The Kingdom, The Kids, & The Cowboys

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Category: Cowboys (Page 5 of 53)

Stadium Glare and Septum Repair

November 14, 2024 / / 0 Comments

It will forever be hilarious to me that Jerry Wayne spent over a billion dollars to create the only football gridiron on the planet with an East-West orientation. Now, he’s tripling down on the end zone windows, claiming that it provides a home field advantage for his team. Evan Grant crunched the numbers and is reporting that the Cowboys are 29-29 in all games at AT&T Stadium that start between 3-7p. The team is 107-68 in home games that start at 12noon or evening prime time. It’s not the only thing preventing the Cowboys from winning a divisional playoff game for now the 29th year in a row. But this week it is the most glaring of hundreds of things Jerry does to get in the way of his team.

In other news, watching the Cowboys this season is reminding lots of people about the ’89 team that went 1-15, the Campo years with Quincy Carter, Anthony Wright, and Chad Hutchinson, and even the 1960 expansion team that didn’t have the benefit of an NFL draft. The numbers are historically bad. We are watching one of the worst Dallas Cowboys teams of all time. And, yes, one of the worst NFL teams of all time. This version of the Cowboys is the first team in NFL history to trail by over 20 points in five straight home games. That record should be extended against Houston on Monday.

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Carrie-Anne and I spent five days in Los Angeles recently so a world-renowned surgeon could operate on a sinus/septum issue that’s been causing her problems for much of her life. It’s a one centimeter hole on the inside of her tiny nose that has led to a lifetime of migraine headaches and sinus infections. There’s a guy in Houston who fixes these by cutting across the bottom of the nose, pulling all the skin up toward the forehead, and knocking it out in about an hour. Yikes. This guy in L.A. goes in through the nostrils and takes more than five hours to, in his words, carefully build the ship inside the bottle, with tiny instruments and cameras.

After the pre-op appointment Thursday afternoon, C-A and I ate dinner at the iconic Mel’s Drive-In on Hollywood Boulevard and then that was pretty much it for the next four days. They wheeled her back for the surgery at 8a Friday morning and we didn’t leave until after 5p. And she was absolutely miserable. Super sore. Swollen. Groggy. A little discolored. And absolutely not wanting to leave our hotel room for anything.

So, yes, we spent the whole weekend watching football and movies in the Hampton Inn in L.A., less than five miles from Hollywood and the Sunset Strip and less than 10 miles from the beach.

Thankfully, her follow up appointment was Monday morning. Dr. Hamilton pulled the packing out of her nose and nasal passages–about three miles of gauze that I thought never would stop coming–and checked her out and gave us some care and maintenance instructions and sent us on our way. Carrie-Anne still didn’t feel great, but she was good enough for us to drive up and down about twelve miles of the Pacific Coast Highway and eat lunch at Duke’s on the beach in Malibu. A long, wonderful, relaxing lunch. Coconut shrimp and fried fish, while watching the pelicans dive and the dolphins jump out on the sea. I don’t think C-A actually tasted any of her food, but we had a blast.

We got home Tuesday night and today Carrie-Anne is still a little swollen, still very sore, and still unable to breathe through her nose. There’s a protective foam packing inside her little nose that’s supposed to come out tomorrow. They gave her a solution to spray up there that’s supposed to dissolve the foam and pretty much take care of itself. We’re very hopeful. The suspense is killing us.

The good news is that her follow-up in L.A. is December 5 and we’re planning to spend three full days doing the touristy stuff we couldn’t do this time. We won’t go back to Mel’s–I think a person only does that once. But we’ll hit the Hollywood Walk of Fame, cruise up and down Sunset Strip, maybe take in a show, see if Jimmy Kimmel’s taping one of those afternoons, and go back to the beach. In our sweatshirts, probably. And we’ll certainly go back to Duke’s. Carrie-Anne will be able to taste her fish then. And she’ll let me take pictures.

Peace,

Allan

Who Dak?

September 16, 2024 / / 0 Comments

I’m thinking Derek Carr should be the highest paid player in NFL history.

The Saints quarterback averaged 22.1 yards per completion yesterday in a deliciously mind-blowing beatdown of the Cowboys at AT&T Stadium. Per completion!!! Unheard of. Even in last year’s blowout playoff loss to the Packers, Jordan Love averaged 17 yards per completion. New Orleans scored six touchdowns on their first six possessions, which Mike McCarthy downplayed afterward by shrugging his shoulders and saying, “It happens,” and this game was over by halftime. Dallas gave up a franchise record 35 first half points and allowed Alvin Kamara to score four touchdowns, tying another franchise record for a Cowboys opponent.

The Dallas running game was non-existent; Elliot had six carries for 16 yards and Dak had the day’s longest run from scrimmage, gaining eight yards on a scramble.  Dak threw two interceptions and fumbled once. Dallas went 0-3 in the red zone. The offensive ineptitude prompted Kristi Scales to write, “You know it’s bad when the best Dak and Zeke play of the day was combining on a tackle of a Saints cornerback returning an interception.”

The Dallas defense was even worse. The Saints ran for 190 yards and faced a total of just three third downs in their first five drives of the day. Micah Parsons says they got outplayed. That might be the most disturbing thing a Cowboys player admitted last night.

I’ve learned over the years that the best time to make bets with Cowboys fans is right after the first win of the year. I made four different lunch bets yesterday morning with four big-talking Cowboys fans who jumped to take the over on my 8-9 prediction. I don’t know how they’re feeling today. It’s been quiet.

If you saw the way Kamara ran through the Cowboys yesterday, then you know Derrick Henry is licking his chops in Baltimore today.

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For the first time in 16 years, the Texas Longhorns are ranked number one in the country. The last time the ‘Horns held the top spot was for three weeks during the Colt McCoy era, ending with the MIchael Crabtree game, the high point of the history of Texas Tech Red Raiders football. The only concern now is that no football team ever wants to peak too early. Like against UTSA in week three.

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We held our seventh Christian Practices retreat over the weekend at The Way Retreat Center here in Midland. Fifteen of us spent intentional time together engaging our God in Word and Prayer, using some ancient Christian practices and experimenting with some newer exercises. The weather was perfect, the food was amazing, the chapel was a beautiful and inspirational setting for worship, and the spiritual conversations were transforming. The idea behind these retreats is to equip our church at GCR with more and varied ways to be present with God for his transforming work. We don’t want to just get into the Word, we want the Word of God to get into us, to become a part of us. So we pray the Scriptures, we dwell in the Word, we read imaginatively, we ponder ancient written prayers, and we share our stories. We listen to each other’s hearts, knowing that God’s Spirit is communicating with our spirits in the process. This retreat was another wonderfully intergenerational affair–older people and younger people, long time GCR members and some who just got here. It’s one of my favorite things we do at GCR. The last one of the year is set for November 15-16 at The Way. If you haven’t done one of these yet, I’d invite you to register now.

As you can see, we have digressed a bit in taking the team picture at the end. Not our best work. Almost half the folks are hidden in the shot. Jim Tuttle rightly expressed his disappointment in the younger people who didn’t step up to help out.

Peace,

Allan

On Dak, Deshaun, and D.P.

September 10, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Scattershooting while wondering whatever happened to Bob Breunig…

With Dak Prescott as the highest paid player in NFL history at $60-million per year, Jerry Wayne is paying his quarterback $3.53-million per game. That’s $185,758 per completion on Sunday or $19,717 per passing yard. Or $3.53-million per touchdown pass.

The Cowboys defense was flying around on Sunday, getting up in Deshaun Watson’s grill on every dropback, stuffing backs at the line on every run, and breaking up passes all over the field. Congratulations to Mike Zimmer who knows how to disguise a rush and pass coverage. The Browns offensive line never knew what was coming. And most of it was done without blitzing. Some of the concern around Zimmer’s return to Dallas was his toughness and no-nonsense approach. Do NFL players respond to that kind of thing nowadays? Maybe Zimmer and McCarthy are working a good cop – bad cop thing. That would make Jerry the evil mayor.

Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson has plenty of issues. He was hit by Cowboys defenders a league-high 17 times on Sunday and sacked six times, throwing for only 169-yards and two interceptions. It was telling to me that Watson’s Cleveland teammates were not helping him get up after those knockdowns. Whenever they hit the turf, most quarterbacks are helped up by two or three hustling teammates. Watson was not. I also noticed in the second half that Watson extended his hand to help up a Browns offensive lineman who had recovered a Watson fumble. The lineman swatted Deshaun’s hand away, rolled over, and got up on his own. Not a great sign. How much of Watson’s putrid play on Sunday had to do with the death of his father earlier last week? How much of it had to do with a brand new lawsuit filed in Houston yesterday alleging sexual assault and battery charges in another weird massage situation? The Browns traded three number-one draft picks and two other picks to the Texans to sign Watson to a fully guaranteed $230-million contract after the first 24 lawsuits and charges of sexual assault had been filed. The Jameis Winston era is about to begin in Cleveland.

As much as I hate to admit it, that was a quality win for Dallas Sunday. It’s hard to win on the road in the NFL–all five of the Cowboys’ regular season losses last year were on the road–but the Cowboys made it look easy. CeeDee Lamb made a strong case for completely eliminating training camp and preseason games. Zeke Elliot looks strong and lean and able to handle ten to twelve carries per game. Kendricks might be a beast in the middle, which could make Parsons even more dangerous. And Cooks is still a legitimate deep threat for Dak. The Browns were a playoff team last season with the NFL’s number one ranked defense. Cleveland was favored to win Sunday. But the Cowboys had it put away by halftime. Next come the Saints in the Cowboys’ home opener, a team that almost hung half a hundred on Carolina Sunday. Dallas is favored by 6.5 points. This one won’t be nearly as easy.

Finally, you do realize that you’re going to have to listen to Tom Brady during half of the Cowboys games this year. In just two years, we’ve gone from Troy Aikman in the Fox Sports primetime booth to Brady. That’s a sea change, man. Wow. My favorite part of yesterday’s game, the whole game, from start to finish, my favorite thing that happened all day, was the first shot from the broadcast booth after the game had started when Fox rules analyst Mike Pereira left Brady hanging on an awkward fist bump. Thank you, Mike! You did that for all of us!

I am not writing a single word about the Longhorns’ dominant win against the defending champion Michigan Wolverines at the Big House on Saturday. You’ll get nothing here on the most impressive win by an SEC team last weekend. I’m not going to say a word about the Longhorns’ number two national ranking. All I will say is that Quinn Ewers’ line in the new Dr Pepper Fansville commercial–“I don’t do backup, even if he has great hair and famous relatives”–is the line of the year in that series so far.

A Matter of Relevance

June 4, 2024 / / 0 Comments

The number of times each professional team in Dallas has played in a conference/league championship game/series since 1995:

Dallas Stars – 7
Dallas Mavericks – 5
Texas Rangers – 3
Dallas Cowboys – 0

Thinking Out Loud: Baptism

April 30, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Two Sundays ago was “Baptism Sunday” here at GCR. Six beautiful people confessed Christ Jesus as Lord and were buried with him in the waters of baptism and raised to walk in newness of eternal life with God and with his Church. It was a glorious day. It was a testimony to our Savior and a glory to our God. Six baptisms.

And the preacher didn’t preside over any of them.

Six different people baptized these six new Christians. What was taking place was described to the church in six different ways. Six different things were said as the converts went under and came back up. Most of these people hadn’t baptized anyone before, so there was minor floundering and forgotten phrases and awkward hand-to-nose coordination.

And it was beautiful.

You know, it wasn’t that long ago–maybe just 20-25 years ago–that the preacher would have handled all six of those baptisms. The preacher did almost all the baptisms all the time; it was that way for decades, even centuries. And, not surprisingly, the baptisms were all very much the same. The same preacher said the same correct words and confidently used the same motions and expertly put the person under and brought the person back up in the same way. Every time. And I wonder if that didn’t help perpetuate the ideas among us that baptism is foremost something we do. A decision we make, a command we obey, an act of faith or a good work that we initiate and execute with precision. It’s a little too tidy, it’s a little too controlled. We’re in charge of baptisms and the preacher does it right. He’s the minister, he’s the “authority,” he’s the one who does it right.

No. God is the One who acts at baptism. This is God’s work, not yours. Not ours. God is the one doing the calling and the saving, the forgiving and the restoring. We don’t do anything in baptism, we don’t achieve or accomplish anything. We receive everything! It’s got nothing to do with my goodness or your correctness or the right words being said by the right person or the right amount of water being used or how much or how little I know about what’s going on. This is God meeting you in the water and making you an eternal child of his forever. Anything that adds to or takes away from that is legalism and denies the very Gospel of Jesus.

And I think our baptisms today communicate all that a little better than they used to.

It’s a teenager and his youth minister, it’s a couple of co-workers, it’s a child and her two parents demonstrating their faith by jumping into the water together and trusting that God is going to save. Giving themselves to the Lord, fumbling through the words, getting each other too wet or not wet enough, almost drowning each other, forgetting what to say–believing that God is the one in charge.

Just thinking out loud here. This seems like a really healthy development.

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So, the Cowboys have their running back for the upcoming season. Ezekiel Elliott. For real. In Elliott’s last year with Dallas, he ran for 3.8 yards per carry, the worst of his career at that point. Last season with New England, he ran for 3.5 yards per carry. Jerry Wayne told us last week that he saw something in the last part of last season that gave him confidence Elliott could still be an effective runner. Well, in his last six games with the Patriots, his average per carry was 2.9 yards. This is what it looks like for Jerry to be “all in.”

It’s more like, “The window is closed, again, and I’m not spending any more money on this mess. Good luck to Dak and Lamb, go do the best you can. Mike McCarthy, go ahead and line up some interviews because when this season is over I’m firing you and bringing in Belichick.”

Peace,

Allan

Super Bowl Scattershooting

February 12, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Scattershooting while wondering whatever happened to Mike Zimmer.
Wait. Nevermind.

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About yesterday’s Super Bowl. Did you see all those Chiefs field goals? They matter. Extra points. They matter. Would somebody please tell Dan Campbell.

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These are my favorite Super Bowl commercials I have watched several times again today, in the order in which they made me laugh out loud: Reece’s Peanut Butter Caramel Cups, particularly the guy on the left slamming his head into that pot of beans or chili or whatever that is; Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s Dunkin Donuts spot with Tom Brady; Aubrey Plaza’s Mountain Dew commercial, specifically where she’s having a blast both winning and losing; and the couch potato commercial for Pluto TV–that one’s funny in a really creepy way. Also, I did not see the little dog hula-hooping in the Reece’s commercial until like my sixth viewing.

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Thank goodness the Super Bowl is not on CBS every year. Does America really want to listen to Tony Romo tell us what he would do during a critical drive, trailing by one score, in the last two minutes of a half? We saw what he would do. We watched it for ten years.

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Name a quarterback playing right now you’d rather have guiding your team, down one score, with one possession left, over Patrick Mahomes. You can’t. Good grief, that guy. In the clutch, with the clock ticking and the game on the line, Mahomes just straight-up delivers. That last drive to set up the game-tying field goal at the end of regulation and that championship winning drive in overtime were both perfect. Perfect. Unstoppable. Travis Kelce caught nine balls for 93-yards, including three huge third down catches on those two drives. The Kansas City defense was unbelievable in limiting the Niners. And their kicker could split the uprights from 70 yards away. Mahomes is the rightful MVP. And the Chiefs are now America’s Team. They beat both number-one seeds during the run that ended with yesterday’s title. They’ve got big personalities at the skill spots and down-to-earth guys in the trenches. They’ve got a Hall of Fame coach. They’ve got America’s biggest pop music hero hosting movie stars and high-end celebrities in the million-dollar suites, cheering them on. And they win and win and win. The Chiefs are America’s Team.

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Following our annual GCR Daddy-Daughter Dance Friday, there were two-and-a-half boxes of Little Debbie Unicorn Cakes left over. Unicorn Cakes? I had never heard of Unicorn Cakes until Ashlee messaged us Sunday morning that we were free to take any leftover cookies, brownies, or other desserts home with us for our various Super Bowl parties. Unicorn Cakes? Sparkling strawberry? Some kind of gooey purple icing stuff in the middle? White icing and sprinkles? Yes, please! Today there are one-and-a-half boxes left.

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The World Series Champion Texas Rangers pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training in Surprise, Arizona this Wednesday February 14. Day after tomorrow. I know it’s also Ash Wednesday. And Valentine’s Day. But it’s also the first official day of the defense of the Rangers’ World Series Championship! I’ve never typed those words before. Ever.

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I want to write something a little more reflective on the “He Gets Us” Super Bowl commercial featuring the foot washing scenes. I’ll try to get to that tomorrow. Have you seen it? Here it is. Stay tuned…

Peace,

Allan

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