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Get your butt on the record: Mavs edition

Countdown to meaningful Mavs games begins now -- 82 games to go.

Sorry, I just am finding myself nonplussed by this regular season. Obviously, The Little General and his army have proven themselves to be regular-season studs. What everybody is waiting for is to see how they fare in playoff games.

But the NBA has this little rule. They make you play the games, which means we media types predict and usually conveniently forget when we totally screw up and say pick the Rangers to win 92 games or Dallas to sweep Golden State. Not me. I am a bold predicting machine.

So mark me down for the Mavs winning however many games ranks them second in the West and a West Finals date* with Phoenix. This is what everybody else is saying:

Look for a big year unless Marky Mark screws it up.

One in 10 NBA general managers believe Santonio and Phoenix have a better shot.

Stinkin' Spurs rank just a little ahead of your Dallas Mavericks nationally. Again.

Good thing Mark Stein has a job at ESPN or else nobody at the World Wide Leader would give the Mavs a shot, period.

OK, your turn to get your butt on the record: How far do the Mavs go?

$67.5 million=Super Bowl or Bust

Owner Jones always has been a master of DWI answers, swerving this way, weaving back, zig-zagging along until everybody is left wondering "What the heck did he just say?" Fluency in JerrySpeak requires years of intense training.

And my Jerry-English dictionary translates Owner Jones' take on signing Tony Romo to a six-year, $67.5 million contract extension as follows: "We finally have the Super Bowl QB. Now, let's go get that trophy or I am going to be peeved."

I know, I know, what Owner Jones technically said was: "I don't want to say that because we are having this press conference we are going to win a Super Bowl. I am not saying that." I had a chance to talk to him for almost 20 minutes after Tuesday's festivities and, believe me, the only reason Owner Jones is not saying this deal raises the bar to Super Bowl or Bust is because he does not have to, $67.5 million says that for him.

That is Super Bowl-QB money. That is Win-Now money. That is We-Had-Darn-Well-Better-Be-Playing-In-Late-January money. That may even be February money because all NFL contracts come with expectations. And bigger numbers=bigger expectations.

"I would have never brought in Leonard Davis had I not ... " Owner Jones told me, his voice tailing off for fear of predicting those two little words.

"You get what I am saying," he said. "I am reluctant to say Super Bowl. The whole point is these are actions, not words, that really preclude me from having to say 'I think we can go to the Super Bowl.' These are definitive. This is body language at its best."

I know what you are thinking: He always says this. He always predicts Super Bowl. All of this is true. He admits as much. What changes this from typical Jerry Optimism to an actual real-live expectation is having Romo now and longterm.

"It is just a shallower goal, a shallower comment when you don't have good, top quarterbacking," Owner Jones admitted. "I think we have top quarterbacking after this and, frankly, passing on Brady Quinn,
there has been some short term and some long term definitive things done in the last eight or nine months that you can point to and say they believe they have a guy they can ride with."

Owner Jones finally has what he believes to be a franchise QB and all that entails. On that point, his words were extremely clear. "When we had it, we won Super Bowls. And when we didn't have it, we didn't get close."

Make no mistake. What Owner Jones was saying is Tuesday needs to translate into February.

He's right, too.

More to come on my interview with Owner Jones, including his thoughts on why Romo is the guy and if Marion Barber needs to be starting.

I'll be chatting live about the deal at 1 p.m. Wednesday at http://www.realcities.com/mld/dfw/sports/qa_forum.htm?forumId=2009.

Post questions any time.

Meanwhile, Mr. Randy and I dissect the deal in our vodcast at www.star-telegram.com. Check it out.

Question of the Day: The Barbarian Edition

While talking to Owner Jones on Tuesday, he noted that many believe coach Parcells waited too long to go with Tony Romo as QB.

Was it me or did Owner Jones sound like he believed that as well?

Anyway, this pretty popular, albeit cheap, second guess got me thinking: Is it possible the Cowboys are making the same mistake by not starting Marion "The Barbarian;" Barber rather than Julius Jones? So I asked Owner Jones this very question. He led with a "no" then dropped this little nugget:

"Keep an eye on things," he said. "Things could change."

Of course, my stance always has been "Don't break what isn't broken in the name of trying to 'fix' things." I am not, however, as ardently opposed as I once to juggling who starts and possibly who ends up with extra touches.

So your turn: Do you think the Cowboys need to start starting The Barbarian? And why?

More Owner Jones on Romo

What is slightly amusing about reaction from local and national precincts to Cowboys QB Tony Romo's six-year, $65 million deal is how many people seem concerned about Owner Jones' bottom line.

Psssst, he's going to be able to pay his bills in November.

And Owner Jones is happy, thrilled, beyond giddy to have an opportunity to write a check for franchise-QB money since that means he has a franchise QB. "You don't just spend it to spend it. I'm living proof of that. I haven't done it for all these years," he said. "You do almost just lust for the opportunity to do it."

Questions, of course, follow such transactions and Owner Jones took time after Tuesday's festivities to answer a couple with me.

On whether waiting to do the deal in October, rather than July or April, cost the Cowboys money?

"I don’t know that. I don’t know that at all. I have no reason to think that we could have come in at lesser numbers in August. There is no converstations we had to think the (Texans QB Matt) Schaub number was doable. Quite the opposite. There was every indication we were going to be dealing in the range we are dealing in. We could have done a certain level and gotten comfortable. Let’s face it, when you are talking 67 and a half million, then when we start thinking, well, what is the difference in 60, 61. ... The thing you can not do is make the wrong commitment. But I'd have not have miscued over 10 percent of the difference over those number of years. What I would say is there is nothing tangible in any way, in numbers that were tossed around anyway, that this was a lesser deal in August. None, none, none, none in the spring."

On whether he believes Romo can handle everything that comes with being "The Man" for the Cowboys?

"I think it carries with it expectations so you better have somebody who has shown a little bit that they can wear it, not go crazy under that kind of atmosphere and expectation. Tony has been here several years and been around the circus and all the of the pluses that go with it."

And, finally, on whether if having Romo on his Cowboys resume bumps coach Bill Parcells time in Dallas from failure to raging succes?

"I’ll just weigh in on one thing: It was not a failure. It was not a failure. Now, it was probably a little reaching to say he got you Tony because I think he can be criticized, people have actually criticized (him) for not having Tony out there quicker. The guy that literally stood, climbed the wall, did everything he could do to get Romo was Sean Payton."