Jim Souhan, a columnist for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, demanded in print last week that Mr. Jones be used as a spiritual guidance counselor for Minnesota's out-of-control bow-wows.

The unsuspecting boat crew quickly became upset, and a 3-hour cruise was cut to an hour. The captain returned to port, and ordered everyone off his two ships.

The police got involved, then the FBI. Something about the Mann Act, which is a federal law that makes it illegal to transport two-legged darlings across state lines for the purpose of prostitution.

So we've now got a big stink up north. There is much outrage about the football team being an embarrassment to two cities, and one entire state.

Even worse than the Mann Act, the Vikings were also charged with a Dog Act violation on Sunday, the next game after this story broke publicly. They played like poodles in losing 28-3 to the Bears.

The Bears' game was also the latest in a crash-and-burn season for this team. Picked as a prime Super Bowl contender by some, the record is 1-4. And that's an ugly, disorganized, nobody-seems-to-care, 1-4.

It's the Cowboys of 10 years ago, except the only football difference is the Cowboys of that era had Super Bowl rings, and aging but still elite talent.

But Jones is the man with the blueprint on how to clean it up. It wasn't like he came up with his master plan in one or two years. It took him awhile to even move past denial.

And then Jerry, in the late 1990s, uttered, "I get it. I really get it." That meant the message he was receiving from fans and sponsors was to clean up Valley Ranch, or else there would be hip- pocket ramifications.

No one at Valley Ranch this week, starting with Jones, will even come close to verbally touching this Vikings mess. As I was told by one staffer, "When we were going through the same thing, we didn't like reading some so-called expert in another league city telling us what we needed to do. And we aren't doing it to the Vikings."

But as a league official said Wednesday, "No owner has put the time, the manpower, and the money into this one area like Jerry Jones has. Because of that, the Cowboys have gone from one extreme to the other."

Plus, the Cowboys are the same as most NFL teams. They don't pop off, because they don't know when the next phone call from the cops will come.

Individual screw-ups will happen. That's a given. But with the Cowboys of the past decade, and the Vikings of today, it's an extremely flawed organization when it becomes a collective, continuing process.

With Bill Parcells as the coach, who even thinks about this kind of stuff happening again at Valley Ranch? The same theory applied when Jimmy Johnson was in charge.

Jimmy, his critics will say, was always one fresh horse ahead of the posse when it came to a team going bonkers. He left here right before the "White House" was uncovered and there were police busts galore. The same goes at the University of Miami.

"Probably because of a few things with the Giants, Parcells is more diligent than he's ever been," said the league official. "He is on top of this stuff. He tolerates nothing."

But at Valley Ranch, the changed started at the top_with Jones. He pays for the best in the business to work with players on behavioral issues. Individual failures have happened: Dwayne Goodrich. Quincy Carter. But it's strictly been individual failures.

In Minnesota, there's a new owner. His original investment is pushing $800 million. And he's also campaigning the state pols for a new stadium, which appeared to be close to happening. Until now. Nothing scares politicians like bad publicity.

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