I have a different set of answers for those questions.
I am a pretty big Steelers fan so I watch a lot of Flozell and he has not gotten better or more disciplined. The refs just don’t call holding when he plays for the steelers. Holding has always been an ‘artful’ call in the NFL. I personally think Troy Aikman should be able to bring a bodily injury suit against NFL referees. There is a reason he is out while Favre is still in.
All kinds of creative calls are put against the Cowboys such as offensive pass interference that one rarely sees on other teams. The more I watch the Bengals, Titans, Texans and other games I see the differences in how the games are called.
Cowboy defense and offense are actually pretty highly rated in the NFL but the key ingredient is penalties. Everyone says ‘stupid penalties,’ but it wears thin with me. A key Giant touchdown last night had two blocks in the back by the Giants in clear view of multiple replays but the three announcers gloated about the domination of the Giants offense.
That play along with helmet to helmet hits on the Dallas quarterback replacement suggest that the game is critically defined by penalties— including the ones not called. Almost every aspect of the NFL is critiqued and long rants about players, coaches, management are not only tolerated but encouraged.
I challenge the legitimacy of the ‘most penalized team’ truth. The games are not called well. It would be good to see in the vast parsing of stats the NFL listing penalties per player. Let’s see more discussion of non-calls.
Dallas lost by 6 points last night. Once again, despite three rather major injuries, the Cowboys were well in position to win but no.
I think Dallas does make penalty errors. I don’t think they deserve to be the most penalized team and I question the legitimacy of that in the NFL’s conduct and control of this sport.
Sorry but every time anybody shows up with a NFL conspiracy idea they just sound dumb. I mean really, what would the NFL gain by fixing games AGAINST the most popular team in the WORLD? You think the NFL actually makes more money with the Cowboys 1-5? You think they make more money with the Cowboys not having won a playoff game in over a decade? You think they make more money by screwing over Jerry Jones, whom while admittedly a complete #$% is one of the most influential owners in the league with the ability to single handedly (because there’s a dozen owners that follow him) kill or pass any CBA, ownership group, or even a commissioner? And how in blazes did they manage to “approve” hosing Jones given his wide influence? Especially this year when he so desperately wants the Cowboys to win the SB that will be in his fancy new stadium. Just plain doesn’t make sense.
Flozell is clearly playing better than he did on the Cowboys, not only avoiding call but also getting beat a lot less often. Aikman is out and Favre is in because Aikman took his hits in the head, and was smart enough to realize he was losing a step and the team he was on was losing a bunch of steps. 10-6, 8-8, 5-11 is a trend that says “anybody kind of banged up should retire now”. And Favre just doesn’t have enough sense to know when to exit.
You can call a penalty on almost every play. But the ones that Dallas has been getting hit on ARE stupid. Especially the second game in a row to get nailed for excessive celebration.
You can challenge the legitimacy, but then you have to answer all those questions I asked above. Why would they hose the highest profile franchise in the history of the league. Simply doesn’t make sense. If the league is going to fix games the profitable path is to HELP the Cowboys, not hurt them.
It’s a parity league. A team can play poorly but still be close to winning. Except for the turnovers (where they doubled their total for the season) the Dallas defense was atrocious last night (497 total yards allowed, 25 first downs) and the Dallas offense was mediocre to poor (254 yards, 0-10 on 3rd down). They got some lucky breaks that had them in the game when they honestly shouldn’t have been, they managed to put up their first 13 points on 56 total yards of offense, if they didn’t start 3 drives basically in scoring position they’re down 7-0 at the 10 minute mark of the 2nd instead of up 13-7.
The funny part about last night’s game was that Dallas completely reversed, going into the game they had a high powered offense (4th) and high powered defense (5th) but were being killed by bad kick coverage and tons of stupid penalties. In last night’s game the kick coverage was great, they got a very reasonable 5 penalties (1 less than the Giants), but their defense didn’t show up and the offense was blah. You really can’t expect to win a football game when you let the other team have twice as many yards and convert no 3rd downs, if the Giants avoid those turn overs it’s 41-10 game, but the Giants kept giving up the ball and keeping the Cowboys in it. No conspiracy, just bad play, from both teams really.