https://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/sports/2006-12-28/432133/

The Cowboys Get a Special Talking to (Cue the Sentimental Music)

By Jeremy Martin, December 28, 2006, 2:55am, The Score

Despite the warnings of my three visiting Christmas spirits, I’ve neglected my blog again. This time, however, it wasn’t because of laziness or boredom or even the lure of sweet, sweet Internet pornography.

Nope, I haven’t been blogging lately because, when my positive, pro-Cowboy rants became laughingly naive, I hung up my keyboard, afraid I’d jinxed my beloved team.

But on Christmas, when the Cowboys fell 23-7 and dropped the division, though I hadn't written a thing about the game, I realized my blog isn’t jinxing the Cowboys. Apparently, they read my blog for motivation, for the kind of tough love only someone like myself, or perhaps Coach Graham T. Lubbock from Just the Ten of Us, could provide.

Just as Coach Lubbock would let his unholy amount of daughters learn lessons the hard way or just as my own dad sent me off to kindergarten each morning with a rousing, “You were an accident, and you ruined my life,” my crushingly cynical observations gave the Cowboys the drive to succeed.

Without the knowledge of my parents’ constant desire to “abandon [me] in an Arby’s bathroom somewhere,” I would certainly not be the successful Internet sportswriter I am today. So how can I expect the Cowboys to succeed without my gruff brand of encouragement?

According to a rumor I made up but want ever so much to be true, the Boys, in the week before defeating the Colts, taped my blog up in their locker room and punched it everyday on their way to the practice field. For those of you who don’t remember this George Plimpton-esque bit of sports coverage, I, with the poetic subtlety of William Carlos Williams, implied that Peyton Manning would most likely stick it in and break it off.

That blog was most likely the reason the Cowboys went on to hand the Colts their first defeat and most certainly the reason I keep getting phone calls from Roy Williams in which he breathes heavily for several minutes and hangs up. (FYI – there’s a new invention called caller ID, you silly boots!) So it’s time for some more tough love. Hopefully these insulting and quite possibly libelous personal attacks will give the Cowboys the motivation they need to finish the season on a high note.

TO, my old friend, let's start with you. I've criticized basically everything you've done since you got to Irving, from your ridiculous salary to your butter fingers, but not anymore. I realize now it takes a very special kind of player to betray and piss off an entire team to the point where they don't care about anything all season but beating you, but even more special is the way you went to the Eagles' hotel to hang out before the game. And by "special," I mean that you should only be given a spoon at lunchtime and that maybe you should leave your helmet on when you hit the showers. Maybe it's not my place to speculate about this, but to quote the Playboy interview in which you basically tried to out Philadelphia's current QB Jeff Garcia (which I'm sure he never thought about while he was kicking our asses Christmas day), "If it looks like a rat and smells like a rat, by golly, it is a rat." So from now on when you drop a potential game winner, I'll just say this: "That was a good try TO, a very good try. Maybe you should lie down in the end zone now and take a nap."

Marion Barber/Julius Jones: Why can't you both be talented in the same game? Did you set up a system this season where you alternated weeks off, or are you just swapping out some kind of Gypsy-enchanted jockstrap?

Tony Romo: Sure you had the season a low-talent sportswriter like me could only dream of. While I've been typing up my blogs 20 minutes at a time on a sticky keyboard at the Round Rock public library, you came off the bench to get the highest QB rating of the season, grab a Pro Bowl invitation, and date Jessica Simpson. But don't think that will stop me from criticizing you when you turn the ball over and play like the fourth-year rookie you are. And it certainly didn't stop me from totally boning your mom last night. You heard me. Maybe we can all make a Campbell's Chunky Soup commercial together.

Bill Parcells, what does it take to get through to you? I already talked about your sweetass rack. If you lose to the Lions, I'll have to start speculating about why they really call you Big Tuna. Roy Williams, you're doing a flawless job; keep it up. Please quit lurking outside my house now. You're creeping out my wife.

Everyone else on the team, why don't you try doing something once in a while, and then I'll criticize you too.

But above everything else, I want you to know that I still love you all, and I don't like having to do this. I'm so hard on you because I see the quality team you could be. Now come here and give me a hug.