The Dallas Cowboys waste another year of everyone’s time

The prospect of clinching the NFC East and a playoff berth proved too much to handle for the disappointing Dallas Cowboys.

Take this into consideration. The Dallas Cowboys could’ve won a game yesterday, “improved” to eight wins on the year, and would’ve won the NFC East outright. That should tell you all you need to know about this awful division. Incredibly, it tells you even more about the Cowboys. For it was their ineptitude in Philadelphia that likely capped off the most disappointing season of Dallas football that I can ever remember.

This team was supposed to have talent. So much so, in fact, that it was allegedly the deepest roster they’ve had since the dynasty days of the nineties. But what we’ve learned here is a familiar lesson. It is a course we’ve been forced to study for the better part of two-and-a-half decades now. It was on full display in a humiliating 17-9 loss to the Eagles yesterday afternoon in Philadelphia.

It isn’t so much the lack of execution, poor coaching, or the astoundingly minute attention to detail. All of that is now par for the course with this bunch. The front  office, the coaches, the players–it all smells. This whole organization is encased in this weird malaise, and it simply cannot get out of its own way.

Sure, we’ll have some great regular season runs here and there. Remember 2014 and 2016? Those were lots of fun! Heck, even last season provided a lot of entertainment and a playoff victory to boot! After each of these years, expectations were through the roof. In each case, and for various reasons, we ended up as dejected and cynical about this team as we always do.

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But last week they drew us back in just like the shortsighted dummies we are. We thought that maybe last week was the catalyst. Last weekend’s 44-21 dismantling of the Rams–a team with a winning record, no less–seemed to be the spark that they needed. Where had that Cowboys’ team been all season? Let’s bottle that up and truck it to Philly and put them out of their own particular brand of misery! No. It proved to be the fool’s gold that we know we should’ve see coming. Yesterday’s Cowboys did the same thing that all of Jerry Jones’s teams have done for the past two-plus decades: they crater. They fail spectacularly, and everyone else points and laughs. It’s a rite of passage by now.

The amazingly stupid truth to all this is that it’s not completely over yet! The Cowboys could win next weekend, the Eagles could lose, and Dallas would somehow back into the tournament as a division winner. It doesn’t seem likely, but weirder things have happened. Wouldn’t it somehow be an appropriate kick to the pants that this team finds itself hosting a stinking playoff game? I’m not saying I’m rooting for it. It’s simply in the realm of possibility, and that just makes it all the more absurd.

I’m going to continue to watch, mainly because I can’t stop at this point. It’s woven into my DNA. I’d say I’ll watch so you won’t have to, but who are we kidding? We can’t keep our eyes off of our annual train wreck. The coaches and the players come and go, but one immovable element always remains. Yet year after year, we talk ourselves into a reason as to why this year’s gonna be different. It that’s not the definition of insanity, then I don’t know what is.

• Published on 12/23/2019 at 13:30 PM
• Last updated at 12/23/2019 at 11:58 AM