The Cowboys Aren't Who We Thought They Were

Cowboys head coach Wade Phillips was fired yesterday. Finally. His termination was like the last couple weeks of a woman's pregnancy. You know it's coming, and soon, you just don't know when. (By the way, sorry for using termination and pregnancy in the same sentence).
Phillips' firing comes as a surprise to only those who believed Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who said two days before that Phillips was safe for at least the remainder of the season. Owners like Jones speak of accountability, which apparently doesn't apply to a person's word only two days before.
I'm not here to defend Phillips or question his firing. When a team, regardless of their stature, is in disarray, something needs to be done. The head coach is the captain that goes down with the ship. All is right with the post-1995 world, the Cowboys are no good.
Unfortunately for him, Phillips is the fall guy for an undisciplined and underachieving team that is composed of talented individuals, but has no idea how to coexist as a team.
This year's Cowboys remind me of England's 2010 World Cup campaign. England was supremely talented in every position, boasting most of the EPL's best players. Individually they were great, as a team, they were terrible.
After England's 0-0 draw with Algeria, former American national and current ESPN analyst Alexi Lalas proclaimed what everyone was thinking. When asked what was wrong with England, he replied, "How about this: they're just not very good."
The weight had been lifted off of his shoulders and the smoke screen disappeared. Lalas and the rest of the non-English analysts could finally express their opinions frankly about the overrated English team. Phillips' firing is the icing on the cake for the removal of the "Cowboys are really good" veil.
Many fans including myself felt that maybe the Cowboys just had trouble closing out games. With Romo as the starter, they lost all five of their games by seven points or less. I also desperately wanted to believe that beating the Cowboys in Dallas was a big win. The Cowboys are and have been officially Bills status. That win means nothing now.
If Jerry Jones wants to talk about accountability he has to first look at the players on the field. Romo, not exactly thought of as a clutch player, couldn't lead his team to victory in the aforementioned close games.
Number one wide receiver Miles Austin has been wildly inconsistent. In his four good games: 36 catches for 571 yards and two touchdowns. In his four bad games, 9 catches for 86 yards and no touchdowns. Austin either shows up big or doesn't show up at all.
The running game and offensive line have been nonexistent. The Jones-Barber-Choice "three-headed monster" has combined for 543 yards and two touchdowns. DeMarcus Ware is supposed to be the leader on defense and appears to have a difficult time keeping his focus for an entire game. The Cowboys' secondary can't keep their hands off the opposing receivers.
Wade Phillips has been on a roller coaster ride for the past three and half years. From the highs of a 13-3 regular season his first year and the Cowboys' first playoff win since 1996 two year later, to the lows of a 1-2 playoff record and 45-7 trumping in Green Bay, Phillips can finally get off the ride. He'll walk through the Exit Gate with a 35-24 overall record as Cowboys head coach.
It's no wonder Phillips always had a confused, "What am I looking at?" face. He never had any idea which team was going to show up on the field. Unfortunately for him, this year it was always the bad one.
As the anti-Denny Green might say, "The Cowboys aren't who we thought they were."