Cowboys' 2014 Success Awakens Storied Past

1992 was a formative year in my life. I had just graduated high school. The Dallas Cowboys were well on their way to becoming relevant again.

And in 1992, I became the fan we all love to hate. My team was awesome. Yours wasn’t.

For context, I feel compelled to chronicle the lead-up to what surely was a great dynasty in the history of American sports.

I was too young to remember the salad days of the 1970’s. The early 1980’s, however, bore a deep hole in my memory bank. The Cowboys, while very good, were not good enough to reach championship glory.

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Even then, the Cowboys reached the doorstep the following year versus the Redskins. Sadly, they met the same fate. To date, this has been the only time I shed a tear over a Cowboys game.

As it became apparent they were going to lose, I distinctly remember dismissing myself from the TV room so I could have a moment to cry into my pillow.

I was eight.

Yes, football had already exerted its grip on my young sports consciousness.

While the Cowboys would periodically contend for the playoffs in subsequent seasons, rock bottom of the Tom Landry era came during an awful 1988 campaign.

They opened with a 2-2 record, but then proceeded to drop eleven of their last twelve for a horrid 3-13 mark.

Countless reams of paper and gallons of ink detailed what happened next. Jerral Wayne Jones bought the team. Jimmy Johnson was brought in as head coach. The roster was a revolving door.

Asthma fields were amusingly created. A franchise that needed a kick in the ass got exactly what it needed.

1-15 is what we got.

The Dallas Cowboys were the league’s laughingstock, much to the delight of haters across the land. “America’s Team” had suffered its greatest indignity: football obscurity.

What followed in the subsequent five seasons, however, was nothing short of amazing.

The 1-15 atrocity was followed up by a 7-9 bounce back the subsequent year. It finally appeared as though the constant roster tinkering was paying dividends.

Keep in mind that the cogs on the offensive end were being added one-by-one. Defensively, via the draft and free agency, Jimmy Johnson was putting together a unit built around punishing depth and sideline-to-sideline quickness.

That formula would compose what was arguably the best team ever built.

An 11-5 campaign in 1991 was the harbinger of good times to come. A somewhat shocking 17-13 wild card win against the Chicago Bears at Soldier Field signaled the beginnings of a Dallas resurgence.

The team did come back down to earth the following week, though, as they ventured into Pontiac, Michigan and were summarily trounced by an Erik Kramer-led Detroit Lions squad, 38-6.

I don’t know if I can speak for our generation of Cowboys fans as a whole, but as disappointing as that loss was, the writing was already on the wall. The Dallas Cowboys were back, and “we” were back for the long run.

Thus began the last golden age of the Best Franchise In All Of Sports (arguably).

1992 featured a scorched-earth 13-3 regular season run that was capped off by a Tour de Force annihilation (full game) of the Buffalo Bills in Super Bowl XXVII.

Two more Super Bowl championships within the following three seasons certified a once-nascent dynasty as a legitimate contender for the ages.

Did this make me insufferable? Take a wild guess.

As the Cowboys continued to dominate between 1992 and 1995, I became the fan that we all love to hate: brash, mouthy, boastful, and mouthy.

At the time, my general life’s philosophy was this: my football team is better than yours, my favorite bands were awesome, your favorite bands and NFL teams were poseurs, and did I mention the Cowboys were the best?!

I thought the good times would never end. My rose-tinted glasses wouldn’t allow me to see the direction it would ultimately take.

After surviving Super Bowl XXX against the Pittsburgh Steelers, 27-17, the wheels slowly began to fall off.

Chalk it up to emerging NFL parity and/or a lack of hunger. As “they” say, it’s hard to stay hungry when you’re already full. The next few years would signal a humbling return to the middle.

Dave Campo was entrusted to helm the ship. Drew Henson, Chad Hutchinson, and Quincy Carter were called upon to quarterback a roster of relative no-names.

What symbolically ended in Charlotte, North Carolina on January 5th, 1997 came to a sobering halt in 1999 when Michael Irvin sustained a career-ending neck injury in Philadelphia.

Once “The Playmaker” was lost, the team lost its swagger. They were never the same.

Slowly, key players were plucked via free agency. Trusted core veterans got old. Drafts were hilariously and painstakingly botched.

Dave Campo was entrusted to helm the ship. Drew Henson, Chad Hutchinson, and Quincy Carter were called upon to quarterback a roster of relative no-names.

A brief renaissance was realized when Bill Parcells was installed as head coach. Ultimately, though, Bill and Jerry were destined for the same fate as Jimmy and Jerry.

In both instances, the chance to perpetuate greatness was thwarted by two out-sized egos unwilling to share or cede credit.

The bridge from laughable to credible has been tedious, to be sure, but the guy who’s gotten us here is the ever-polarizing Tony Romo.

For all his faults, he’s been the catalyst for Cowboy progress since the day he was handed the keys.

It’s been a roller-coaster ride with him. I’ve been Team Tony all the way. I remember the line of pretenders between he and Aikman. I will forever maintain we’re going to miss him when he’s gone.

I always wondered what it’d be like to have an honest-to-goodness team built around him.

“If only” was my constant lament.

But now, somewhat amazingly, football men are pulling the levers again. The weaknesses of this franchise have been forged into strengths.

The offensive line is dominant. The QB is playing the best football of his career. The defense once again appears to be rounding into form. The formula is intact.

Does it mean anything going into the 2015 season? Only time will tell. The reality,though, is that this incarnation of the Dallas Cowboys represents the best championship opportunity it has had in decades.

I’ve said before that we know a championship contender when we see one. I now know how fleeting that is. Gone is the day of the arrogant ninteen-year-old me.

What is left is the forty-one-year-old-me. The one who understands this team is tantalizingly close.

While they may never reach that sustained level of 1990’s greatness, they are certainly constructed to have a chance for at least one title in the Tony Romo era.

And if one title is all I get, I’ll take it.

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Cowboys’ 2014 Success Awakens Storied Past

By Ben Davila | Jul 6, 2015

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