Dallas fans: Cowboys dialed in for Giants

By Max J. Dickstein, amNewYork Sports Editor | mdickstein@am-ny.com

January 11, 2008

I reached out and touched Dallas.

Tickling my fingers over my office phone's keypad throughout Thursday, I punched random phone number combinations all within Dallas' most traditional area code: 214.

My hundred-call quest to gauge the mood of a metropolitan area of 6 million people resulted in short, friendly conversations with three of them.

April Starr, the receptionist at an ad agency in Dallas, seemed happy to while away a couple of minutes at her desk, discussing football with a strange journalist.

Did she think the Giants have a shot at upsetting her 'Boys on Sunday?

"I don't," said Starr, 22. "I really don't. They're doing great, but we're better than them. Overall -- I mean, come on."

In Starr's view, Dallas quarterback Tony Romo's dalliance with Jessica Simpson won't distract him from his work on the field.

"Some think it depends on Jessica Simpson," she said. "But I don't think that anybody can really control anybody else that much so."

Starr then politely said she needed to use her phone to make an intra-office announcement, so that was that.

Another random phone call was answered by a bakery manager, Sam Jabir.

"We've got to find out if T.O.'s going to play," Jabir said, referring to the star receiver with a badly sprained ankle. "We're just concerned about that."

And about the Giants, said the Grand Prairie, Texas, resident, who was born in Jordan.

"It's just their running back," said Jabir of the Giants' punishing rusher, Brandon Jacobs. "They have to hold Jacobs, not let him run everywhere. For Eli [Manning], they're gonna have to rush him."

Predicting a 21-17 victory Sunday, Jabir said the Cowboys won't settle for just one playoff win.

"Everybody expects them to be the NFC champion against Green Bay," he said. "But not to win the Super Bowl, because New England is excellent this year. They're perfect, very complete."

Katie Shipman had a moment to spare at the developer's office where she works.

"I guess I would say I'm not myself the hugest fan ever," said Shipman, 22, of Forth Worth. "But I know that they've had a really great season. I would say 35 to 28."

And I would say, thank goodness I can quit spam-dialing the 214.

For now.

Max J. Dickstein is amNewYork's sports editor.