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Ashley Fox
Even Emmitt Smith sees doom for 'Boys
Michael Irvin should know this. When you have three Super Bowl rings, all won with the same team, and you're the franchise leader in, oh, just about everything, you can say what you want, no filter needed.
Which is why if Emmitt Smith says the Dallas Cowboys are headed for a 7-9 disaster - which, apparently, he does - he is free to voice his opinion. He doesn't need to couch it. He doesn't need to take it easy on his old franchise. He doesn't have to spare the feelings of Tony Romo or Wade Phillips or even his old boss, Jerry Jones.
Smith has earned the right to talk about the train wreck in Big D, and boy, has he.
On a national radio tour to promote something silly like eating more pork, Smith said he thinks the Cowboys will only win seven games this season, and he blamed Romo and Phillips for a lack of discipline and focus that were a hallmark of past Super Bowl winners.
"I never saw [Romo] go snatch somebody up and say, 'Hey, we can't win like this. We can't have guys jumping offsides. I can't have [a defender] coming at me unabated. Who is making the mistakes up front? Why aren't you picking this guy up? This is not going down this way. If you can't get your job done, get off the football field,' " Smith said during an interview on Sirius Radio. "That is missing at that position, which boils down to one word - leadership."
Of Phillips, Smith said: "It is a coach's job to get his team to come together."
It's one thing for the quarterback to dump the B-list celebrity, and for the practice facility to collapse, and for the petulant team-wrecker to leave. It's one thing for the owner, unable to buy a playoff victory in 13 seasons, to spend $1.15 billion - much of it out of his own custom-made pocket - on a new stadium with an obscenely gigantic video board that probably is going to interfere with the integrity of the games. It's one thing for the veteran tight end to say how he still can't shake how last season ended, with that 44-6 loss to the Eagles that doesn't look even remotely better eight months later.
But now Smith - a horrible broadcaster on ESPN but a heckuva football player in his day - is ripping the Cowboys? Dallas really is in a free fall.
Phillips has won 21 regular-season games in two years in Dallas, but his teams have had consecutive December collapses and haven't been able to deliver that first elusive playoff victory since the Cowboys beat Minnesota 40-15 in 1996. Under Phillips, the Cowboys are 3-5 in December and 0-1 in the playoffs (despite being the NFC's No. 1 seed and playing at home after going 13-3 in the regular season).
This year's team has depth issues throughout the roster. With Terrell Owens gone, Roy Williams has become the Cowboys' top receiver, something he hasn't been in several seasons. Romo still hasn't proven he can win a meaningful game. And Phillips is Phillips. Good defensive-minded coach. Mediocre motivator.
"If Emmitt doesn't think I did well enough, I'm going to try to do better," Phillips said Wednesday.
That's reassuring.
Nerves are so thin in Dallas over this team's prospects that Irvin, who hosts a local radio show, cautioned Smith from criticizing the team. He said it made Smith look like Tiki Barber.
"It makes it look like bitterness or something," Irvin said. "Emmitt has no reason to be bitter. . . . So what he said may have some truth to it, but how you say it will ring in people's ears."
Some truth? It's got a lot of truth to it. And Smith doesn't look bitter; he looks honest. The most troubling thing to Dallas fans is that they know this about Smith: He knows about what he speaks. Just look at his fingers.
I don't typically look at all the e-mails I get promoting gambling lines in Vegas, but this one from R.J. Bell of pregame.com caught my attention. Using actual point spreads currently available to bet on in Vegas, Bell calculated the percentage chance of each team to win each of the 16 games on their schedule and projected how many games Las Vegas believes each team will win.
The Eagles, Bell determined, will win the NFC East with 9.8 wins, and using future odds he predicted the Birds will get a bye in the first round of the playoffs, will beat the Giants and then the Saints before losing to the Patriots in the Super Bowl.
Sound familiar?
Contact staff writer Ashley Fox at 215-854-5064 or afox@phillynews.com.
