The Decision 2.0

So, a little over three years ago, LeBron James caused quite an uproar when he decided to switch teams. It wasn't because he switched teams. That was his right in a fair market economy to promote and essentially sell his services where he deemed he would be most successful. As most know, he left his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers behind to pursue an opportunity with the Miami Heat. What he did draw ire for publicly, though, was the way he decided to go about making this move. He staged a town hall type meeting, aired by ESPN and decided, famously, to "take his talents to South Beach." This poorly thought up event was called "The Decision." It has been panned almost religiously across the board for the bad taste at which the transition was handled, with some likening it to the quarterback of the high school team dumping his girlfriend at a pep rally to start dating a prettier girl.

I tell you that story for this purpose: When it came time to pick a new professional football team to root for, I wanted to do something on as grand of a scale. Unfortunately I don't have the money or notoriety to pull of a nationally televised town hall event, but the guy at Lids got a kick out of me.

A little back story as to why this decision even came into play: You see, I grew up in Dallas. A fan of all things and sports DFW related; Mavericks, Sidekicks, Rangers(most importantly), Stars after they came to town, and, of course, the Cowboys. Not only were they America's Team, but they were my hometown team. Mom had friends who were married to coaches and worked for the team so every Christmas and birthday was filled with autographed footballs from Danny White and even the whole team in some regards, pictures signed from Roger Staubach and Drew Pearson, calendars, game worn autographed shoes with blood on them from Randy White and so much other stuff that I could write a whole blog about just that. They weren't great in the 80s, but they were still iconic. They still are, by the way, just not for the reasons many of us would hope.

Now, I'm not going to sit here and rail on Jerry Jones incessantly. We all have faults and sometimes our situations amplify those faults. Under Jones, the Cowboys have won three Super Bowls but they have also suffered some of the most lousy, hair pulling, scream-at-the-tv moments I can remember. Their record over the past 17 seasons is exactly .500, meaning they have won as many games as they have lost. For the optimists in the crowd, at least we don't have a losing record! For the pessimists, the exact opposite. In fact, the ability to hang onto that level of mediocrity in a sport and league designed help every team eventually have their moment in the sun is staggering in-and-of-itself. The problem with being exactly .500 for that long is that it requires shrewd moves and great scouting to get better and get over the hump. If you stay at .500, you're stuck picking in the middle of the pack and choosing from talent that, for all intents and purposes, is very similar. At picks 15-17 in a draft of 32 teams, there isn't a lot of extreme stand out talent that's can't-miss. There are great players and the well run organizations suss these players out through scouting and interviews and player personnel teams identifying and attacking a need of their team.

All of the successful franchises over the past 15-20 years have done it. Actually, all successful teams ever, including the Jones owned, Jimmy Johnson-led and put together, Cowboys teams of the early 90s have done it. The problem with these current Cowboys is that Jerry Jones' ego is steering this bus. He wants so badly to win another championship and do it his way that he can't see just how dysfunctional it has gotten. He wants sole credit for being the mastermind because Jimmy gets credit for putting the Super Bowl teams together so he wants to win one himself with no help so that he can tell the world "I told you so." I'm sorry, but that's no way to run any business, especially one I personally invest time and money in. If Apple starts making substandard products and charging more for them, I will stop buying iPhones and switch to Android so I don't see why I can't do that with my football team. I watch every week and am frustrated every week. I watch the draft and see some asinine personnel move that leaves everyone questioning what just happened almost ever single year. I hear my owner say things like, "As long as I own the team, I will be the GM" and "we will always be in salary cap hell" and my personal favorite, "I've been doing some of my best work in my career over these past few years" and I'm supposed to be okay with it?

Call me a traitor. Call me a bandwagon fan. I don't care. Life is too short to cheer for a team with piss poor management that can't get out of it's own way. As long as someone with the last name of Jones is in the personnel selection spot, I can't waste any more of my time, money or effort. It's just going to perpetuate the problem the more people keep showing up and supporting the mediocrity.

Here's a hypothetical: The Seattle Seahawks just won the Super Bowl as some may remember. In 2009, they were 5-11 and pretty much a joke in what was then a weak division. They fired then-coach Jim Mora Jr. and brought on Pete Carroll from USC. They also brought in new GM John Schneider. In the 4 seasons since, they have gone 7-9, 7-9(playoff win), 11-5(playoff win) and 13-3(Super Bowl win). They have turned over the entire roster in 4 years as well. not one player from the '09 team is still around. The hypothetical is this: If John Schneider was a DFW native and his dream job was to be the GM of the Cowboys after the run he's had in Seattle, and he came to Jerry's office and asked to take over the reigns, would Jerry let him? I'm pretty sure we all know the answer is no, and that's a problem.

The Seahawks aren't the only team building success this way, either. Check out the Ravens, Giants, 49ers, Patriots, Packers, Steelers, Broncos. Then look at the messes in football, Raiders, Browns, Cowboys, Lions, Jags. The problem with this second group is that they have no clear delineation of power or direction and they continue to make the same choices. We all know the definition of insanity so I won't quote it, but it applies to all of that second group of teams mentioned.

So, that's why I had to change. That's why I had to get out of Dodge. I couldn't handle the insane feelings of watching this thing blow up in my face every week but still fighting to defend this bunch over and over and over.

So here's how I made my choice: I have quite a few friends in town with different rooting interests. I was originally going to go full-on blind draw and hope that I would have a friend to watch games with, but the chances of that were slim. So I went to the hat store and started grabbing hats of teams that I know have people who root for them in town that I know(that sentence seems like a bit of a struggle in my brain, but I couldn't figure out how to fix it). Anyway, some teams were ruled out due to lack of hat in my size at the store - Sorry Chargers, Vikings, Chiefs, Broncos, Seahawks, and Saints. Eventually I landed on these four teams:

I had to get creative with the blind draw portion of this because due to Austin's bag ban, stores like this don't have bags anymore, so I talked the guy into letting me use a trash bag. Dumped all four hats into the bag and asked the guy to hold it. I turned my head and started fumbling around in the bag and one of the hats literally fell out. I initially thought about putting it back in but then thought, "Wait, this hat wanted me so badly it jumped out of the bag." Pulled the credit card out and bought it on site:

I reached out to my super Steeler fan Jesse and told him I was on his team now and that I needed to buy him lunch in return for knowledge on my new team. So far he's been helpful. We are on the Stairway to Seven. Our colors are Black and Gold, NOT black and yellow. The colors in our logo are: Red- Iron Ore, Yellow- Coal, Blue- Scrap Steel. We have the 15th pick in this year's draft and are currently projected to take CB Darqueze Dennard out of Michigan State and I've already been invited to the annual trip to a home game. Obviously I don't know if a plan that can happen for me with all the works and school, but it's nice to have that option.

I will always have the Cowboys in my heart, but I am tired of losing that battle every year. No more Jones=you get Farr back. I don't see that happening anytime soon, though. Have fun on that roller coaster everyone. Thanks for joining me on this journey.