Rowdy Seethes As Dallas Cowboys Lose

Don’t expect Rowdy to call a meeting with Jerry and Stephen Jones anytime soon.  Rowdy is still reeling from the treatment he received when he called a meeting after the loss to the Baltimore Ravens, when he demanded they replace Jason Garrett with him.

Aug 15, 2012; Oxnard, CA, USA; Dallas Cowboys mascot Rowdy at training camp at the River Ridge Fields. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee/Image of Sport-US PRESSWIRE

He is no longer giving the team a pre-game speech before home games.  This is no doubt a factor in the close loss to the Giants at home.  And this is causing me to look at Rowdy in a new light, because it smacks to me a bit as being vindictive.  It appears he will do anything he can to help get Garrett fired, even if it does not mean he is his replacement as head coach.

Sources tell me that Rowdy is now seething over the loss to the New York Giants and has been very vocal about how different things would be had he been put in charge of the team.  He is telling anyone that will listen that he still game plans as though he were the head coach/offensive coordinator.

Part of his game planning ritual is to play a game of Madden NFL Football as the Dallas Cowboys, of course, against the team they are about to face.  In this game, the Cowboys beat the Giants 35-3.  Yes, there was one interception by Tony Romo, but there was only one, and it led to the only points scored by the Giants.

Rowdy is adamant that the Cowboys would have beaten the Giants decisively, if they had only followed his game plan.  As he told Jerry and Stephen, he knows these players inside-out and how best to use them.  His game plan calls for never changing the play at the line of scrimmage.   “That only confuses the rest of the offense when Tony does that.”

Rowdy says “it’s best to go with the play that I call from the sideline.  Even if it ends up being a bad play, it won’t be because somebody misunderstood their assignment and then we can go on to the next play.”  No doubt this philosophy comes from the fact that Rowdy does not know how to call an audible in Madden Football.

Rowdy also adds “the way I use the players in Madden is the way to use them in a real game.  I only go to Dez Bryant on plays that call for him to run a fly pattern.  Obviously Madden does not program him running the pattern wrong, but in real life he does do that a lot”.

Miles Austin and Jason Witten are a big part of his game plan, as they were in the real game.  His game plan also called for a “real” commitment to running the ball with Felix Jones, which he was able to do in Madden because he did not have that deep hole to climb out of, as occurred in the actual meeting between the two teams.  In this game (Madden) Felix ran for 185 yards and scored four of the five touchdowns!

Aug 15, 2012; Oxnard, CA, USA; Dallas Cowboys mascot Rowdy visits with fans at training camp at the River Ridge Fields. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee/Image of Sport-US PRESSWIRE

When it comes to special teams, Rowdy says “using Dez for punt returns is a mistake.  Dez hurts the team by trying too hard to make the big play and there is increased chance of injury.  Garrett was right to use Dwayne Harris as the punt returner after Dez’s mistake, but he should have been using Harris to begin with”.

Rowdy is pleased with Rob Ryan’s defense and would have no problem keeping him on, if he were to ever be named head coach.  However, in the Madden game, the Giants only scored three points, coming off a Romo interception, and they forced several Giants turnovers, so he would help Ryan tweak the defense a bit, in order to get the most out of it.

At I write this column, I do not know if Rowdy has played a Madden game versus the Atlanta Falcons yet, but one thing for sure, if he plays them and loses, he will keep playing until he wins and that will become the plan for success when they play for real.