Without T.O., America’s team looks familiar again

By Ron Morgan

I watched the Cowboys beat Tampa Bay last Sunday, but something just didn’t look right. I’m not sure I could put my finger on it. Something just wasn’t the way it should have been.

Sure, Tony Romo started off a little slow. His throws were a little high or a little behind, but he’s started off slow before, and against the Bucs, he came on like gangbusters in the second half. No, it wasn’t Tony that had that eerie feeling.

Flozell had a penalty. An interception was called back because of a yellow flag. Marion ran like a barbarian. Felix was okay in limited play, and Tashard looked good in his debut as part of the new triplets. Nothing there to cause any unusual feelings about the game.

Jason Garrett was back to his ’07 form in play calling. The offense attacked and pounced on Tampa mistakes. Now, Wade did look a little goofy in his Cracker Jack sunglasses, but I’ve seen him look worse, like his imitation of the Michelin Man at Pittsburg last season. It wasn’t the coaching staff giving off strange vibes.

Special teams looked good for a change. Ferris…I mean, Davis Buhler had all but one kick go into the end zone. In fact, two of them weren’t even returnable. Matt McBriar had one punt of 63 yards, but we’re used to that. Coverage was good. Returns were respectable if not spectacular. Joe D’s boys did their job. I had nothing to do with special teams.

They were playing the game in Florida and not in Jerry’s Jetsondome. Unusual and unfamiliar home surroundings had nothing to do with what I felt. There wasn’t even a flat screen big enough to show all of Leonard Davis at one time hanging over the field. Location had no effect on what I felt.

Now, it still seems a little unusual not to see shots of Jessica in the crowd, but that changed last season. After the dustup over Tony’s trip to Cabo prior to the playoffs in ’07, Jessica quit showing up, at least publicly….Well, there was that one game at Giant Stadium where 50,000 Jessicas showed up, but that was a singular incident.

The strange aura over the game had nothing to do with the broadcast team. It was a Fox broadcast which is the norm. Moose and Goose formed 2/3 of the announcing team. Having Moose and the No. 2 team do the game felt pretty normal.

It was well into the second half when it finally dawned on me what it was. At no point during the game was there a camera shot of the sidelines looking to see if a certain wide receiver was pouting. In fact, no camera was assigned to any one player as had been the practice over the previous three seasons.

Tony spread the ball around. Passes went to Roy, Austin, Patrick, Jason, Martellus and others. There was no obvious attempt to make sure that any particular receiver got a requisite number of throws aimed his way. And, a funny byproduct of that is that I can’t remember seeing any passes clank off of hands of stone all afternoon.

I’m glad I got it figured out. I was thinking I might have to call Dr. Phil or have my sweet tea analyzed for strange substances.

Now, I know I can watch the rest of the season without seeing a reality show within a football game. The old one was even making “Big Brother” look plausible.