What is Going On?!

Tonight my beloved Dallas Stars brought their losing streak to a nerve racking 6 games.

My question to them... What the h*ll is going on?! You guys have incredible talent! You're young! Bah!

Alright, now that I've gotten that out of my system. Seriously, what's going on with you guys? You really are young, you have speed, and to top it off you have a veteran presence from some of the greatest veterans around. One of the edges of that double edged sword that we call youth, is confidence. Confidence for a young team is like giving a two year old a ton of chocolate. They get that rush, start running around and kicking tail. On the other side of that blade, is when you start to get shaky with your confidence you start to lose focus, get out of position, and then start losing games. After all that, you play games like the one against the New York Rangers. The play was outstanding, but one bounce goes against you and you lose the game. Then your confidence doesn't just drop, it plummets.

On yet another side, with a great team such as these Dallas Stars, you have such strong leaders, they try to pick the entire team up, and carry it on your shoulders. Only, there are 18 other players on the bench that want to pick up the team. Guys. You're playing on what is called a TEAM. Yep, that's right. A team that can't be carried by one player. That's why there are 4 other guys out there on the ice with you. Use them. That is what they are there for. Don't make Dan Ellis, or Kari Lehtonen carry you.

With all this being said, you have a relatively favorable schedule coming up. Take advantage of it. you have 7 of the next 9 games at home. Home is where the heart is. Home is a shelter, home is home! Are you too good for your home?!

Please bring us some wins. I would really like some wins. Let's put this together and get the train back on the right track.

The Broken Foundation

Tonight I write to you about one of my favorite sports teams of all time: The Dallas Cowboys. 

However, I won't write about the problems with Jerry, Garrett, or even Monte Kiffin. Instead, I want to tell you about how a football team works. 

A football team, like most teams, is made up of a group of people. With all groups, there is a hierarchy. It's not because I'm partial to any position, player, or anything to that effect. In my Diversionary Hierarchy, you have, what I call, the Foundation, and the Showmen.  

The Foundation is made up of the hefty guys. The men that are in the trenches, take hits every single down, and get paid the least, by comparison. These guys are the offensive and defensive linemen. These are the men that have the worst job, in my opinion. They are considered to be the dumbest, the slowest, and the fattest. The truth of the matter is, these guys are not dumb, not slow, and most certainly not fat. Every down these guys are punching, hitting and doing their absolute best to protect their teammates, and yet they get the least amount of attention. That is, unless things go wrong or they mess up. For example, look at Tony Romo. He took some pretty big hits, and was all kinds of pressured, forcing him to make awkward throws from weird angles. Now he's got a herniated disc. These guys are some of the most important guys on your team, and yet they are paid significantly less than my next group: The Showmen.

The Showmen. These are your "skill" players. These are the guys that everyone talks about. So and so, needs to perform tonight. So and so needs to come up big. Blah, blah, blah. I was one of these guys when I played, I heard it every week. But, it really comes down to the work by the Foundation. If the Foundation is strong, the skill guys excel. These are the linebackers, the receivers, the backs, pretty much everyone else. These are the guys that go out and take the over the middle hits from the linebackers. These are the linebackers delivering said hits. These are the guys that are paid the crazy amounts of money to get their names put on jerseys and sold throughout the world. 

Now with all that out of the way, here is where the Dallas Cowboys and this line of thinking cross. They don't. That's the problem. In no way, shape, or form do the Cowboys have a Foundation, on either line. The defensive line has been riddled with injury. The offensive line is just bad. Again I go back to Romo... No pun intended. Until the Cowboys start making the uninteresting draft choices, (Foundation players), the team will not be successful. It doesn't matter how many Dez Bryants you have on your team. It doesn't matter if you had Emmitt Smith from 1992 on your team. It simply doesn't matter.

If you don't have the proper foundation, the pyramid falls.