The Era of Dallas Cowboy Mediocrity will Continue with Mike McCarthy

cowboys fans today and for the foreseeable future

I was going to use my time to day to talk about how the Patriots, and my Super Bowl pick, the Saints, got beat. But, some news came across my phone this morning, sports news, that I just cannot go without tackling today.

While out grocery shopping this morning the news popped that the Cowboys had hired their next head coach. I just kind of glanced down, and I assumed that it was going to be Urban Meyer, Lincoln Riley or Matt Rhule. I was one of the many people that thought known racist Jerry Jones would go after one of the big name college guys. Well, when I got to my car and had a minute to check out who they hired, I was stunned, and not in a good way. The Cowboys I read have reportedly hired Mike McCarthy to be the head coach.

There is a decent amount for me to unpack with this decision. First off, yes McCarthy is a Super Bowl winning head coach. I watched that Super Bowl with big time rooting interest because he was the head coach of my favorite team, the Packers. In fact, I watched McCarthy coach for years, and all in all, he was a fine coach. But, he was not elite. I actually am of the ilk of people who feel that he wasted a good chunk of Aaron Rodgers prime. But, I'm not going to do all the bad stuff just yet. So yes, McCarthy has won a ring, he has been to the playoffs a ton, his offenses were always in the top 10, or at the very least, top half of the league. And he helped groom Rodgers. He is a very good coach for you team's QB. He knows how to work with them. Also, his teams were always competitive, even if they weren't a playoff team. They still made every game a game.

But, I am stunned, and yes, stunned is the word I want, that the Cowboys and Jerry Jones and Dallas and all the big wigs there decided that McCarthy was the best guy to take over as head coach, only two days after firing Jason Garrett. Like I said, I thought they would go for the big college guy. Or maybe a big time assistant, like a Greg Roman or Eric Bienemy type. Hell, I even thought they had the juice, especially since they just got beat, to finally get their white whale, Sean Payton. I never, ever expected Mike McCarthy to be the head coach of the Cowboys.

This is wild, and for all the wrong reasons. He will work with Dak Prescott, and I think this hiring means Prescott is about to get super duper paid. But, Green Bay never had a running back that was used properly under McCarthy. Now he has Ezekial Elliot, who got paid last offseason, and he will become, if McCarthy sticks to his usual nonsense, a guy that carries the ball 12-17 times a game and has a few catches here and there. He was already becoming neutralized this season, and he will regress more under McCarthy. I'm sure they will try and find a way to sign Amari Cooper so Prescott can have a good target, but that means they will lose some of the speedy guys they have, and some of the slot guys they have. Sure, McCarthy has experience coaching Randall Cobb, but he under utilized him in Green Bay. I'm sure he will do the same in Dallas. A guy like Michael Gallup, the Cowboys might not have the money to keep him after paying Cooper. The Cowboys also need a new tight end because Jason Witten is a billion years old. But, with all this being said, the offense should still be competent.

Yet, and this is what always bugged me about McCarthy, and why I was glad that Green Bay finally parted ways with him last offseason, he doesn't care about defense, and the Cowboys aren't very good on defense to begin with. The Packers D, under McCarthy, was horrendous. The offense was so highly rated because they needed to be great. They needed to score 25-35 points a game just to win. That is because McCarthy only focused on offense, hiring crappy coordinators and simply didn't care about that side of the ball. The Cowboys could score upwards of 28 points a game under McCarthy, but they may give up 28 points a game as well.

Finally, I feel like this is about as parallel a move as this franchise could've made. I expected an enormous splash. I expected the big time name. I expected a party after naming their new head coach. Now, they have a slightly better offensive mind than Jason Garrett as their head coach. Mike McCarthy definitely has had more success than Garrett, but he is just as bland, and cares less about defense. This almost feels like a move to please Jerry Jones because he knows he is still the boss. Mike McCarthy won't push and talk back. He will do what he is told to do. I don't think guys like Matt Rhule or Lincoln Riley would have done that. They would have wanted full control. And Jerry Jones is insane enough to not go out and get those  guys because he still thinks that the Cowboys are all about him.

This is a very puzzling hire. If I were a Cowboys fan, thank goodness I am not, I would be very pessimistic about this hire. I just don't get it.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

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What to Make of the Colin Kaepernick NFL "Tryout"

It seems like Colin Kaepernick is going to get a shot at making a NFL team next week. That much is good. It is a step. But, I have a ton of mixed feelings about this workout that is happening in a few days.

I want to get the bad out of the way first. This feels like the coup of publicity stunts. I mean, the NFL called his people and told him to be in Atlanta for this tryout. He didn't get to pick the day, location or people he wants around for this tryout. This is all being done on their watch, and that is shady as hell. I feel like the NFL thinks, at least the higher ups, that they are in a win win situation. If he gets signed they can say, "see, we didn't blackball him", and if he doesn't get signed they can say, "well, he is too old, and the tryout proved that today". They cannot literally say anything wrong, in their eyes. It is just so weird that this is coming on so sudden. I know that Kaepernick, who has handled this as gracefully as one can, more on that when I get to the good, says he is ready. But, this is so spur of the moment, and even though he is a pro, he hasn't played in 3 years, and the tryout is in a few days. It doesn't feel like enough time. It feels like the NFL is setting him up to fail, and that is so immoral. I think Jerry Jones saying this is good is a real problem. Jones is the epitome of an owner who literally thinks he owns the team, and the players. He is old, racist and insanely rich and stupid. He could care less about the well being of a young person, as long as that person is a good football player. so, for him to be on board with this, I feel like the NFL went to him personally and asked him to say he likes this. I would bet a good sum of money that Roger Goodell and Jones had a meeting prior to this, and Goodell asked him to say he likes this, for a certain amount of cash. And as I said at the top, I don't like the small amount of notice they gave Kaeperninck. This is no time to really get yourself ready for a tryout like this. I would imagine that most, if not all, of the teams will have a representative there to watch. And Kaepernick is going to have to be perfect. Any slip up, and he is toast. That is a shame. I mean, guys coming into the draft have multiple chances to show themselves to teams before being picked. They have the combine, pro days and private workouts, all made on their own schedules. And as far as signing a vet off the street, even those guys get time to get themselves ready. They get a call, are asked to come in for a tryout, and then, if they make the team, sometimes have a few weeks worth of practice with the team. Kaepernick gets none of this, and that is grossly unfair. He has a few days to get himself ready for what may be the biggest tryout for a professional athlete ever. That is insane.

As far as what I think is "good" about this, it is a few things. One, I am glad he is actually getting a shot. I know that I said the time constraints and timing of this is bad, but still, he is getting an opportunity to tryout. I also adore the way he has handled this. Like I said before, he has shown nothing but grace and composure during this past week. He has tweeted out his happiness at a tryout. He is going to be as prepared as he can be. He has been staying in shape. He is still continuing to help his community. Colin Kaepernick is a great human being, and he will be remembered for so much more than just this tryout.

Finally, I think he is going to crush at this tryout. He is going to look good. He will make the throws. He will make the right decisions and he will be phenomenal. He is going to almost force a team, or teams, to sign him. He fits with a ton of teams right now too. The tanking teams, like Miami or Cincinnati or Washington or the Jets or Denver, he is better than any starting QB they currently have on their roster. He would also fit in perfectly as a backup with Dallas or Houston or Kansas City or Green Bay. Hell, I would much rather have him backing up Aaron Rodgers than whoever in the hell is his current backup.

Look, I am a big time supporter of Kaepernick's and I want him to make. I think the NFL is trying to save face with this tryout, hoping that he may not be as good as he was, and it will blow up in their face. He is going to do great, and he is going to get signed. I fully believe that, and I fully believe that is what the NFL doesn't want to happen. We will soon know, and I will be rooting hard for him to make it.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

Follow Ty on instagram and twitter.

SeedSing is funded by a group of awesome people. Join them by donating to SeedSing.

The Cowboys and the NFL do not care about the safety of women

This means more to the NFL than decency and repsect

Today I was going to write an irrational hatred sports blog about the Dallas Cowboys.

A lot of people hate the Cowboys and I'm one of those people, but I hate them for different reasons. That blog will have to wait until a future date because I have a newer, even bigger problem with the Dallas Cowboys and one irrational hatred blog wouldn't be able to cover it. This deserves it's own separate blog. I have a big, big problem with how this team is handling this Greg Hardy situation.

From the top of this organization all the way to the bottom, they've mishandled this whole ordeal. First of all, the Panthers did the right thing when they cut ties with this monster last offseason. I know he was under contract and that he was supposed to come back after his year long suspension for hitting a woman, but the Panthers did the right and respectable thing cutting ties with him completely. They wanted to move on from this horrible person, and they didn't want him involved with anything they did as a team. That's a wise decision by a front office. So, he gets released and he's a free agent able to sign with any team willing to take a chance on this woman abuser. Who should that team be? None other than the god damned Dallas Cowboys.

America's team they still call them.

What a crock of shit.

The Cowboys are no longer America's team. They're almost as irrelevant as the Cleveland Browns. ESPN is the only network that seems to cover these two teams like they matter. They don't. But, of course the Cowboys signed him. They needed a pass rusher and they went out and got one of the better pass rusher in the league. They figured, who cares that he's a loose cannon that, at any minute, will turn on you and use physical abuse if necessary, they needed a defensive lineman.

Prior to this season, world class moron Roger Goodell gave Hardy a ten game suspension, then dropped it to four games when a court agreed that was enough for his heinous crime. Let me say it again, he physically abused a woman. He beat her and left brutal bruises on her body and a court agreed that he would only miss the same amount of games that they tried to give Tom Brady for under inflating footballs. How on Earth is this allowed by the most popular sport in the US? Why do they let these abusers back on the field so soon? I guess, if you're a good enough football player, what you do in your personal life doesn't matter. You can be a woman abuser like Hardy. You can beat children like Adrian Peterson and you can bully teammates so much that they consider suicide like Richie Incognito did. Doesn't matter, these guys are good football players, so they get second, third, fourth and so on and so forth chances. Some stupid ass GM for some irrelevant team will sign them.

As I said before, the Cowboys are also rans, the Bills haven't been good in over a decade and the Vikings are finally having their first real success since they drafted child abuser Adrian Peterson. I will say, Peterson, at least on the surface, seems to show some kind of remorse, but what he did what so heinous, I can't look at him without disgust. Incognito doesn't seem to care what people think of him and I'm sure he still bullies people and Greg Hardy is an insane person that should not be in the NFL. Let's look at some of the things he's done since being reinstated by the league. His first game back was against the Patriots. During the week of practice leading up to this game, while being interviewed, he made some odd and inappropriate remarks regarding Tom Brady's wife Gisele Bunchen. He said, and I'm completely paraphrasing, something along the lines of "I hope she's there to see me crush her husband" and "I hope that I see her and her sisters in the crowd because they're very attractive". I'm sure in his mind, he thought he was complementing them. He couldn't be more wrong. This is inappropriate and if anyone said stupid shit like this at any office job, they'd be fired in less than one second for sexual harassment. This was very bizarre behavior from Hardy. This should've been strike one and should've been a sign to the front office that more stupid ass, Neanderthal behavior was to come from this monster. The Cowboys did nothing about this situation. Then, a couple of weeks later, during a game, he verbally berated some special teams players for giving up a big play during a crucial moment of the game. You could see him, on live TV, screaming obscenities at these teammates of his. He threatened these guys with physical violence. Dez Bryant had to step in the way and be the voice of reason. Dez Bryant is one hell of a football player, but he should never be counted on to be the voice of reason. Hardy proved in this moment that nothing has changed with him. He's still the same psychotic monster that thinks the best way to solve conflict is physical abuse. After the game, Jerry Jones was asked about the incident and he said that he loved the compassion coming from one of the teams leaders. Are you flipping kidding me! This is not what a leader does. A leader doesn't scream in people's faces and threaten them with violence. This is what a psychopath does. How in the world can Jerry Jones think that this is, not only okay, but a sign of leadership? It's baffling. Then last week, Deadspin, one of my favorite websites, released photos from the night that Hardy abused his then girlfriend. The photos are haunting. They're some of the most brutal things that I've seen in quite some time. This woman had bruises all over her body. The 911 call was released and the back and forth between the caller and dispatch was scary. It was as bad as what I imagine the recording of the guy getting eaten by the bear in the movie "Grizzly Man" sounds like. It's also very terrifying to see what was said during the call. After all of this was released, Hardy released a statement and said what every repeat abuser says, "I'll never do this again", "I was young and dumb", "It was a lapse in judgement", basically, a bunch of crap. He doesn't mean these things when he says them. His law team gave him something to read and he read it. He didn't give it a second thought after reading and went about his day. I assumed he would have been cut before their game last night. I figured this would be the third strike and the Cowboys would have to let him go. He was and is becoming the nuisance that he is and he's a very big problem. He's the definition of a distraction. But, did the Cowboys and Jerry Jones do the right thing and let him go? Of course not. Jerry Jones said that the Cowboys were giving him the second chance he deserves. I'm at a loss for words.

How can Jerry Jones be so blind to doing the right thing? How can he think that he and the Cowboys can help make Greg Hardy a better person? They can't. My mother has worked with battered women and children for the last 20 plus years and she tells me all the time that these guys don't change. Once an abuser, always an abuser and I agree with her one hundred percent. Greg Hardy is a monster and should not be playing in the NFL. He shouldn't be playing football anywhere. He needs to be in anger management and taking classes on how to be less of a total asshole. I guess that I'm naïve though. How many correct decision has Jerry Jones made in the past ten years? How many correct decisions has Roger Goodell made since he's been commissioner of the league? The answer is a resounding ZERO. Both of these guys are morons and they will continue to let monsters like Adrian Peterson, Richie Icognito and Greg Hardy play as long as they're making money hand over fist. It's a shame because the NFL is the most popular sport in the US and young kids see this behavior and will think that it's okay to be abusive or that bullying is okay because if they're good enough at football, they can get away with it with very little to no punishment. That's a frightening scenario.

I long for the days when the biggest problem was Mike Vick fighting dogs. He went to jail for 18 months for that. He paid a very large price. Peterson, Icognito and Hardy, all they had to suffer was missing games for their horrible crimes. Use that as context for the next time you argue with someone about how the NFL punishes players harsher now than they did 5 or 10 years ago. Mike Vick went to prison. The three guys I mentioned, Hardy being the main culprit, have seen no jail time and they're all considered leaders of their respective teams. That's the state of the NFL today, and that's a crying shame for a sport I, and the rest of the country love.

Get your act together NFL. You're in danger of losing more fans by letting horrible people like these guys stay in the league.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. He does not actual enjoy writing about anything the NFL commissioner does, it is quite frustrating. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.