If Wade Phillips knew before the season that the Cowboys would have five of the 26 NFC starters (11 offense, 11 defense, four special teams) named to the Pro Bowl, his job security would have been great.
If he knew that all five would be starting, which ties Atlanta for the most starters in the NFC, he would have never dreamed that they would come from a 5-10 team -- a team that no longer was his.
Since Jason Witten, DeMarcus Ware, Jay Ratliff, Andre Gurode and Mat McBriar were voted in by NFC players and coaches, Jason Garrett felt the honor was deserved. (Fans didn’t give the Cowboys as much love in their portion of the vote. No Cowboys was voted as a starter by fans.)
“A lot of it has to do with ability,” the interim coach said, “but if you look at each of those guys it has a lot to do with their approach. They come to work every day. They’re real pros. They’re great examples to the rest of our football teams and it shows up when they play on Sunday.”
Despite making the Pro Bowl, the players were obviously still disappointed in the season.
“Does it make up for five wins?” Gurode said, “No. Obviously this team wants to win more than that. [We] want to do a lot better than what we’ve done this year [but] all we can do is go out and prepare ourselves for the Eagles this week.”
And as Ware noted, being selected to the Pro Bowl says something about only a few players.
“It’s all a team sport,” Ware said. “Five guys made the Pro Bowl, but they don’t make [a whole] team.”
-- Jan Hubbard
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