Defense Wins Championships — And Hate Is Winning Something Else | Just Wondering with Norm Hitzges

It's Wednesday, February 11th, and today I'm just wondering if while watching the Superbowl,
the Dallas Cowboys noticed anything about the way Seattle and New England conducted
their business to get to the Superbowl and hate seeping more and more into the American
sports scene.
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Before we begin, this note, starting next week, the Just Wondering Podcast will go to
one time a week.
It'll be on Tuesdays.
Now you're still going to get four or five segments of information during Just Wondering.
You'll just get it all in one day, so you'll get virtually the same amount of content.
But for me, it greatly eases my workload and allows me to do other things.
I wonder if the Dallas Cowboys saw on Sunday what we all saw in the Super Bowl.
Defense.
Seattle won with defense.
The Seahawks had done that all season.
They have the number one scoring defense in the NFL this year, meaning only 17 points
per game.
And by the way, in the history of the Super Bowl, now of the 60 Super Bowls that have been
played.
49 of the 60 have been won by the team that had the higher regular season defensive rank.
And for what it's worth, New England was third in fewest points allowed per game this
season at 18.
At the other end of the defense spectrum, your Dallas Cowboys pathetic allowed a bit
over 30 points per game.
And yes, remember Seattle allowed 17 and New England 18.
There's a message here.
As Dallas prepares to spend $28 million more on another offensive star, George Pickens,
would that money be better spent adding perhaps two solid defensive players in free agency?
But Dallas loves its stars and its salary cap numbers show it.
The salary cap this year is around $300 million.
Here's what the top of the Dallas Cowboys salary chain looks like.
I've put Pickens number on this list because the word is the Cowboys are going to franchise
him for that $28 million tag.
Look at how top heavy the Cowboys are.
They'll redo several lead contracts as usual and they'll push millions and millions and
millions more dollars down the road as Jerry prepares to as he has told us bust the budget.
Not right now, the nine Dallas stars, nine players are due to get 239 million of this
year's $300 million cap.
That doesn't leave much for the so-called middlemen.
Those are players making 8 million, 10, 12, 14 solid players, starters, middle priced
players who help create the bones of both your offense and defense to help you be solid
on each side of the ball.
Now let's contrast the Cowboys the way they do business with how this year's Super Bowl
entrance, Seattle and New England conduct themselves.
Here's that Dallas Cowboys cap number again, nine players making 239 million dollars.
But Dallas has only two players making between 6 million and 17 million, compare that to
the Super Bowl teams and how they structure their pay scale.
This year, Seattle had only four players making over 17 million.
And those four eat only $107 million of the team's $300 million cap.
This is what is happening in 26th for Seattle going forward.
This is what their salary structure looks like.
But Seattle has eight players making between 6 and 17 million.
Thus Seattle's top 12 players this year will be making only a combined $187 million.
That's incredibly lower than Dallas 11 players.
It's $77 million lower than Dallas of top 11 players.
Yes, they won the Super Bowl.
And Seattle has a lot more to spend now filling out its 2026 team.
Now let's check out New England.
They have five highly paid players, more than 17 million.
But those five make only $121 million this coming season.
And the Patriots have 10 of those solid, important middle price players.
So New England's top 15 paid players make $221 million.
And Dallas top 11 players make $265, again, New England like Seattle has much, much more
flexibility than Cowboys looking forward to this 2026 season.
But the way Jerry Jones has always done business, he loves the glitz.
He loves the stars, especially on offense.
But Jerry doesn't seem to care quite as much about the defense.
He doesn't cherish those middlemen types of players.
The grunts that make you deeper and more versatile and more solid as a roster.
People like Tyler Beattish, the center for Washington now, defensive end, Iran's Armstrong
also in Washington.
Runnerback Jordan Lewis, non-Jaxonville, running back Tony Pollard down Tennessee, and
guard Conor McGovern, former cowboy in Buffalo.
All of those are former cowboys.
All were drafted in the middle rounds.
All got away from moderate salaries.
And by the way, let's not forget defensive end of Marcus Lawrence, who left the cowboys
this year and headed to Seattle and won his ring there as a starting defensive end.
Did the cowboys learn anything from watching the Super Bowl?
Did they learn that defense wins championships, that a few stars and lots of middlemen
might be a better roster construction.
What does history suggest the answers to those questions might be?
Probably not.
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What's happening in America?
Hate seems to be getting more and more out of control.
Now we never had much of a pristine record when it comes to discrimination against ethnic
groups or genders or things like that.
In fact, the administration right now is trying to sell us in fact that, oh, slavery wasn't
that bad.
But there's a history of disliking ethnic groups, religious groups in the country.
Hey, a hundred years ago in America, there was a dislike of the Irish in the Italian,
or Polox like me.
But hate seems to be very much in the upswing in this country.
The targets now, well it seems like in the ethnic groups, the Hispanics are really, really
in the crosshairs.
And we've seen bombings that the mosques and synagogues hatred for the Muslims and the Jews,
that one's kind of funny because the United States and Israel really like each other.
And yet there are loads of instances of bullying and harassment of Jews in this country.
And those situations are on the dramatic rise.
It's ironic because America used to be called the melting pot, a place where various
races and ethnic groups and religions could come to create a better life and a better country.
Hate especially seems evident on the internet.
The nameless, faceless cowards who feel they can without ever worry of being identified,
say anything they want about everything from the races to genders.
And that emergence of hate is appearing more and more in the American sports scene.
Fans chanting racial slurs, monkey chants, throwing bananas on the floor, or even watermelons.
That's all of the black athletes.
And the abuse of Jewish athletes, of women, of Muslim athletes, the latest last week at the BYU
Oklahoma State Basketball Game.
Some of the Oki State fans started chanting, F the Mormons, F the Mormons.
This is at least the fourth time in the last year that BYU athletes have faced such hatred.
So what did Oklahoma State do about it?
Was their home game?
Did they eject anyone?
There's no report of that.
Did they take anybody's athletic privileges away in the future?
There's no report of that.
In fact, did the school try to identify some of those chanting?
There's no report of that.
And what does Big 12 do?
It find Oklahoma State $50,000.
Are you kidding me, Big 12?
That's like lunch money for athletic departments these days.
How about a $500,000 fine?
And maybe encourage Oklahoma State to do more to prevent and punish such situations?
What can be done about it all?
Probably not much.
Because on the love hate scoreboard in America,
hate seems to be winning.
And now a word from our title sponsor.
Today's episode has been brought to you by Fluent Financial.
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And by Bob's steak and chop house on Lemon and Dallas and in Craig Ranch in McKinney.
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Thanks for listening to today's episode of Just One Ring.
I'm Norm Hitzkiss and know that every day I'll be just wondering about something.
And I'm Mary Hitzkiss and I'll just be wondering too.
This is A Stolen Water Media Production.