short-yardage defense? Who's voting for these guys?
Former Cowboys safety Darren Woodson was absolutely right almost a decade ago, when he criticized a daily locker room dominos game that featured Emmitt Smith. Maybe Smith wasn't the reason the team was 5-11 bad, but he wasn't setting the kind of example a guy with his presence should. Don't think for a moment that front office people don't take note of how these guys spend their down time at the office.
When your team is 0-2, everyone needs to be looking at themselves, trying to find ways to work harder, especially the guys entrusted with leadership roles. We're going to find out this week just how hard the Cowboys are willing to work, and how seriously the folks setting the tone are taking things.
"You don't like to lose," Phillips said Monday. "If you're not in it, you don't realize, but there's a sick feeling. You can't sleep at night. You're almost physically sick. You're sick to your stomach after the ballgame. I am right now. I'm obviously not real happy, snapping at people. That's part of that feeling. But you have to come back from that. You have to analyze what you're doing, work at what you're doing. If it takes trying harder or doing harder, that's what I'm going to try to do."
Who else is going to treat this 0-2 as a wake-up call? The ones who don't will be a big part of the dismantling in the offseason. If things continue at their current rate, jobs will be on the line - jobs of players and coaches alike.
Yes, things are about to get real serious.
