MMBM: In Dealing With Ezekiel Elliott, The Cowboys Miss Greg Hardy's Leadership
Note: TL;DR.
Wellcome to the Monday Morning BM, just a word of warning your probably not prepared to handle the strong football takes and barrelfire NFL truths that you never knew your Mondays were missing. This column is written for and by a REAL fan of the NFL. Its designed to be read on your Monday Morning commode break after a long Sunday eating bad-for-you food and drinking beers. If you care more about SPELLING then you do about TELLING theres the door because this columns not for you.
The reigning rookie of the year has been under investgation for the better part of the last year. And while Ezekial Elliot is getting strung along by the NFLs long arm of disipline that is stretched out ready to pull Elliots top down at any given moment, I believe if were being honest, the Cowboys need to also look in-house to address the core of this issue.
With todays revelation that Elliot was involved in a late-night incident, one cant help but wonder if it could of all been avoided had Jerry Jones kept team leader and moral compass Greg Hardy on the roster. As Jones pointed out, Hardys leadership extended off the field of play to the lockeroom where he use to fight his teamates and coaches, blowing off all of his steam, kind of like in Something About Mary where Ben Stiller would crank one out before going on a big date- Hardy would get his aggresson out at work so he woudnt feel the need to assault a stranger in a bar.
The jettisoning of Greg Hardy left a massive hole in the Cowboys lockeroom leadership. Without Hardy on the team to set a good example for its young players, Dallas has become a enviroment where more importance is placed on being a winner on the feild then being a good samaritan, off of it. Back in the flashy 90s Cowboys years there was a strict ethcal code involved wether it came to being a trustworthy person to hold onto drugs that defnitely weren’t yours for a friend, or to honor the first-come first-serve policy at the team barber shop. If Hardy was on this team there no chance he would tolerate another player committing heinous acts againt women since Hardy’s mere presence would ensure that his teamates would be busy being called as character witnesses in varous trials of his, and wouldnt have time to get into any mischeif of their own.
Look anyone who know’s me knows that there is basicaly nothing in life I enjoy more then a nice session of waiting for all the facts to come out. Its what I like to call “active procrastination” where your laziness can be used as a virtue so you can avoid being wrong about anything. And in the latest case of Ezekiel Elliott we can be sure that we dont have any of the necessary details beyond the fact he was involve in a late-night indcident at a bar which is about as redundant in saying he was involved in a January loss at Cowboys stadium.
Busted Coverage published there DM with a guy saying the Elliott punched a DJ which would be troubling to say the least. I want my players more concern with breaking records on the field then whose spinning them in the club. That said there are a few times when assaulting a DJ is a approprate course of action-
1. they fail to deliver on there more rock less talk promise
2. they dont have any weird al
Thats it thats the total list.
While I’m sure you could find a way to blame Elliott for his sampler pack of off-field incidence, your time might be better served looking at Jerry Jones. For a owner who takes a very hands on approach, he should know that if you have a player whose prone to assaults, you need a guy to scare him straight in that locker room. Jones failure to address the vaccuum left when they lost a player who literaly sucks will haunt him as one of his biggest mistakes besdies every coach he’s hired over the past 25 years.
On to the awards:
Road Grader of the Week: Joe Paterno
Joe’s had a rough couple of years- from dying, to his statue being taken down, to the injustice brought upon his legacy simply because he cared to much about football and also failed to report like a million felonys. But now finally, it seems that people have moved on and were ready to give him a second chance. In honor of Paterno it would be great if there was a guerilla marketing type deal where the studio spread word that theater’s are taking a blind eye to kid’s sneaking into it. Just have some fun with it. Not that you need a gimmick when youve got Al Pacino reprising his Tony D’amato character from Any Given Sunday as a once succesful head coach who ignores all of the team and institutional problems in the name of creating a powerhouse football program, mixed with the character he played in in Devils Advocate.
10 Things I Know I Know
1. Cam Newton isnt just content with getting coaches fired but now I guess its on to the front office. GM Dave Gettlemen just got the axe after only alienating 4 of the 5 best player’s on the team. Gettlemans drafting of Chrstian McCaffery was likely the instigating factor in this decision- number one it was such a no-brainer move that Jerry Richardson probably thought what the hell am I even paying this guy for. Number 2 McCaffery is so good at multple positions that it probably drove Gettleman literally insane trying to figure out which one to start him at.
2. Cousinsmaggedon is up on us today and the R-words and Captain kirk have until 4 pm to agree on a long-term deal or else they have to play 2017 knowing that Kirk can walk in March. As Ive said before, Kirk is the best shitty QB in the NFL but his value could literaly skyrocket since the Skins lost Desean Jackson and now the Skins dont have any players fast enough to underthrow.
Little historical fact here- the last time Washington tried to make a deal with Cousins only for the negotations to blow up in there faces, David Koresh walked free. Where did that take place? Waco, TX home of Robert Griffin. There are no coincdences.
3. Part one of our two part sit-down with JJ Watt is live on the internet, where me and Big Cat pressed him on wether or not hes a Nazi, how he feel’s being labled as a nerd sometimes, and if he hates us for ruining his social media experence. Part two is coming wendsday where we get into more fun stuff like doing Fort Minor Karaoke
4. Kid Rock is running for United States senate under the ticket of “In the spirit of compormise lets combine every single type of music into one shitty package” and I am here to offer my services as a stand-in for him like in that movie Dave were the guy actualy becomes President and sleeps with the Presidents wife meaning I get to retroactively have sex with Pamela Anderson and create a baby thats simply born with the bomb from Die Hard as its liver
Say what you want about American politics but when Thomas Jefferson wrote the Constution he had to of been daydreaming about a fillibuster where Senator Rock brings out his own turntable and freestyle’s over the guitar riff from night move’s about all his freinds who passed away until the clock runs out on expanding medicaid.
5. The MMQB did a mock draft of the alltime NFL player’s of alltime and boy it is a real tour de force of football guys reminding you they know more about football then you do. The big shocker is Dan Fouts literaly took Ray Guy, a punter and literal football Guy, with the fourth overall pick which is a smart move so the rest of the guy’s on the team will have someone to haze right off the bat.
Obvous winner of the draft is Bill Polian, who somehow decided to spend his first round pick on Otto Graham, a QB whose lifetime completeion percentage was 55% and played his entire career for the Browns before the electric guitar was invented. And then when the coaches selections came up he took Tony Dungy over Belichick despite his lifetime 1-infinity playoff record against the Patriots.
Polian also made a poignent point when he discussed how few players were drafted from the early 20th century:
I look at this draft, and what it tells me when you look at the history of this game is how much great, great talent there’s been. We didn’t really touch very much of the pre-World War II players, and that’s a lot of talented players
This is true but if you played before WW2 is raises a major red flag iin that you were complicit- in a butterfly effect type of way, with the rise of Hitler so you have to dock them a few points on there instincts and situational awareness. I wasnt asked to participate, but had I been Im taking Peyton Manning/Joe Flacco two headed monster at QB one for regular season one of post season. And my coach is Ronald Reagan as the Gipper from a hopsital bed so he can motivate his player’s
6. Michael Irvin is trying to get into the world of Mixed Martial Arts, saying he has been traning in a MMA gym and would love to appear in a celebrity tourment. It would be interesting to see the playmakers skillset translates into the octogon given the guy is built like Jon Bones Jones from his sharp elbows all the way down to the dopamine recpeptors in his brain.
7. OJ Simpson is up for parole this week and still has not been supsended by the NFL.
8. All-time football guy Bruce Arians wrote a book which might be the first one I buy since that “Hatchet 2″ clusterfuck. In it he discuses his hatred for the spread offense in terms of how it does a diservice to QBs. Being a spread QB in college is like being a art major in that you dont have any difficult reads and all you work on is your form by copying peoples mechanics. Any spread QB should be force to undergo a unpaid internship at the NFL level just like any other job to determine wether or not they can hack it. If Patrick Mahomes can survive a rigorous traning year of physical and mental exertion making donut runs for Andy Reid, then maybe we can talk about a entry-level position after the holidays.
9. In a profile for the New York Times, that is essentally 7 paragraphs of sticking to sports, NBC Sports’s Mike Tirico say’s he idenitifies as a Italian guy or more specificaly probably he just identifies with their soccer teams identity of being defensive and boring.
Tirico makes a wonderfull olympics host but I have to say I will miss old Pinkeye Bob Costas who destigmatized appearing on TV with fecal matter on your face long before the Kardashans made booty eating a thing.
10. Ann Coulter has been going back and forth with Delta airlines for giving up her $30 upgraded seat without her permisson. Whats being lost in all this is the fact that making Ann change seats was a imminent threat to the safety of that flight: Ann Coulter is the only person I trust in a emerceny fow on a airplane in the event of a hijacking given that no one has ever loved her enough to marry her, and therefore woudnt have anyone shamelessley exploiting her death in the even the plane was crashed into buildings. You have to follow the money in these types of situations and the fact that she woudnt have a widow simply means there is a 0% chance of her husband being involved in it.
Whats Shakin In Sports Biz???
The Baltimore Raven’s have contracted with a company to provide there players with “mixed reality” traning capabilitys. Now that human knowledge has reached its limits in the quest to determine wether or not Joe Flacco is Elite, and the exact amount of love lost between them and the Steelers, its time for the computers to step in and do the rest. The Ravens will be using holographic two dimenasonal players to match there current phillosophy that they dont need depth.