The Cowboys Are America’s Surprise

The Dallas Cowboys have been the most polarizing team in the NFL for years. For nearly the last 20 seasons the Cowboys have been the poster child for mediocrity and criticism, and every bit of it was well deserved. The Organization was dysfunctional from the top on down, and all that seemed to matter was publicity off the field. Going into this season there were a lot of people (including myself) that did not think the Cowboys would be very good. I picked them to go 7-9 at best.

Well, the team is three wins away from making my end of season prediction look very foolish and I couldn’t be happier about it. In the first 6 games the Cowboys have been putting it all together on offense and defense and with excellent coaching. There’s still a lot of football left to be played, but for right now the Dallas cowboys are playing some of the best football in the NFL.

Cowboys Destroyed A Lot Of Narratives In Seattle…

Prior to the game in Seattle, and while the team was going on its four game winning streak, the world outside of Cowboys fandom kept harping on one thing to discredit the Cowboys. The detractors go to argument on why the Cowboys were Fools Gold was that they “hadn’t beaten any good teams.” And the one really good team the ‘Boys faced was in week 1 against the San Francisco 49ers and lost. Granted, maybe the teams the Cowboys played weren’t world-beaters. And people were right, we played against a really good 49ers team and lost.

But while all the noise about that game against the 49ers was how their fans had taken over AT&T Stadium, Cowboys fans noticed that the team played far better than expected and that the Cowboys did a lot of the damage in that game to themselves. It was week 1, Romo was still nursing the back injury, and the offense was out of sink. But the defense and special teams played far better than expected. Week after week the Cowboys kept getting much better, but non Cowboys fans didn’t care. They stuck to their silly narrative of the Cowboys not beating anyone. The only retort was that the Cowboys beat who was in front of them. And barring the niners games they had.

Come game day against Seattle, people thought we had no chance. But this series of tweets showed that I for one thought we could hang with the best team in Football. Even when the Cowboys went down 10-0 early I told Cowboys fans NOT to panic. Because this was not the same Cowboys team from years prior, and I had seen it through the first 5 games. 

And by the time the game was over, the Cowboys had went into Seattle, and over-powered the defending champs. The score said 30-23, but everyone watching the game including non-Cowboys fans knew that score did not tell the true story. The Cowboys should have won that game by at least 3 touchdowns, and it’s shocking how well they played. To be fair, Seattle was on a short week and they had traveled cross-country earlier in the week, but the Cowboys simply out muscled the Seahawks. And not many teams can say they’ve done that to the defending champs in Seattle. 

Coming into the game the Seahawks had the best rush defense in the league, and the Cowboys had the NFL’s leading rusher in DeMarco Murray. Something had to give. Fortunately for the Cowboys fans, it was the Seattle defense that gave. The Cowboys rushed for a team total of 162 yards yesterday with 115 yards coming from Murray making it his 6^th straight 100-yard game. Murray and the offensive line have been rampant, and the true test was yesterday against the best defense in football, and now the narratives have either died out on the Cowboys or changed. But regardless of what people say, the Cowboys played amazing against Seattle, and anyone that can hang with the world champs is a damn good football team, period.

The Less Tony Romo Has To Do, The Better The Cowboys Will Be…

With DeMarco Murray being a threat on every single possession, Tony Romo has found his role as Cowboys savior less and less prevalent. Romo does not have to carry the offense any longer by putting up 300+ yards per game while throwing the ball 35-40 times. DeMarco Murray is getting a lot of touches and keeping opposing defenses honest in the process. And the offensive line is protecting Romo for the most part. That leaves Romo’s weapons, Dez Bryant, Terrance Williams and Jason Whitten in man-on-man coverage. The Cowboys receivers are all very good and can beat anyone. Couple the receiving core’s athletic ability with Romo’s Houdini like escape tactics, and you get this:

Romo and Williams did this exact same escape-pass-catch act last week against the Texans and JJ Watt, and repeated it against the Seahawks. If this were last season, I would have pegged Romo to throw a pick or Williams to not get his feet in, especially on 3^rd and 20. But this new look Cowboys team is mentally tougher than they’ve been in years, and it shows. The Cowboys are not scared of anyone and yesterday went a long way in proving that. Romo took a shot early in the game and bounced back to play great the rest of the way.

When Romo isn’t forced to create magic, he excels. Romo’s had some very costly turnovers in the 4^th quarters throughout his career, but he’s won a lot of games for the Cowboys in the 4^th quarter and over-time. The longer Romo can keep rehabbing his back, playing at a high confidence level and knowing he no longer has to carry the offense, the longer this team can excel.

Don’t Worry About Us World, We Are Not The Issue…

It’s amazing how angry non-Cowboys fans become when the Cowboys do well. The world loves a good Cowboys and “Tony Romo is choking” meme, but once Cowboys fans are happy, there seems to be a lot of bitterness. But us Cowboys fans honestly don’t care. We aren’t making any proclamations on how far we will get or how many wins we will end up with this season. Cowboys fans are living this season one game at a time. Do we think that our beloved Cowboys are good, absolutely. Do we think we are the best team in the NFL and guaranteed to make it to a Super Bowl, absolutely not. The team can spiral downward and all can be lost.

But for right now we aren’t the problem, it’s the angry anti-Cowboys people who are making up these narratives. All the Cowboys fans I know are just excited the team is playing well and the team is not waiting for December to roll around to be on the precipice of getting into the playoffs. This 5-1 start is not something anyone expected at all, and the fans are enjoying every second of it. So if you’re upset that the Cowboys are winning, good. And to all of Cowboys nation, let’s just take this week-by-week. The win against the World Champs in Seattle was great, but let’s all continue to live one win at a time and make no predictions on how the season will end. Our squad will do the talking on the field for us. How Bout Them Cowboys.

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