Tuna Surprise or Drew's Demise?

Two weeks back, Bill Parcells held an unusual, even for him post game press conference wherein he said his team was stupid and then taunted the assembled media since so many of them had been howling for Henson.

Howling for erstwhile quarterback Drew Henson that is, to start. Parcells mocked the media and probably did a slow burn when the MNF crew started in on the same mantra.

Now, remember this is the same Drew Henson for whom the Cowboys paid Houston a high draft choice, the same Drew Henson who has started exactly ten (count'em 10) football games since his high school prom.

He is the Drew Henson who was the former Michigan quarterback turned baseball player, turned failed baseball player and back to quarterback, if you follow. Drew Henson got his first NFL start and he was somewhere between horrible and passable in the half he played. Passable would be the judgment of such kind-minded people as my late grandmothers or of hard-nosed football guys who know how long it takes to master the position and remember how long this kid's been away.

But, you know what, Bill Parcells is right. His team is stupid. And he may as well go ahead and skip to the logical conclusion: At 4-7, this season is lost. Next year? Well, it's here, in effect. Dallas has away games at Seattle, Philadelphia and the Giants; they host New Orleans and Washington. Can you see more than two possible wins in that list?

And, it follows that, if it's next year with Dallas coming off a four to six win season, then it's time to roll out Drew Henson.

In a rather poignant plea repeated several times by the Monday Night Football team, Parcells responded to questions about whether it's time to let Drew Henson take some lumps by asking, "What do you want me to do?" Then he talked about throwing a kid into the fray who'd spent the last four years playing baseball as if it's a recipe for disaster.

He'd be right if the Cowboys weren't already a disaster. It's not so much the offense that's killing him, but the defense. Last year, it was the best against both the pass and the run. This year, it's 20th overall. So unless Henson can play cornerback or linebacker, he's not going to turn the season around.

But he can get a head start on 2005, which is when even Parcells is going to have to admit that 41-year-old Vinny Testaverde isn't the answer. And if Henson truly was worth a top draft choice, then it's time to introduce him to the NFL.

At 4-7, the Cowboys are hardly going to the playoffs. All they're playing for now is draft position and pride. I don't underestimate the latter. The Cowboys showed a ton of it Monday night against the Eagles. They played with emotion and gave it everything they had. But they've got injuries and they've got holes in their defense that even Parcells can't patch. Try as they might - and they tried mightily - they got their clocks cleaned by the NFC's best team.

Parcells shouldn't be asking rhetorical questions about what others want him to do. I know why he's doing it, because he doesn't want to lose, not ever, not when he's 10-0 and not when he's 0-10. His instincts tell him to go with the team that will give him the best chance of winning this game, not a game that hasn't even been entered on the schedule. And as long as there's a mathematical chance of getting to the playoffs, he can't allow himself to quit.

That's what's made him a great coach. But at some point, he's got to do something radical.

He's got to do something for the future, because the present has already passed this team by, to state it plainly.

Start Henson. Start Jerry Jones. Heck, start Drew Carey if he's available; is that redundant? But let Testaverde take a seat. He had one great year in his never-ending career. That was in 1998 for the Jets and the Tuna, when he took New York to the AFC Championship Game. He was only 35 then, the same age that Bret Favre is right now and how many stories have you seen speculating about this being Favre's last year?

Working on that distant genetic memory, Parcells jettisoned Quincy Carter and brought in Testaverde to take the Cowboys deeper into the playoffs than they got last year.

Bad idea. I said it then, and nothing's changed. Testaverde is an older version of Drew Bledsoe, a big, strong-armed pocket passer who can collect gobs of yardage but isn't going to win anything. Six years ago, he could run the Statue of Liberty play but could just barely outrun the Statue itself, and he's lost even that bit of mobility. Any day now, he's going to need bifocals to see across the line of scrimmage. He's done all he can, and it isn't enough. There isn't anything left.

If I thought there was a shred of a scintilla of a glimmer of a hint of a hope, I'd say don't change anything, stick with Vinny, ratchet up the pressure during practices, increase the floggings to two a day.

But because the problems with this Cowboy team are more on the defensive side of the ball, I can't see a way clear to the postseason. If you can't stop anybody, if you can let Donovan McNabb run around the backfield for 40 seconds then heave a 55-yard completion, if you can't cover Terrell Owens when everybody in America and half the people inChina - including the hundreds of millions who never heard of the NFL - know that he's going to get the ball, it's not going to change. You've had all of training camp and half the season to get something out of this defense. If you haven't done it yet, it's not there to get.

So as long as Parcells asks rhetorical questions, we may as well tell him. Kurt Warner isn't the only reason the Giants are reeling, and he had a decent game in the Giants' loss to the Cardinals. But Tom Coughlin is going with Eli Manning, because he's got to do something.

It's true that Manning played football full time just last year and Henson was away from the game for four years. But that's even more reason to play Henson. If he's the quarterback of the future, that future is shorter than it is for someone who came straight out of college. He's four years older, four years closer to football middle age, four years closer to the end.

Usually, you can expect it to take a couple of years - maybe three or four - for a quarterback to mature. After that, you get maybe eight or 10 years of peak performance before the slide begins. By that standard, Henson should already be entering his prime with those eight years ahead of him. The longer you wait to get him those couple of years of experience he that needs, the less time you'll have him as a peak performer - if he ever becomes one. That is simple math.

Since the Cowboys spent that high pick on Henson, they really don't have much choice. Either stick him in there now, see what he's made of for better or worse, or admit you blew the pick.

This year is history. It's over. The game is about hope, and right now, at 4-7, there isn't much hope in Dallas. But there can be if Henson starts getting his feet wet, if not for this year, then for next.