do? I've got to play."
That guy right there would play for me or work for my company any day.
When I suggested to him this week that I couldn't imagine how painful taking a needle in the rib cage must be, he said, "I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy." He wasn't joking either, plus he couldn't joke, because laughing with rib damage, let alone playing, is totally out of the question. So is sneezing. Either will bring you to your knees.
And you want owner Jerry Jones or COO Stephen Jones or Phillips or secondary coach Dave Campo to now tell Terence, hey dude, 'preciate the effort, but we're throwing in the towel. We're going to start McGee, who barely gets scout-team reps in practice, let alone reps with the Cowboys offense - that last took place in training camp - so we can start planning for the future. When you are 32 and in your eighth season in the league, the future is today. There might never be a tomorrow. That's the message you want to send to the likes of Keith Brooking and Marc Colombo and Kyle Kosier and Jon Kitna and Andre Gurode and Bradie James? Why the heck should Kyle Kosier keep rehabbing his foot?
Throw in the towel, you kidding me?
"We would not in any way compromise a chance to win the game by playing a player to evaluate or give him experience," Jerry Jones said. "You don't, in my mind, do anything five to six games into the season but try to win the game.
"I'm emphatic about that."
If you haven't already noticed, so am I at this early point of the season.
You play to win, no matter what, and for those of you snickering, saying, boy that's stupid, especially when you're already 1-5 and still have games at Green Bay, Indianapolis, New York and Philadelphia, glad we never met in some foxhole together.
"When you start accepting defeat, you had better go retire or find something else to do," Cowboys defensive end Marcus Spears said. "It's your livelihood. When I go home I got to look at my wife and two kids. I got to provide, pay for college tuition. We still got games left. This is not the time to quit."
And when you happen to hear fans or media members suggest the season is over, time to plan for the future, to play the young guys, as if there are enough young guys to go around?
"It pisses me off, it really does," Spears said. "We're working, old, young, middle. We're working. I just don't have that in me."
Neither do I. Probably inherited that from a daddy who landed at Omaha Beach at just 25 years of age and lived to tell about it.
And neither should that be in you, no matter how despondent you might be over 1-5 or how depressingly long the odds might be.
