For Dallas Cowboys fans, assigning blame is the only game left in town after a staggering 21-17 loss to the New York Giants.

Blame the head coach. Blame the quarterback. Blame the offensive line. Blame Patrick Crayton. Blame Jacques Reeves and Roy Williams. Blame Williams again, just because he deserves it.

Blame Jason Garrett, for being distracted by his career. Blame Bill Parcells, for distracting Tony Sparano. Blame Jessica Simpson, for distracting Tony Romo. Blame Mexico and Las Vegas, for distracting apparently half the team. Blame Terrell Owens, because there's no crying in football.

And let's not forget to blame the man who ultimately made last Sunday possible, owner Jerry Jones, the man with the Midas touch.

Jones may build billion-dollar monuments, but his NFL legacy is stuck in postseason road tar. Sunday's defeat extended the franchise's playoff drought from the "ridiculous" category to the inept. Don't make me add up the losses, the wheezing finishes.

It's become a trite indictment, but it's so true. With the exception of the one season when Barry Switzer won the Super Bowl lottery with inherited players, Jones hasn't shown the ability to win anything without the help of Jimmy Johnson.

Please desist in excusing Jones, therefore, from the current funk at Valley Ranch. He has changed head coaches, changed coordinators, changed quarterbacks and changed defenses, yet the playoff losing streak continues.

A smarter owner would have fired the general manager by now. Oops — Jones, self-styled Cowboys General Manager for Life, doesn't want to hear that, of course.

As he sits in front of the family Sony on Sunday, consequently, watching the Packers and Giants play in the game that should have been his, Jones needs to remember how he felt last weekend. The utter emptiness and feeling of loss.

And he should get used to it, because his track record tells us that even when his team is on a 13-3 run, Jones can't get out of his own way.

Instead of defending his head coach this week, Jones should have railed at Wade Phillips. Jones has blessed Phillips with every resource an NFL head coach could want. Losing his first playoff game was not an option.

This should be one of the most coveted coaching jobs in sports. Yet, one by one — Switzer, Chan Gailey, Dave Campo, Parcells — they were all wearied at the end by the burden of trying to get Jones' team back to the Super Bowl.

Phillips' meek, embarrassing self-defense of himself Monday suggests that his turn is next.

On the day after the franchise's most disappointing defeat in 13 years, Phillips should have been pounding the news conference desk, vowing that heads would roll and mistakes would be corrected. Instead, we got Coach Oatmeal, saying that the "best team" didn't win.

Even before last Sunday, Phillips was roundly painted as lax in discipline and shy on self-confidence. It's a knee-jerk depiction. The players describe a Phillips who can be tough when he needs to be.

We don't know that Phillips. We didn't know that on the Monday before the Giants game, he made the Cowboys watch a "highlight" tape of their 50 worst plays this season. The next two practices were devoted to correcting those mistakes, not reading their Pro Bowl travel brochures.

Phillips is no Parcells, of course. Even Parcells, we learned, is no longer Parcells. Tony Dungy and Bill Cowher have both won Super Bowls, so clearly there is no one formula.

The ultimate test of a head coach is that his players want to play their absolute best for him — out of respect, out of fear, it doesn't matter.

In the end, a 13-3 Cowboys team lost its playoff game, because of a few missed blocks, a few missed passes and a few missed assignments. They didn't lack the talent the Giants had. But, if anything, the Cowboys did seem to lack the urgency.

Phillips doesn't appear to have an urgent button. He failed to instill a sense of urgency when the team began to slump in December. He failed to convince his team of the urgency of proving itself again in its first playoff game.

If the Cowboys had a real general manager, he could have impressed upon Phillips that defeating the Giants was an urgent milestone. Practices would have had an air of urgency.

If that message was preached at practices last week, it failed to be heeded on Sunday. Phillips should be judged in the same way that Gailey, Campo and Parcells were — by the earnestness of their team's performance.