The tweet’s in: Jerry Jones to present Emmitt Smith at HOF
David Moore/Reporter, dallasnews.com

Emmitt Smith announced on Twitter last night who will present him at the Hall of Fame this summer.

“I asked Mr. Jones and he accepted,” Smith tweeted about Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.

Smith has not put the announcement up on his website. But he played a guessing game with his followers last night, at one point tweeting, “I’m real honored to have this person intro me cuz he’s done so much for me in my career.”

Jones presented Michael Irvin when he was inducted into the Hall of Fame nearly three years ago.

Emmitt Smith and Jerry Rice are locks to be voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Emmitt, Rice HOF Finalists

I’ve been fortunate enough to be inside these press conferences and some meetings on the Saturday before the Super Bowl, and it’s very VERY political, and very intense.

I remember being outside the press conference ballroom a year ago and getting a nod from a Hall of Fame voter telling me Bob Hayes was “in.”

I also remember a few years back, don’t remember the exact year, but the Cowboys had 2-3 players in the final 7-9 players and NONE of them made it into the Hall of Fame.

Emmitt won’t have to worry about that, neither will Jerry Rice, but the other selections will be interesting.

David Smoak

Michael Irvin to Emmitt Smith: Watch your tone
Tim MacMahon/Blogger, Dallas Morning News

Michael Irvin has done his fair share of criticizing the Cowboys during his second career as a radio and TV personality. However, the Playmaker doesn’t like what he’s heard this week from his old pal Emmitt Smith.

“It’s not just what you say. It’s a lot of the times – most all of the time – how you say it,” Irvin said on a video produced by ESPN 103.3. “Tiki Barber is the example that I harken back to when it comes to Emmitt. I said, ‘Now, listen, you think they welcome Tiki over in New York, over at Giants Stadium? They don’t even welcome him.’ He went to NBC and he made all of those comments about Eli not being a leader, and then Eli leads them right to the Super Bowl!

“It makes it look like bitterness or something. Emmitt has no reason to be bitter – all-time leading rusher, great career, made good money – no reason to be bitter at all. So what he said may have some truth to it, but how you say it will ring in people’s ears.”

The Emmitt-Tiki comparison is an interesting one. But there’s one big difference: Emmitt has three Super Bowl rings, Tiki zero (and the Giants won right after he retired and commenced ripping his former teammates).

Smith lays blame on QB and coach
Matt Mosley, ESPN.com

Jimmy Johnson once said, “How ’bout them Cowboys!” Emmitt Smith is longing for those days.

Mosely Emmitt Smith is not too optimistic about his former team. His prediction for Dallas’ season doesn’t touch .500, Matt Mosley writes. Blog

Dallas hasn’t won a playoff game since 1996, and if the franchise is to pull itself out of such an ignominious rut, the three-time Super Bowl champion said quarterback Tony Romo and coach Wade Phillips need to do better jobs as leaders of the Cowboys.

Smith, the NFL’s all-time leading rusher, told Sirius NFL Radio that Romo should “demand excellence” from his teammates and that “it is a coach’s job to get his team to come together.”

“I never saw [Romo] go snatch somebody up, and say, ‘Hey, we can’t win like this. We can’t have guys jumping offsides. I can’t have [a defender] coming at me unabated. Who is making the mistakes up front? Why aren’t you picking this guy up? This is not going down this way. If you can’t get your job done, get off the football field,’ ” Smith said in his interview with Sirius.

Smith I never saw [Romo] go snatch somebody up, and say, ‘Hey, we can’t win like this.

Romo has faced similar criticism from another Cowboys icon. Last January, Hall of Fame quarterback Troy Aikman questioned whether Romo understood what it takes to be quarterback of the Cowboys. During the offseason, Romo vowed to become a more “active” and effective leader for the coming season.

Smith, who won three Super Bowls in a four-year stretch in the 1990s with Dallas and will appear on the 2010 Pro Football Hall of Fame ballot, said he’s not convinced it will happen.

“So when … you say things are going to change, and you’ve never been that dominant personality or in that leadership position then, as a player, you lose me,” Smith said. “… I’m sitting there saying, ‘OK, now you’re going to become a leader?’ What happened [in previous playoff seasons] when we got knocked out both times?

“Now all of a sudden, you’re going to change? And our talent level is less than it was two years ago [when the Cowboys made the playoffs as the NFC's No. 1 seed, only to lose to the Giants]. How much better can we be?”

If discipline creates more focused teams, then Smith said Phillips should model his approach after no-nonsense coaches like Patriots coach Bill Belichick or the Giants’ Tom Coughlin. Belichick’s teams have won three Super Bowls this decade; Coughlin’s Giants won two years ago.

Phillips should “instill discipline from day one. [Belichick and Coughlin] don’t come in trying to make friends,” Smith told Sirius. “Matter of fact, they created a bunch of enemies and then made the enemies get on their terms, and then they moved forward. And that’s one thing I believe the Dallas Cowboys can use.”

Emmitt Smith: ‘Realistically, I think that the Cowboys can win seven games’
Tim MacMahon/Blogger, Dallas Morning News

Jerry Jones has visions of Super Bowl grandeur, but Emmitt Smith certainly isn’t expecting the Cowboys to return to glory this season.

During an appearance on ESPN Radio this morning, Emmitt offered a gloom-and-doom prediction and plenty of Roy Williams ripping.

“Realistically, I think that the Cowboys can win seven games,” Emmitt said.

Emmitt seems to think that the new all-business approach, complete with player accountability, is a bunch of bull.

“I mean, when I start hearing things are going to change, I keep asking myself as a player, how much are they going to change?” he said. “Are you going to be a hard-nosed coach now since things are going to change? Are you going to be more focused than you were last year? Those kind of things, I’m like, c’mon. This is not a game where you can just turn it on and turn it off.”

And Emmitt took aim at Roy Williams again, praising almost every other one of Tony Romo’s weapons but saying he couldn’t understand why the Cowboys gave up so much to get the receiver from Detroit.

“The question is, can Roy step up and be what they need him to be?” Emmitt said. “I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s possible.

“I do not see him as a No. 1. I never have saw him as a No. 1. Never have. When I say No. 1, I mean your No. 1 go-to guy. He’s not your No. 1 go-to guy.”

Emmitt’s suggested solution: Rely heavily on the running game. And hope that the defensive coordinator/head coach does his job.

“They can be a solid offense,” Emmitt said, which seemed to contradict some of his earlier concerns. “All Wade Phillips needs to do is just get his defense in gear and let them boys pin their ears back and go after the quarterback for four down, if it’s necessary to go four downs.”

Um … didn’t the Cowboys lead the league with 59 sacks last season? Oh, well, you can’t expect Emmitt to make sense throughout an entire rant.