"The more things change, the more they stay the same" may as well be the Dallas Cowboys motto. Dating back to the start of the Tony Romo-era, it always felt like the Cowboys were just a good summer of free agency negotiations and lucky drafting away from another Super Bowl.
Year in and year out, Dallas would win enough games in the regular season and show flashes of dominance to convince their fans, analysts, and even doubters that they were only a few pieces away.
The Boys were always dark-horse title contenders who could become full-fledged favorites with a few shrewd roster moves or some accelerated internal development. Tony Romo, Dez Bryant, Ezekiel Elliott, Amari Cooper, and so many others have come and gone while waiting for Dallas to take that next step forward.
Even with their cycle of disappointment already well-established among enjoyers of NFL football, it still felt different this past summer.
Despite Elliott’s departure from the team, there was minimal panic among Cowboys fans and even their detractors didn’t have much to say about it. This was partly due to Zeke’s visible decline the past couple of seasons, but, more so, it was a show of appreciation for Dallas’s roster and Tony Pollard’s ascension into a household name.
With Pollard on the rise, CeeDee Lamb’s explosion onto the scene, and Micah Parsons competing for the title of "best player in the world," among other encouraging additions to the team, it finally felt like Dallas had enough talent to overpower the curse that has haunted them for two decades.
Even if Dak Prescott has a bad game, the Cowboys now had the firepower on both sides of the ball necessary to overcome a poor performance from their quarterback.
PLAYER | GP | GS | ATT | CMP | PCT | YDS | AVG | YDS/G | LNG | TD | INT | SCK | YDSL | RATE |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Dak Prescott QB | 5 | 5 | 160 | 111 | 69.4 | 1061 | 6.6 | 212.2 | 49 | 5 | 4 | 9 | 66 | 87.5 |
Cooper Rush QB | 3 | 0 | 5 | 4 | 80.0 | 28 | 5.6 | 9.3 | 13 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 8 | 90.0 |
Team | 5 | — | 165 | 115 | 69.7 | 1089 | 6.6 | 217.8 | 49 | 5 | 4 | 10 | 74 | 87.7 |
Opponents | 5 | — | 133 | 80 | 60.2 | 929 | 7.0 | 185.8 | 69 | 6 | 7 | 15 | 86 | 74.4 |
But, Dallas has quickly proven that this is not the case. Despite a paper-soft schedule, the Cowboys have only managed a 3-2 record through five games.
They’ve looked the part of a Super Bowl contender while beating up on the New York Giants, the New England Patriots, and the New York Jets sans Aaron Rodgers, but they were exposed to be the same old team that they have been for two decades against the Arizona Cardinals.
Heavily favored against a team that was expected to tank the season, Dallas was upset, 16-28, despite having multiple opportunities to save the game. They bounced back the following week with their monstrous win over the Pats, 38-3, which instilled renewed hope in their title chances and had fans expecting a statement win over the San Francisco 49ers in Week 5.
That win would never come. In fact, the Niners showed Dallas what a real contender looks like, as they ran the Cowboys off their field, 42-10. Dallas has plenty of easy games ahead of them to try to convince people they’re legit again, but the smart ones will know that it’s only a façade.
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Are The Dallas Cowboys Contenders or Pretenders? https://t.co/FXMtHpQL3p via @YouTube
— scotty (@scottyBEASTMODE) October 10, 2023
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| Title: The Dallas Cowboys are still pretenders
| Author: Andy Quach
| Date: October 13th, 2023