Cowboys' Season Saved: Wade Phillips Takes Over Defensive Play-Calling Duties

Given how things have unfolded thus far, I fully expect a tornado to deposit the Cowboys' new stadium into the Gulf of Mexico in the coming days. Brief recap: Dallas loses to Arizona in overtime, Tony Romo breaks his pinky and is sidelined for up to four weeks, the team drops its next game to the lowly Rams, and End of Days talk continues. Good news could be on the way, however.

The Dallas Morning News' Tim MacMahon writes that today Wade Phillips has made official what many people just assumed to be the case previously: he'll be taking over play-calling duties from defensive coordinator Brian Stewart. This is also known as "getting Neuheisel-ed."

Or maybe this isn't good news -- as MacMahon points out, "Phillips already had his fingerprints all over the defensive game plan. There hasn't been a single play call this season that went in without his approval" -- but at least nobody got suspended or injured, so it's a start. (Of course, Wade was also the brains behind the "hey, let's bench Doug Flutie for Rob Johnson" disaster in Buffalo last decade, so who knows.)

While I agree that the defense might continue to look like the same ol' group that disappeared the previous two weeks, part of me thinks that Phillips will find a way to fix this. He's the guy, after all, who was responsible for the Chargers' suffocating defense during his stint in San Diego.

Oh, and this just in: God continues his assault on the Jerry Jones All-Stars. This morning, safety Ken Hamlin had $15,000 worth of tires and rims stolen from his Escalade.