Clinton Portis should definitely be a bit easier to tackle this year with that boot sticking out of his mouth after his recent comments on how dog fighting is no big deal. My question, though, is if the league is worried about its image to the point of suspending players who haven’t even been arrested, shouldn’t they be suspending players who all-but-condone cruelty to animals?

I don’t want to take up too much time on a non-Cowboys related issue, but it is food for thought. What if he was talking about smoking pot? What would the league do if he said smoking pot was no big deal and so long as someone did it in their own home then it was nothing to worry about

It seems every time I turned on a sports show or hit a sports website over the weekend I was reading about Terrell Owens actually showing up to the Cowboys mini-camp. And these weren’t “he was injured but must be doing okay” articles, they were “I bet you are surprised at who actually showed up” articles.

I thought it was bad enough that he, among several other wide-receivers, had a hamstring injury last year but, quite unlike those other wide receivers, he received national day-by-day coverage on it. Now the guy can’t even show up for practice without it making headlines!

I’ll admit, I am not a big T.O. fan. I didn’t want him to become a Dallas Cowboy. I wouldn’t care if he was cut tomorrow. But, I must admit that I detest how misrepresented the guy seems to be in the media. Granted, some of it is his own doing, but do we really need to act surprised that a guy known for a strong work ethic actually showed up to practice?

Let me repeat that: Terrell Owens is known for having a strong work ethic. No one denies that. The media doesn’t write about how he’s lazy, how he doesn’t work out in the off season, etc. It’s one of the few things he is praised on — but that certainly doesn’t stop the media from acting surprised that this hard worker is willing to show up and practice. Not if such a story will sell newspapers (generate website hits) in a time of the year where only the rare football story is likely to get much notice.

There is a lesson to be learned here, a lesson I learned back in college when a (very good) teacher asked us to write two different articles on the presidential debates showing that night — one article slanted for one candidate and the other slanted for the other candidate. The instructions were explicit: Tell the truth. And omit just enough of the truth to slant it one way or the other.

In other words, don’t believe everything you read. The media likes to blow things out of proportion, just as they blew T.O.’s hamstring injury out of proportion, and just as recent articles are an over-reaction to something that should be expected of any veteran that isn’t a NY Giant or didn’t attend Miami University.

The truth is T.O. is not the monster the media sometimes makes him out to be. Oh, there’s some truth in T.O. the monster, to be sure. It was certainly T.O. that was riding his quarterback during that game (and you can insert several different quarterbacks and several different games into that sentence). But, the media does have a tendency to look at sales as much (perhaps more) than they look at truth, and so the media has a tendency to blow up the negative side of T.O. and laying low on the positive side.

This is why T.O. actually showing up to camp makes headline news on Yahoo.Com, and T.O. having a hamstring injury makes headline news across the country, but T.O. staying after practice to help out rookie free agent Sam Hurd was mostly just a local story. Who wants to read about T.O. the good guy?

It was a playoff game that came down to a last minute field goal. The starting quarterback was also the holder on field goals, but the snap was juggled. The quarterback picked up the ball and scrambled to the left and…

Do you know what happened next?

He was hit as he tried to heave a pass downfield.

Huh?

That’s right, the year was 1999 and Brad Johnson’s incomplete pass meant the Tampa Bay Buccaneers would defeat the Washington Redskins in the playoff game. Luckily for Johnson the snap was considered low and the field goal was of the 50-yard variety, not a chip shot.

It’s almost funny that the Cowboys now have two quarterbacks that have lost a playoff game on a botched snap/hold in the final seconds. And, if the Cowboys keep up with the recent tradition of having the backup quarterback hold on field goals, at least one of those quarterbacks will be the holder.

But don’t let that scare you. Some people might blame Tony Romo’s botched hold for losing the game but there was a lot of blame to be spread around after a game where Terrell Owens and Terry Glenn are being covered by a guy who, weeks before, was sitting on his couch watching the games from home and the Cowboys still couldn’t take a convincing lead.

And while lightning might strike the same place twice, let’s hope it won’t strike three times.

The 2007 NFL draft has come and gone and now the grades are coming in. It comes as no real surprise that the grades for the Cowboys are all over the board going from a D by the Dallas Morning News to a A by DallasCowboys.com with most falling in the C to B range.

But, before you read too much into these grades, remember the grades they received after trading out of the first round when Steven Jackson was available. There were a whole host of bad grades. And then the very next year when the Cowboys picked up Marcus Spears and DeMarcus Ware because of the first rounder they received the year before everyone was quick to praise the Cowboys and how they did a good job securing that extra pick.

In truth, draft grades mean less then preseason predictions for a team’s final standing. Not only does it take several years to know how the players will pan out, but there is no real consensus on how to grade a draft. Do you grade it on just the players drafted, or do you include the trades involved? Do you grade based on team needs and positions filled? While one writer might give the Lions a big thumbs up for not skipping the best player in the draft, another might give them a thumbs down for drafting a position that wasn’t a priority.

In the end, I think most writers tend to grade a draft based on who they would have picked, and most writers haven’t spent millions of dollars researching all of the players.

So, I wouldn’t get worked up about it. Me? I’m thrilled to have two first round picks next year. Anytime you have a chance to trade for a future first rounder that should be lower than where you are currently picking plus pick up a pick that year it’s going to be a winning situation — so long as you can follow through by picking up a quality player that next year.

One reason why some writers may have graded the Cowboys lower might be passing on Brady Quinn. I think even some fans grumbled about that. I’m not sure when Tony Romo went from Pro Bowl quarterback to the guy that must be replaced. I certainly don’t think you spend a first round draft choice on quarterback when you have a young quarterback who posted a 95.1 quarterback rating. You cover yourself with a veteran backup, not a first round rookie.