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Saturday, November 6, 2010
Celebs Out & About: Beyonce and Jay Z in London
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@SANDRA ROSE
http://espn.go.com/blog/nfceast/post/_/id/18011/bill-simmons-has-skins-in-playoffs
REDSKINS (+3.5) over Cowboys
Let’s end on a Cowboys rant. The Cowboys remind me of the Kardashians in that their strongest talent is a relentless ability to remain relevant. Much like the Kardashians successfully created the illusion that they should be famous, the Cowboys successfully created the illusion that they should be a Super Bowl contender. And they didn’t even have to leak a sex tape to do it. You know what Dallas’ record has been since 2000? 82-78. You know how many playoff games it has won over that stretch? One. That’s right … one more playoff win than Buffalo and Detroit.
As with the Kardashians, it’s all about the packaging. We consider Tony Romo an elite QB because he dates celebrities and puts up big fantasy numbers; so what if he freezes in big games? We consider Jerry Jones an elite owner because he splurged on a magnificent stadium and matched wits with Ari Gold; so what if he never built a Super Bowl team without Jimmy Johnson? Dez Bryant has been reinvented as the steal of the 2010 draft based on a bunch of preseason practices that nobody saw; so what if half the league passed on him because teams thought he was a head case? Most fans consider the Dallas offense as “elite” because it has a few high fantasy picks; so what if they don’t have a single elite offensive lineman? Every Cowboys Super Bowl pick includes the caveat, “They’re returning 20 of 22 starters from last year”; so what if it means they’re returning 20 of the 22 starters the Vikings trounced in January by 31 points?
Even the Kardashians thing makes more sense to me. They learned all their tricks from Paris Hilton; there are three of them; they have a catchy name; they don’t say anything controversial or incriminating; they only date celebrities, athletes and reality-TV-ready degenerates; and Kim (their fearless leader) is the perfect goddess for her time: a multi-new-media icon (Internet, reality TV and Us Weekly) with a definite hook (her butt), a tawdry past (her sex tape) that wasn’t really all that tawdry (the camerawork was bad, and you could barely see anything) and no discernible talent whatsoever (which doesn’t matter, because you don’t need talent to be famous in 2010). That smoke-and-mirrors routine should work in pop culture. In football? No. And yet, somehow, the Dallas Cowboys have the fourth-best odds to win this year’s Super Bowl (8-1). I give up.