People around here are already calling this past Sunday “Black Sunday” because the Dallas Cowboys went down to ignominious (I always wanted to use that word) defeat at the hands of the dastardly Philadelphia Eagles. For me, it was doubly painful because, in the next game, my beloved Denver Broncos took it on the chin from San Diego. Both teams eliminated themselves from the playoffs by their poor performances which could be likened to mercy killings by their opponents. The vaunted Cowpie offense only managed to score six points in the whole game while the Eagles poured 44 points on them. The good news about the Donkeys is they rang up 21 points — the bad news is the Chargers threw 52 points back at them.

I have long been a devoted fan of the Denver Broncos and year after year, decade after decade, I have endured their bi-polar highs and lows. In the old “Orange Crush” days, Denver managed to get to the Super Bowl four times, only to rip my heart out and tank on the big ones. Oh yeah, except for those back-to-back Super Bowl wins in 1998 and 1999. How sweet those times were and how we did party!

I am thankful that my sainted wife is also a football fan — and a very well informed one at that. This is a good situation because I know several guys who have spouses who care not a whit about sports and football in particular. You gals know who you are and you should be ashamed that you schedule conflicting family events when the big game in on the tube. I mean, you can celebrate your anniversary any time, but Monday Night Football should be inviolate.

My Crazy Cousin Teddy is a fanatical football fan to the point of being ridiculous. One time his wife saw an ad in the classifieds that said a guy would be willing to trade his wife for two season tickets on the fifty-yard line. She turned to Teddy, who was checking the stats from last Sunday’s games and asked, “Teddy, would you swap me for season tickets at the stadium?” He retorted, “Absolutely not!” She said, “Well, that is really sweet — tell me why not.” He said, “Because the season is already half over.”

I have analyzed the situation and have theories on why these two teams are out of the running again this year. The Broncos have an all-pro quarterback and excellent receivers but they lost all their running backs to injured reserve this year and their defense vacuums. Some folks have referred to Coach Mike Shannahan as a genius, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that tackling is an integral part of professional football. That reminds me of that famous quote by Joe Theisman (former pro quarterback and TV announcer) who said, “Nobody in football should be called a genius. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein.” You go, Joe!

Personally, I think the problem with the Cowboys is much more convoluted. They have too many malcontents, egotists, and thugs accumulated by Jerry Jones to make a cohesive team. I mean, Packman Jones is not even allowed in the huddle because his parole requires that he not associate with known felons. Take this for what it is worth, but ESPN just announced that Jerry Jones has hired Johnny Cochran as the new Defensive Coordinator.

Is any one going to miss seeing Terrell Owens’ tirades on the sidelines when things aren’t going just his way? It’s probably a good thing that most of us can’t read lips, because I’m sure what he is screaming is not suitable for general audiences. At the end of last year, he was crying in defense of “his quarterback” and this year he was crying because he wasn’t getting enough attention from “his quarterback.” T.O. did take up for Coach Wade Phillips. He recently said, “At least he treats us like men — he lets us wear earrings.” Now says he wants to be part of the team and be a part of the solution to the team’s problems. Yeah, right! That is as likely to happen as Barack Obama appointing David Duke as Ambassador to Israel.

Then there is poor Wade Phillips — when he stands up there in the press conferences, he looks like a cross between Barney Fife and Captain Kangaroo. He’s just not decisive enough to handle that bunch of roughnecks on the team, the press, or Jerry Jones. He got off to a bad start on the first day of practice when he gathered the team and said, “I want all the linemen to line up alphabetically by height, all the backs to pair up in groups of three, and the rest of you to line up over there in a circle. His answer to Sunday’s pitiful showing against the Eagles was a quote from Yogi Berra, “We made too many wrong mistakes.” When asked what he thought of his team’s execution, he replied, “That’s not a bad idea.”

The Cowboys lead the league in penalty yardage because they make stupid mistakes. After the referee called Flozell Adams for holding the third time, Flozell lurched his huge bulk over to the referee and bellowed, “Ref, you really do stink!” The referee never said a word, just picked up the football and paced it off 15 yards backward. He then set the ball down and yelled back at Flozell, “And how do I smell from here?”

I’ll close this mess with a cute football story. Charlie bought a ticket to the Super Bowl from a scalper and was very unhappy when he found out his seat was high up in the nose-bleed section with a post restricting his view of the field. He looked across the field through his binoculars and saw a man sitting three rows up from the field, on the fifty-yard line, with an empty seat alongside him. He maneuvered across the stadium and through security and finally found the man with the empty seat alongside. Charlie asked if the seat was taken and the man said the seat belonged to his wife but she had passed away. He also told Charley that he and his wife had attended every Super Bowl together for the last 15 years. He then offered the seat to Charley who gratefully accepted but expressed his surprise that the man could not find any friends for relatives to use the seat. He replied, “Well that’s because they all went to her funeral.”

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Dick Platt is a Daily Sun columnist. His column appears on Thursdays.