So this weekend, Don Van Natta dropped a bombshell report on Jerry Jones’s power struggle with Roger Goodell.  My god it was awesome.  I haven’t read such captivating journalism since, well, Van Natta’s last expose on Jones.  What a writer, what a story, and what a feud we have brewing in the NFL.  The general consensus amongst fans seems to to cheer on the demise of both parties here.  Oddly enough, as a Cowboys fan, I wouldn’t mind that either.

The case for wanting Goodell gone is obvious to sports fan or any American for that matter.  There is no need to rehash how terrible he’s been in a blog.  The case against Jerry, as a Dallas fan at least, is much more complex…

To many older men, he’s a philanthropist that delivered three Super Bowls and enough euphoria for a lifetime.  However, for those of us who came of age after Jimmy Johnson hurt his pwecious wittle feelings, he’s an egomaniac who delivers one playoff win per decade.  His performance has easily been a 0 on the binary scale.  He’s chilled out some and the Prescott era might save us, but this could have just as easily been a Paxton Lynch or Connor Cook era.  Not good.

On the business and marketing side, I’ve alway been of the belief that Jerry Jones is overrated as shit.  The Cowboys were America’s Team before he bought the team.  Tex Schramm built this brand – not Jerry.  Those TV negotiations were nice, but for the most part Jerry stumbled upon a product that marketed itself.

If Jerry beats Goodell, then that’s awesome.  If they both go down in this fight, that’s fine too I guess.  America’s Team will reign supreme in the end no matter what.

Now on to some dope tidbits from this story…

League Financing for Jerry World

We learned that Jones was originally so loyal to Goodell because of help in getting the league to finance AT&T Stadium.  That’s interesting…  I personally hate the stadium.  The video board is sick, but everything else is actually kind of bland.  It’s also in Arlington, which blows.  The NFL was better with Texas Stadium and no Goodell.

Phony Market Research

Apparently Goodell’s chief market marketing officer presented market analysis to owners that showed the NBA as the least popular sport in America.  That might be the most preposterous thing I’ve read all year.  She (of course) still has this job somehow.  That is some Grade-A swindling right there.

Anthem Protests

One of Goodell’s biggest victories against Jones this year was refusing a league mandate for all players to stand during the anthem.  Say what you want about the protests, but a league mandate would’ve been the most tone deaf option imaginable.  Not a smart move by Jones.

Concussions

At a league meeting two years ago, Jones scoffed at the concussion issue and referred to it as a “pimple on a baby’s ass.”  That was dumb as shit.

Bob Kraft Is a Pussy

“I’m gonna come after you with everything I have,” Jones told Goodell.  “If you think Bob Kraft came after you hard, Bob Kraft is a pussy compared to what I’m going to do.”

Fuck. Yes.  Holy fucking shit.  And that right here y’all is why, despite all the bullshit we put up with, Cowboy nation is still down to ride or die with Jerry Jones.  LFG

Very brutal stuff here from Neon Deion.  Brutally honest stuff.  You may think ‘ohh poor Romo is getting bullied’, but then you have to remember he’s not poor.  He took $127M from America’s Team and produced no tangible accomplishments in return.  Fuck that shit.  He has no right to attack any of our legends after the decade of disappointment he gave to us on the field.

I’m happy for him that he got this nice job and all, and he’s been outstanding in the role so far.  He should feel free to criticize players when he thinks necessary, but he needs to stay away from our franchise icons.

Lost in all the hoopla surrounding yesterday’s ass kicking was the play itself where Winston was injured…

http://www.nfl.com/m/share?p=%2Fvideos%2Fnfl-game-highlights%2F0ap3000000872333%2FJameis-Winston-slow-to-get-up-after-hit-leaves-game-with-injury

Ahh yeah that’s the stuff.  That’s vintage saints bounty form.  Alex Okafor wants to stay in the league and he does so by taking out a rival QB like a boss.  Deion broke this down in the postgame show last night…  Okafor pinned Winston’s arm in so he couldn’t brace himself, and then drove his injured throwing shoulder into the ground.  Consider that AC joint busted!

It’s really nice seeing the Saints get back into form and contending again.  You can talk about deflategate or the bullshit around Zeke, but nobody got screwed more than the bountygate Saints.  Suspending a coach for an entire season because his defense played too hard was absolutely preposterous.  It’s right up there with the 02 Kings as the all time worst screw job in American history.

One of the greatest what-ifs in sports for me is Bill Parcells being just a year or two younger and filling in for Payton that year.  He was so close to doing it, and he absolutely would’ve crushed it.  In my opinion, he’s the best coach of all time just because of the unprecedented number of teams he succeeded with.  He went four for four in turning dog shit teams into nearly immediate contenders.  Think about that for a second… Even Belichik could only go one for two in his jobs.

It would have been amazing for Parcells step in for a year and get everyone else to finally see what I and New Yorkers know about him.  Five playoff teams on a resume would’ve been insane.  Shit, there’s a good chance he could’ve gotten a third Super Bowl as well.  He was that great of a coach and the Saints were that talented.  Would’ve been the fuck you imaginable to Goodell, but Parcells was just a little too old.  Oh well.

Guess I should address the elephant in the room right away and admit Yu Darvish is the reason the god damned astros are champions. Sure there were other factors like brain dead Dave Roberts, playoff Kershaw, etc., but when you start two of the most important games of the series and account 9 runs in 3.1 innings, the buck stops there. It’s the worst performance in World Series history and there are no excuses for it.

This is probably the toughest pill I’ve ever had to swallow in sports, or even life for that matter. There’s 08 Cabo-gate, the 07 We Believe series, and then this as the hardest tragedies I’ve ever encountered and I’m not sure which one is the worst.

Like Dirk in basketball, Yu Darvish is my favorite baseball player ever not only because of everything he brought to the mound for our historically shitty franchise, but also because he’s an amazing person off the field. He’s such a nice, humble, and down-to-earth bro who also happens to be a megastar back home who bangs porn stars and pro wrestlers. It’s shocking to me that someone so chill can end up getting so much nerves that he hands a title to the franchise that was previously his bitch.

Where he goes from here, I have no idea. At first I thought maybe he could come back to us for cheap and bring Otani with him, but then realized no way can he come back to the AL West and see houston 14 times a year.  He also can’t be trusted at a contender unless there’s three guys ahead of him in the playoff rotation. The Cubs, Yankees, or Injuns would be legit if packaged with Otani, but is he still capable of pitching in a bandbox? The Giants would be perfect, but staying in the NL West would be just as demoralizing as returning to the AL West.

Maybe he just takes a cash grab and goes to a shitty team with a pitchers park. It would make a lot of sense if rumors are true that his love for the game has dissipated. That’s not cool to think about either. I just don’t know what to feel about all of this other than depression.

My favorite baseball ever is all of a sudden damaged goods. It’s as if you date a girl for years and have marriage on your mind, and then separate for a little while because life happens and she gets a dream job out west. Then she goes out one night and bangs an immigrant and contracts AIDS. What do you do from there?

You’ve been holding out hope of getting back together, but now she comes with a death sentence. So maybe you don’t want her back anymore, but she also doesn’t get the chance to be happy with any other dude. How do you handle that shit? Fuck man, life is a real bitch sometimes. The concept of seppuku makes a lil bit more sense now.

When the Dodgers trade raped us back in July, one of the toughest pills to swallow was the fact that my dream of a Yu vs. Houston ALDS was over.  He’s owned the shit out of this team his whole career, and I’d been dreaming all summer long of him putting the Astros and these smug Houstonian fuckheads in their places come October.  Instead, we bowed out, Boston showed their ass, Cleveland fucked up, and now we’re here.

Game 7 and my favorite player ever, my lord and savior and God, gets the ball against these cocky little shits.  Game 3?  It doesn’t fucking matter.  Tonight is the real show.  Tonight is not only the night he becomes a legend in everyone else’s eyes, but it’s also the night he puts this god damn disastros nightmare to bed.

Fuck the astros.  This is the team that tried to exploit a hurricane to force out of the playoffs and then slandered us when we didn’t play along.  They’re on the verge of making the tank job en vogue for the one sport that doesn’t need it.  Their victory would bring joy to a city that deserves none.  It’s dumbfounding how Houston can take all their resources and great climate and manage to turn it into nothing but a dull, obesity and power line infested dump.  It’s where A&M fans graduate to pretend their lives mean something.  They deserve nothing good.

After all these years of watching Darvish make houston his bitch, it feels good to finally get a chance to see it on the biggest stage of all.  Dodgers -160, lock that shit down.