Fellow Dallas Cowboys fans, it may still be fall but the winter of our discontent is upon us already. Following the latest blowout loss to the Arizona Cardinals, some Dallas Cowboys players have expressed their discontent by blaming their struggles on the new coaching staff. NFL Network reporter and Dallas Cowboys insider Jane Slater shared this latest revelation in the following tweet:
That is not an encouraging sign for Cowboys fans like myself who are clinging to the belief that despite the early season struggles, this team can and will turn it around. Constantly reminding ourselves that despite the poor performance to date, the Dallas Cowboys currently sit alone atop the NFC East. Desperately convincing ourselves that despite all the injuries on defense, on the offensive line, and to their franchise quarterback, it is entirely possible that the team can rally together and rise above the adversity. What Jane Slater has brought to light is not at all what fans like me wanted to hear following an uninspiring loss to Arizona.
The game on Monday night was painful to watch. The Dallas Cowboys players appear both uninspired and incompetent. Meanwhile fans argue back and forth over reasons why this is happening and point fingers of blame in every possible direction. Defense, Offense, Special Teams, Injuries, Coaching, Turnovers, Effort, Talent, Scheme, Players…Yes, Yes, and a thousand times YES!!!!! The problems are easy to point out. The solution is the one thing that escapes us all. Now as we fans of the Dallas Cowboys spiral into an unending darkness of despair there appears no light at the end of the tunnel.
What do we do now? We have apparently hired the wrong coach. The team is not as talented as we thought they were and the Dallas Cowboys players don’t appear to be trying as hard as they ought to. Do we pack it in and hope the team loses out so we can secure a top 10 draft pick? In other words live to fight another day. Or, do we take solace in the fact that this team is somehow, someway first place in their division? That’s right! If the season ended today they would actually be a playoff team and anything can happen in the playoffs…Right?
I honestly don’t know what the right answer is. I do know this though; Sports are wildly unpredictable and crazy things happen all the time. Seemingly dysfunctional locker rooms and hopeless situations have miraculously changed course in the past. Why not us? Why not know? Well, in short it is probably because this franchise has not been truly relevant in a quarter century. The Dallas Cowboys have not appeared in a conference championship game in 25 years joining teams like Cincinnati, Cleveland, Miami, Detroit, Buffalo, Washington, and Houston. That is the company we keep and we can’t simply blame the coaches and we can’t blame the Dallas Cowboys players because there has been only one constant through all that time. Cowboys fans are well aware of what that one constant is and it is that which causes me to remain skeptical that this team will do anything other than piss away an opportunity to win the worst division in the history of the NFL.
*Photos by Joe Glorioso https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/legalcode
