Jerry Jones has been looking forward to 2009 for years now.

Next year Jerry gets to open his brand new, only-in-Texas-would-we-build-something-this-ridiculously-extravagant stadium, honoring Cowboys past and present, convicts and converts, and, of course, Jones' own outsized ego.

At over $1 billion to build, the Cowboys' new stadium will cost four times what it cost for FedEx Field, home of the Redskins, only a decade ago.

At over a billion dollars, the Cowboys' new stadium will seat approximately 80,000 people for games, roughly 11,000 fewer than Dan Snyder crams into FedEx.

On the other hand, at over a billion dollars to build, the Cowboys' new stadium will include the world's largest video board, gazillions of tiny LEDs hanging over 100 feet above the center of the stadium, 160 feet long and over 70 feet high, all so people in the stadium can watch the game on the biggest television imaginable rather than being forced to watch the actual, well, you know, game taking place just a little over 100 feet further down.

There will be a retractable roof that, when open, will recreate that giant hole above the field at the old Texas Stadium, so God can watch his favorite team play on Sundays.

There will be gargantuan open end zone plazas, complete with the world's largest sliding glass doors, 120 feet high by 180 feet wide, that will open in only 18 minutes.

(Someone better tell Jerry he better watch out for the world's biggest birds, flyin' their giant fool skulls up against those big ol' Cowboy windows.)

The new Cowboys' stadium will, in other words, be the next Wonder of the World, shimmering like a star in the middle of Arlington, Texas. People will flock from around the world just to see the thing, pilgrims to a glass and steel Mecca.

All of which is fantastic news for Jerry Jones since the product he plans to showcase in said stadium is starting to stink worse than the three-week-old Chinese food funk wafting up from Wall Street.

The Cowboys, once three and oh and the pride of the NFC, everybody's early-season pick for a Super Bowl run, have started to wobble worse than Uncle Ed after too much bourbon-laced eggnog at Christmas.

Gone is Adam "What, me worry?" Jones. Gone, at least for the time being, is pretty-boy quarterback Tony "Butterfingers" Romo. Gone is Roy "I'd rather blow you up than cover you" Williams; all the sadder for opposing receivers who used to love exposing Williams as the second-most overrated "star" on the field.

Speaking of overrated, or at least not worth the headache, the timer on Terrell Owens is ticking dangerously closer to the red zone; not the good red zone, mind you, the one that indicates points in the offing, but the bad one, the one that indicates T.O. is just one more uninvolved game from exploding into a media-fueled temper tantrum that promises to tear his team apart.

With each additional, inexplicable loss, head coach Wade Phillips looks more and more like he'd rather be anywhere, anywhere other than Texas. His post-game press conferences have devolved into something better witnessed on a psychoanalyst's couch than a television.

Jerry Jones has responded the only way he knows how, by rolling up his sleeves and getting his hands dirty, meddling and messing around with his 'Boys, trying to channel the brilliance that Al Davis used to be known for in the time before time.

He's brought in another formerly overrated Roy Williams, this one a receiver for the offense. (Gotta have balance.) Williams, a former first-round pick of the truly dreadful Detroit Lions, a possession receiver who's never lived up to his own hype, cost Jones three future draft picks, including a first- and a third-rounder.

Jones prowls the Cowboys' sideline in palpable agony, gritting his teeth and slapping his hands, as if to channel some sort of energy, some sort of enthusiasm, some sort of something into his lackluster, under-performing bunch.

The fear that he must be about to open a billion-dollar stadium with this group of face-planters has got to be absolutely gutting Jones from the inside.

Couldn't happen to a nicer guy. You'll find no apologists here.

Speaking of the Burgundy and Gold, Sunday's victory over the Browns, while not the prettiest thing this season, was a game they had to have and they did what good teams have to do; they went out and grabbed it, albeit with some help from Browns' place kicker Phil Dawson.

Too bad most of us watching it from home missed two of the biggest plays of the game, thanks to the bafflingly J.V. sight lines afforded TV cameras at FedEx.

Here's a question: anybody got a couple of used milk crates they could donate to Mr. Snyder so he could raise those cameras another twelve inches off the floor?

You know, so us poor schlubs watching at home could actually see the game.

You can always reach Alex Cudaback at cuda24@yahoo.com