DALLAS COWBOYS Henson role revived as Testaverde fizzles

The team is evaluating quarterbacks due to four losses in five games.
IRVING, Texas (AP) -- Drew Henson knows the drill: Pay attention, work hard, say all the right things.
As the quarterback of the future for the Dallas Cowboys, Henson is playing his role to perfection. Then again, he's had plenty of experience waiting, first in college at Michigan, then as a top prospect for the New York Yankees.
The biggest lesson he learned from those other gigs?
"Have a little patience and know things are going to work out the way they're supposed to," he said.
Henson has been reminding himself of that a lot lately.
Three years after playing his last football game, Henson was supposed to spend this season easing back into the sport. But he's knocked the rust off so quickly that two weeks ago he was promoted from emergency quarterback to backup and is now the focus of heated debate about when he should make his NFL debut.
Coach Bill Parcells would have preferred to avoid the discussion because that would've meant the Cowboys were doing just fine without him. Instead, Dallas (3-5) and has lost four of its last five games, with starter Vinny Testaverde throwing more interceptions (10) than touchdowns (nine).
Quarterback evaluation
Henson talk moved to the forefront Sunday following a 26-3 loss at Cincinnati. It started with Testaverde getting picked off three times and losing a fumble, then gained momentum when team owner Jerry Jones said the team would have to evaluate "where we are at quarterback."
Parcells, though, is in no hurry to make a change, adamantly saying Monday he's "certainly not doing it now or in the foreseeable future."
His reasons start with the fact Testaverde reached the midpoint of the season more than halfway to the club's single-season passing record. There's also loyalty to Testaverde and the logic in putting an 18-year veteran in charge of an offense with a woeful running game and a group of mostly unproved receivers.
Add a schedule featuring the next two games against two of the NFL's most ferocious defenses, Philadelphia and Baltimore, and ever-so-slim playoff hopes, and you understand why Parcells says "only foolish people would ask the question right now."
OK, so it's not a quarterback controversy. It's more like a waiting game.
Experience aids Henson
Experience is helping Henson handle it. Such as when he thinks about doing for Dallas what Ben Roethlisberger is doing for Pittsburgh, all Henson has to do is think back to what happened with the Yankees.
"There's a fine line between wanting to go and play and believing that it's your opportunity and forcing the issue, that if it doesn't happen right now you're going to get disappointed," he said. "I wanted to get to New York so badly in baseball that I probably didn't enjoy the process and didn't relax and just play. That's the one thing that coming here I'm making sure I do."
Henson said he does that by focusing on the things he can control, like studying the play-book and making the most of his few opportunities in practice. What he's not doing is thinking about when he's going to take over.