DOWN HOME: Talk about your gridiron miracle

Posted: 1/30/08

DOWN HOME:
Talk about your gridiron miracle

This season, the National Football League once again demonstrated an old adage passed down from generation unto generation: Football will break your heart.

Unless, inexplicably, you are a New England Patriots’ fan (like my son-in-law, Aaron), or, even more incomprehensibly, you favor the New York Giants, you got your heart broken weeks—maybe even months—ago.

Well, that’s not exactly true.

I haven’t polled Houston Texans fans to see if they’ve suffered like all of us who root, root, root for the Dallas Cowboys. We were disturbed when the Cowboys lost their Mojo in December. And we were crushed when the despised Giants knocked them out of contention for the Super Bowl.

Folks down in Houston, embroiled in a quarterback controversy, entered the season in the best frame of mind—no expectations. Nobody ever went on Sports Center or any of the pigskin prognosticators’ programs guessing the Texans had a chance of going “all the way.”

Up in Dallas, when the season started, nobody but maybe Jerry Jones dreamed of Super Bowl victories for the Cowboys.

Then things got all fouled up. The Cowboys played great. We got our hopes up. Not good.

Through most of the season, young Tony Romo could do no wrong. The center hikes the ball over his head. Looks like a long loss. No worries. The ball bounces right into hands. He scrambles around and throws for a first down.

Other Cowboys played extremely well, too. Like Terrell Owens, known recently as an aging complainer, who had a career year. Same for tight end Jason Witten, and running back Marion Barber, and a bunch of guys on the line and on defense whose names you wouldn’t know unless you read the fine print in the sports section.

So, we all started thinking about how fine we’d look wearing our Super Bowl XLII caps.

Ironically—for the Cowboys, at least—the NFL requires teams to actually play games before they declare a winner. And so, when the Giants flew down to Texas Stadium for the second round of the playoffs, the Cowboys crawled out (and it really, really hurts to admit this) losers.

How the mighty have fallen. No world championship parade snaking through the streets of downtown Dallas. No Super Bowl XLII caps.

That’s not how it’s supposed to be. Here’s a perfect sports world: Every year, the Cowboys win the Super Bowl, the Astros win the World Series, the Mavericks win the NBA championship.

And—for evangelistic purposes and the good of global missions—the Baylor Bears win the NCAA Bowl Championship Series national championship. This would prove several things:

• Yes, there is a God.

• Miracles still happen.

• Jesus is a Baptist.

• He still loves Texas Baptists.

–Marv Knox