We declared a certain Dallas fan
the World's Biggest Douche Bag yesterday, for his complete and utter detatchment from any reality beyond his medical bubble. Our declaration engendered even more wrath from some Cowboys fans.
But Dallas fans everywhere got reprieve from a Cowboys fan named David Hickey, who pretty much wrote us the perfect e-mail: it's funny and self-effacing, while acknowledging his own football-loser tendencies, and argues with some pretty solid Cold, Hard Football Facts. In other words, it sounds a lot like something we would have written. Worth reading his letter to the end.
"Ok, many Dallas fans are douche bags. I'll give you that. But it does seem like your site hasn't been supportive enough of the team, and dammitt, we need affirmation. Allow me to just point out a couple of things: No. 1, if Buffalo beats Miami and if Minnesota beats the 49ers, Dallas will be 5-1 against Quality Teams.
"Only New England will be better at 5-0, and they had to break NFL rules to get where they are, let's face it.
"And you always impugn Dallas giving up 20.7 points a game. Well, they had to play New England and they have given up five non-offensive touchdowns. Doesn't that count for something? You can't blame the defense for 2 kick returns, 2 int returns and one fumble return for touchdowns.
"Meanwhile Green Bay has not allowed a single special teams/defensive score. But if you take away those 35 points, the Cowboys have allowed 213 points, or nine less than the Packers.
"All I'm saying is, get on board the Cowboy Express, and become a flaming Romo-sexual like me. That Jessica Simpson better not break his heart!"
CHFF responds: Fair enough, David, and Romo's dimples are damn cute. And, clearly, we were wrong last week: Dallas has established itself as the best team in the NFC, no doubt.
But if we could quibble, David, you fall into a trap common among football fans, even among flaming Romo-sexuals. It's a trap especially common among those who choose to read football sites other than the Cold, Hard Football Facts (in other words, the lesser football sites).
The trap you fall in is that you want us to dismiss scores the Cowboys have allowed off of turnovers and special teams because it's unfair to "blame the defense" for these scores.
Football fans have to get over this concept. The scoreboard, the only judge that matters, doesn't care how the points got there, only that they did. The scoreboard isn't going to dismiss these points. The scoreboard isn't going to assign blame to a specific unit.
So if the Cowboys have surrendered five TDs on turnovers and special teams, and Green Bay zero, that's not encouraging for Cowboys fans. Quite the opposite. It's a weakness the team has to improve upon. As we note in our Quality Stats, such as our Bendability Index, other sites and stats look at individual units in a vacuum.
But football isn't played in a vacuum. The three different units are all interlocked, the success of each affecting the success of the other. Therefore, a Quality Stat like our Bendability Index, which has proven to be a very, very reliable indicator of team-wide success, takes into account ALL factors and all scores when ranking a team's ability to keep opponents out of the end zone.
No matter how deep your Romo-sexuality, you have to consider all aspects of a team's performance together, not separately.
As for Jessica Simpon breaking his heart, you're talking about a guy who dumped uber-hottie Carrie Underwood. He has no heart.
