What will it take to make the Dallas Cowboys relevant again?

In a lot of ways, the Dallas Cowboys will be an entirely different team once football becomes fully functional again. Will it make a difference?

This is all operating under the assumption that the NFL will start on time. I personally have my doubts about any of us seeing football–professional or otherwise–anytime prior to October, but that’s a different discussion for a different time. For now, let’s just assume the Dallas Cowboys start the season on the weekend after Labor Day.

Also take into consideration that this year’s team will look a lot different than last year’s bunch. New head coach, new-ish defensive line, cornerback Byron Jones was weirdly allowed to walk away, and now there’s a huge hole at center because Travis Frederick retired. There’s also the addition of troubled defensive end Aldon Smith, who hasn’t played an NFL snap since 2015.

There are a lot of “ifs” surrounding the Cowboys, and we’re still a little more than four months away from the ostensible start of training camp. It’d be one thing if they were coming off a string of playoff appearances, but they’re not. The fan base was sold a bill of goods regarding last season’s team, but they simply could not get out of their own way while stumbling to an 8-8 record and missing the tournament altogether.

What I’m getting at is this: the cast of characters on the team and the coaching staff come and go, but the management group remains. And in a good year, the Cowboys can flirt with greatness and draw us all back into thinking they’re a contender. You can go all the way back to 2007, or 2009, and then throw 2014, 2016, and the second half of the 2018 campaign in there. In each instance, pundits and fans alike bought in. But ultimately, there is a classically comical blunder–in front of a national TV audience, no less–that ends in an embarrassing thud.

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I’ve said this before in this space, but it bears repeating: a wise man named Bill Parcells once said, “Don’t tell me about the pain, show me the baby.” This is where I’m at with this bunch. Year after year, we get another rosy forecast about how any particular season is going to be different. But there’s no change with the end result. It’s been twenty-five years since the Dallas Cowboys won a championship, but the fan base largely continues to let it all slide. Now more than ever, it’s time to make Jerry Jones prove to us that the product he puts on the field is worthy of our attention.

We can speculate and project and theorize about the draft and free agency. It doesn’t really matter. The whole point of this missive is that I sorely want to be wrong about this team’s chances. I want the formula in place to somehow work, but I also know that I’ve spent the majority of my adult life wishing for something different.

I’m not sure that new head coach Mike McCarthy can make that much of a difference in an environment where the Owner and General Manager harbors shower-time fantasies about bringing wide receiver Dez Bryant back into the fold. There is nothing productive about that in my estimation.

So given the current climate, maybe we need to just wait until we get the all-clear from those that are allegedly trying to protect us from ourselves. Nothing is set in stone at the moment, and maybe it’s all for the better. As a fan, I roll my eyes every time I hear about Dallas Cowboys on sports talk radio.

Next. Why the Dallas Cowboys May Pass Over the Better Player in the Draft. dark

To be sure, there’s no need to get excited about them until they give us a reason to do so. By that I mean advancing to an NFC Championship game at the very least.

Published on 04/13/2020 at 11:01 AM
Last updated at 04/13/2020 at 10:40 AM

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