In case you hadn't noticed, sports these days are all about Goliath. In 2009, the Steelers, Lakers, North Carolina Tar Heels and now the Yankees have all won titles in their respective sports. Cinderella is yesterday's news. The teams that win these days are the teams that always win, and if you think that's boring, well, tough. You can kiss one of Derek Jeter's five World Series rings.
So with that in mind, we need to be really careful about overlooking the Dallas Cowboys.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. All you ever hear about the Cowboys is what's wrong with them. Terrell Owens was a pain. Roy Williams is a loudmouth, too, and isn't good enough to replace T.O. Tony Romo's too concerned with his golf game and his high-wattage love life to ever attain his potential. The new stadium is ridiculous...
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- This was to have been the Giants' get-right game. Sure, New Orleans beat them up last week, but the Saints are an undefeated team that was coming off a bye week and playing at home. The Giants spent the week shrugging off that loss and promising to be better this week at home against the Cardinals. The defense promised more blitzing and less trepidation. The offense promised to be sharper. To a man, the Giants were certain they'd come up with a big win Sunday night over the reigning NFC champs...and then they lost.
"For whatever reason, we've had two weeks in a row now where one area has not performed very well," Giants coach Tom Coughlin said. "So, back to the drawing board."
And back, whether they like it or not, into a three-team NFC East tussle where there's no clear favorite -- not even them.
DENVER -- Wherever Brandon Marshall had been hiding throughout much of the Denver Broncos' 17-10 victory over the overhyped Dallas Cowboys at Invesco Field on Sunday, quarterback Kyle Orton was able to find him at the most opportune time.
With just under two minutes remaining and the score tied 10-10, Orton connected with Marshall along the right sideline on a stunning 51-yard catch-and-run touchdown pass with 1:46 remaining, a play that may help doubters understand how the once-overlooked Broncos are now among the NFL's elite teams at 4-0.
"Yes! Yes!" Marshall screamed as kicker Matt Prater's PAT sailed through to give the Broncos a 17-10 advantage that they would preserve when cornerback Champ Bailey smacked away a potential game-tying Tony Romo touchdown pass to Sam Hurd on 4th down at the Denver 2-yard line in the closing seconds.
NEW YORK -- NFL commissioner Roger Goodell announced his final Michael Vick decision to a group of about 20 reporters in a conference room at the league offices in Manhattan on Thursday afternoon. FanHouse attended the session, which lasted about an hour and a half and covered a wide range of topics that began with Vick and also touched on the Cowboys' video board, the blackout/ticket-sales issues in Jacksonville, the upcoming labor negotiations and several other topics.
But the news of the day was Vick, and Goodell's explanation of his reasoning for reinstating Vick effective Week 3 was interesting. The commissioner said, as he has said before, that he's "looking for a success story" with Vick, and that the goal is to make sure the troubled QB becomes a good and productive member of society off the field moving forward. Keeping Vick out for the first two games of the regular season seemed less like a punitive measure on Goodell's part, rather than one designed to take into account the number of different things Vick has going on in his life right now.
Based on what Jones told Dallas reporters, the team is in no rush to make the actual move. Ellis will not be attending OTAs, and Jones said he's given Ellis and his agent permission to try and arrange a trade with another team if they can. The Cowboys would rather trade Ellis than release him and have to pay the $1.5 million guaranteed portion of his salary, but his $5.6 million salary and his salary cap number of $6.25 million are likely to make a trade difficult.
NEW YORK -- The whole thing, start to finish, from pick No. 1 to pick No. 256 (minus the 10-hour break overnight Saturday), took 15 hours and 15 minutes. The NFL Draft is a complex, sprawling monster of an event that defies instant synthesis even as it demands it.
But demand it does, and so here we are, in the hours after South Carolina kicker Ryan Succop was crowned "Mr. Irrelevant" (in a bizarre pageant that found NFL employees boogieing on front of the stage to Donna Summer's "Last Dance"), trying to make it all make sense.
Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is dropping some hints that his team may want to inject a little wildcat into its offense in the upcoming season. From Todd Archer of the Dallas Morning News:
"We may want to do some things in our offense this year with a third quarterback," Jones said. "That's something other than be there as a backup to the second quarterback and be there in case you lose all the quarterbacks. ... We could hopefully find a quarterback with a set of skills that we could put some packages in for."
Go figure: The Cowboys finally make a solid, uncontroversial personnel move, and it barely registers a blip on the radar screen. While the football world is still working to come to grips with Terrell Owens' release (and, to a far lesser extent, Roy Williams' release), Dallas snuck into the free agent market and pulled defensive end Igor Olshansky out of San Diego.
According to the Dallas Morning News, Olshansky's deal is worth $18 million over four years -- or two years and $24 million less than what former Cowboy DE Chris Canty got from the Giants. Olshansky is guaranteed $8 million on his contract.
The price tag on Kitna seems steep considering the Lions were probably going to release him before a $1 million roster bonus kicked in on March 1. Instead of waiting for that, though, the Cowboys jumped around the red tape and secured a backup for Tony Romo.
Over at NFL.com, the league unveiled its Year in Review video highlighting the ups and downs of 2008. The YouTube of it is above, and it is pretty well done.
Not only does it contain good and bad plays, but also briefly focuses on some of the bigger stories, such as Tom Brady's knee, Plaxico Burress' troubles, Vince Young exiting as the Titans starting quarterback, and the implosion of the Dallas Cowboys.
One thing I found curious about the video is that it continues the trend of the NFL using fined behavior to promote their product on the field.
In case you hadn't noticed, sports these days are all about Goliath. In 2009, the Steelers, Lakers, North Carolina Tar Heels and now the Yankees have all won titles in their respective sports. Cinderella is yesterday's news. The teams that win these days are the teams that always win, and if you think that's boring, well, tough. You can kiss one of Derek Jeter's five World Series rings.
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- This was to have been the Giants' get-right game. Sure, New Orleans beat them up last week, but the Saints are an undefeated team that was coming off a bye week and playing at home. The Giants spent the week shrugging off that loss and promising to be better this week at home against the Cardinals. The defense promised more blitzing and less trepidation. The offense promised to be sharper. To a man, the Giants were certain they'd come up with a big win Sunday night over the reigning NFC champs...and then they lost.
DENVER -- Wherever 
NEW YORK -- 
Cowboys owner 
NEW YORK -- The whole thing, start to finish, from pick No. 1 to pick No. 256 (minus the 10-hour break overnight Saturday), took 15 hours and 15 minutes. The NFL Draft is a complex, sprawling monster of an event that defies instant synthesis even as it
Cowboys owner 
Go figure: The Cowboys finally make a solid, uncontroversial personnel move, and it barely registers a blip on the radar screen. While the football world is still working to come to grips with 
The Detroit Lions have 
