The NFC East is the laughing stock of the league this season. All four teams are at least two games below .500, with Washington (holding the tie-breaker), Philadelphia and New York tied for first with a 5-7 record. Below them are the Dallas Cowboys, who improved to 4-8 following a 19-16 victory over Washington in last night’s Monday Night Football stinker.
Despite being only one game back from the division lead, owner Jerry Jones isn’t happy with his team’s performance.
“We won on will out there tonight and not on tactical mastery,” Jones told the Dallas Morning News. “That’s not a criticism, but that’s where we are as a team.”
The Cowboys haven’t been fun to watch this season. Between Tony Romo’s injuries, and watching Brandon Weeden and Matt Cassel go out there trying to look like viable NFL quarterbacks, Dallas has put up a -54 point differential. They’re lucky to even be mentioned in the same breath as the playoffs.
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Jones seems to agree.
“I look at it as 4-8,” when asked about the team’s record. “And won’t look at it any differently as we move up the ladder, until something really special happens. I’d like to see us get on the north side of some turnovers one time. If we saw that happen, with the kind of effort our team is giving, then you could get excited about this thing.”
Jones says he couldn’t have imagined being in this situation at the start of the year, but knows the team can make up the difference with four games remaining.
“I would have never dreamed this,” Jones said. “You can say it speaks to parity and I guess it does. We are fortunate and we’ve got to get better. We play (the Redskins) again. We’ve got some tough road games ahead of us. So we have a lot of work to do if we want to keep our head up. This sure was a good feeling.”
Parity, as Jones calls it, was supposed to have every NFL team finish 8-8. Wasn’t that the old Pete Rozelle dream? Is that what we call it when every team is below .500 in a division? Parity? Whatever it’s called, it might just be keeping Jerry’s team relevant for a few more weeks after all.
[NFL.com]
