complaining.
Now to the point Ellis has exposed there is something DeMarcus Ware actually can't do on a football field, or at least doesn't do very well. Really, two things. My gosh, at 27 years old in 22 days, last season's NFL sack leader and NFL Defensive Player of the Year runner-up doesn't know squat about the hiding part of Hide And Go Seek.
And . . . he's not very good at math. Must have missed the chapter on figuring percentages.
By now, I'm guessing most of you already have heard. Or read. Or been blogged or tweeted or Facebooked. While complaining about his reduced playing time in 2008 on a local radio station here, he said even DeMarcus Ware knew he should be on the field more, that Ware would go hide from the coaches on the sideline so they would have to put him in the game.
Really?
"It's a disgrace when DeMarcus Ware comes off the field just so I can get in the game and when the coaches tell him to come on the field, he tries to hide so I can play," Ellis told Michael Irvin on local ESPN radio. "And you're telling me we're trying to win the Super Bowl?"
When stupefied Irvin pressed Ellis on the subject, he said, "On his own. He would say, 'G, come on.' And I would tell him, 'No, DeMarcus, go ahead, man. You're coming up on your contract year. Don't mess that stuff up. Go ahead and do you, and we're just going to do what the coaches, or whoever the powers that be, what they want to do.'"
Now maybe I should not be so hard on Ware. When you are 6-4, 262 pounds and leading the NFL in sacks, yeah, it's probably kind of hard to hide on the sideline from the coaches so in a panic that they'll put buddy Greg, splitting time with Anthony Spencer, into the game.
Because I can think of only one time all last season Ware was off the field for maybe a play or three the entire game. That was the Seattle game, when a hyper-extended knee landed him in a heap at the end of the third quarter, Ware missing the entire fourth quarter.
As life would have it, Ellis said all this on Wednesday, and all the time Ware was scheduled to do several radio shows on Thursday while championing the NFL and Gatorade's "Beat The Heat" campaign, trying to bring more awareness to young players and coaches on the importance of hydration now that summer football practice is closing in.
So Thursday morning on The Ticket here in Dallas-Fort Worth, when asked about what Ellis said, Ware kind of straddled the fence the best he could, saying, "You know, I just think that everybody got an ample amount of playing time, for what it was worth. At the end of the day, if I was off the field, there was a reason why I was off the field. Maybe Greg rushed the passer better against a certain guy. But I think at the end of the day, the time that guys got is how it is."
A bit perplexed by Ware's answer, host Norm Hitzges asked what percentage of plays he thought he played, Ware said funny you would ask because he just had seen something on that the other day, saying it was probably "95 percent" of the 969 defensive plays over the course of the 2008 season.
Ware wasn't done, though. He also was scheduled for an appearance on Sirius Radio's Opening Drive, and of course faced the same line of questioning. Ware was consistent.
"You know, on the concept of hydration, I think I was probably going off the field maybe to get hydrated," he says laughing, knowing he eloquently skirted the subject. "But I think that everybody at the end of the day got ample amount of time and I went back and looked at a lot of the things, and I, what, played in like 95 percent of the plays?
"And, you know, maybe sometimes guys rush better against certain guys, so I don't know. I don't know what the deal is, but at the end of the day, I did what I can do to help the team out last year."
So face it, if Ware was playing 95 percent of the plays, he sure is lousy at hiding. Hope wife Taniqua is in charge of teaching the kids how to hide.
And worse, she better be in charge of the math lessons, too. I know for a fact Ware participated in 97-point-something percent of the plays, and if we're rounding out to the closest whole number, that then becomes 98 percent of the plays. Think about that now, Ware only sat out two percent of the 969 plays. That comes to 19.38 plays missed . . . FOR THE ENTIRE SEASON. Divide that over 16 games, and that comes to sitting out an average of 1.2 plays a game.
Even more enlightening would be factoring in the Seattle game. That hyper-extended knee caused him to miss 13 plays in the fourth quarter, or right at 67 percent of all the plays he missed last year. Furthermore, that means in the other 15 games when he supposedly was trying to hide, Ware only missed like six plays - like less than a half-play a game.
Also know this because his seat usually was right behind mine coming back on those charter flights from away games: Ware was slam worn out when slumping into his seat each time. Got to be a running joke when I would ask him how many plays he sat out in the game, and his eyes would widen, saying, "Nonnnne!" That was his answer more times than "one" would be.
Hey, that's about right, though, when you are recording a franchise-record 20 sacks, recording 20 hurries and forcing seven fumbles in one season.
So, you know, take what Greg's saying with a grain of sea-salt. He's probably not being malicious, and I'm told what he said about the "hiding" part was a very short portion of some long ramblings. He might have even thought he was being funny, who knows.
Or maybe he's right. Maybe Ware did try to hide.
But obviously he wasn't any good at it.
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Mickey Spagnola - 
