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By Bob Sturm
2h ago
If you feel like you have read this piece before, it’s probably because you did — 52 weeks ago.
I pride myself in trying to offer readers unique materials to consume for most all of my assignments, but there is one easy exception. My first in-person time with the Dallas Cowboys at training camp will be accompanied with the same “start of another season” piece. I vowed many, many years ago that I would keep this piece and simply update it every year until the Cowboys exit the desert.
What will that mean? Will they have to win a Super Bowl? Or maybe just attend an NFC Championship Game without a ticket? I’m not certain. But like we always say about so many things in life, we will know they are out of the football wilderness when we see it.
And we haven’t seen it for a long, long time.
So, here I sit in seat 14D on the flight to Santa Barbara, Calif. I will be at practice in the morning and I will talk to the players and coaches, and they will all look fresh and energized. Ready to challenge for it all.
But for me, this is my 25th training camp. I have been doing this long enough to know I have heard it all before.
I also know that when I first arrived at camp, there was optimism because Barry Switzer had just been fired and it was time for Chan Gailey to fix it all. Heck, a few years ago, it was used to describe the Jason Garrett era ending and the hiring of Mike McCarthy, who had actually won a Super Bowl and been to a fistful of NFC Championship Games. If anyone would sort this mess, it would be Mike.
Well, now, the fan base seems to have shifted to who will replace Mike McCarthy in five months’ time. The optimism is low.
Good news about that? As far back as I remember, the fan base has always had a bad season when they feel great and a great season when they feel bad.
2014: An out-of-nowhere great year.
2015: Coming off the Dez Bryant catch, this was going to fix everything. Dud.
2016: Tony Romo hurt in the preseason. All is lost. Great season.
2017: Finally, Dak Prescott and Ezekiel Elliott are here! Dud.
2018: Entering the season without Dez and Jason Witten? Excellent year.
2019: Follow-up to a fine year, this will be great! Dud.
2020: McCarthy is here to finally show us how much time was wasted with Garrett! Dud.
The 2021 season probably went about as we expected, but after the exciting first two months, the dud came to town in November and lasted till January.
So here we are with no expectations and a coach about to get chased for an out-of-work coach with a nearly identical resume. Sometimes you just have to do it.
The royal Jones family, of the Castle Cowboys, delivered its version from the tennis courts in Oxnard last week, welcoming us to a sun-soaked destination and plenty of smiles and reasons to believe. This might be the year.
Before a single practice snap, they find everyone healthy and in “the best shape of their lives.” Hope is overflowing and Super Bowls of this franchise’s history are always mentioned. We hear about the new draftees and acquisitions and how they will fix the noticeable gaps from last season. Holes have been filled, we are told. Progress has been made, we are told. Even the subtractions are being sold to us as addition by subtraction! There is even that annual special moment when Mr. Jerry tells us he can be anywhere in the world right now, but he chooses to be here.
We also feel like we have been here before — because we have. We have very often been in the exact location hearing this exact message for years and years. In my case, now 25 of them.
That’s where I come in.
Call me what you want, but I cover this team for you. I don’t work for the Cowboys. I also have spent a lot of time honing my craft as a detector of refuse. If my alarms go off, I will tell you.
But, I will also try to shoot you straight. Mr. Jerry last week told us that it was difficult to be fully negative about a 12-win season. In theory, that is correct. We cannot just boil down the pass/fail of every year with the playoffs, can we?
You bet we can.
The richest franchise in sports must be a playoff team. The Cowboys have every advantage imaginable and are held to a higher standard. Why? Because they demand it. They trumpet the accomplishments at every turn in a way that places them with the New York Yankees, Boston Celtics/Los Angeles Lakers and, yes, Real Madrid and Manchester United (who they battle with for franchise value listings). It’s all about the trophies for those franchises and finishing second isn’t good enough.
So I found Tuesday’s words from Jerry a mellowing and perhaps a sign of defeat. Not only did he point to the 12 wins, but he also pointed to “returning to an NFC Championship Game soon.” Seems reasonable, right? Unless you notice that the rhetoric has changed from winning Super Bowls to simply trying to make a final four. Not sure he has lowered the bar, but those comments make it seem like he wanted the basketball rim in the driveway to be brought a little lower so his son could possibly make a basket and feel good. Even if it is only eight-feet high.
Baby steps!
Look, I am optimistic. I always am. I love camp and I missed football. But I don’t own your favorite team. I will absolutely enjoy the season, regardless of whether the Cowboys find the exit out of the football wilderness.
But I vowed to many of you years ago that I would write a version of this piece every year until it gets fixed. The purpose is to remind us how long it has been and how little has been accomplished since Super Bowl 30 was played on Jan. 28, 1996.
According to my friends at TimeandDate.com, here is the truth about that date compared to this one:
It has been a bit.
Mike McCarthy and Jerry Jones are tasked with leading the Cowboys to their first Super Bowl since the 1995 season. (Kirby Lee / USA Today)
Before we speak to the specifics of 2022, allow me to review important talking points that tradition dictates I review carefully at the start of every season so we are all on the same page and can agree that this must change for anyone to feel good about the direction of this franchise. We call these the cold, hard facts about the Dallas Cowboys and what they have become since things shifted dramatically for this franchise more than a quarter-century ago.
• This is the 27th season since the Cowboys last won a Super Bowl. They have won five Super Bowls, which ties them with San Francisco and is one behind Pittsburgh and New England for the most Super Bowl titles. But the last 26 years have been bleak. Very bleak. Somehow, financial success is not linked to just how pedestrian this franchise has become in a post-triplets/Jimmy Johnson world. But given that this proud group’s last parade came during the first term of President Clinton — and we had another term of his, two with George W. Bush, two with Barack Obama, one with Donald Trump and are halfway through the term of Joe Biden — well … we are all getting significantly older. You need to be about 35 years old now — old enough to run for President yourself — to remember the last time. Yikes.
• During this stretch, 13 different teams have won a Super Bowl, and eight teams have won multiple Super Bowls, including the Rams after their win in February. Two teams have won more than two Super Bowls, and one team has won six Super Bowls. All those teams, and the Cowboys are not one of them.
• Twenty-one NFL franchises have won a conference championship game to go to a Super Bowl since 1995. The latest to break on through to the other side is the Cincinnati Bengals, of all teams. So 21 of 32 teams have won a conference title. Dallas is not one of them.
• Twenty-six NFL franchises have won at least a divisional round playoff game to advance and play for a conference championship during this stretch. We have even welcomed Buffalo to the group after it reached the AFC Championship Game in 2020 and the Bengals in 2021. Dallas is not one of the 26 teams. The list of those who have not made it continues to grow shorter. Think about that.
• Only three NFC franchises have not played in an NFC Championship Game since 1995. They are Washington, Detroit and Dallas. If you are curious, only three AFC franchises have also not played in an AFC Championship Game since 1995. Houston, Cleveland and Miami round out the six teams that haven’t made it.
• Four franchises (New England, Green Bay, Pittsburgh, Baltimore) have won more playoff games during this stretch than the Cowboys have played (15).
• Dallas has won four playoff games in 26 seasons. They have all been home wild-card games. This is the same number of playoff wins as the Raiders and the Texans. Seven teams have fewer wins during that stretch: Chicago, Miami, Washington, Cincinnati, Buffalo, Cleveland and Detroit.
• Dallas is 4-11 in the playoffs during this stretch, for a win percentage of .266. Furthermore, their 11 playoff losses during this stretch ties them for the eighth-most losses, but only the 25th-most wins.
All of what I have listed here is factual. It is not an opinion, and it is certainly not fake news. It is admittedly a somewhat arbitrary sample sizing of years, but I think when you consider the Cowboys’ exit time of the freshly inducted-into-Canton Jimmy Johnson, the introduction of the salary cap and the aging process of Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith and Michael Irvin, it is not coincidental — 1996 is the line in the sand. What needed to be recycled was not, and remains such to this day.
The Cowboys are the most valuable franchise in sports and the most televised franchise in the NFL by a mile. They play all the high-profile, high-ratings games, and they have proven that, unlike other franchises, it is not about a special player who has attracted the eyeballs. It is the brand, the logo, the uniform and the franchise that has people wanting to see the next chapter.
But like we have tried to say a thousand times in this space, the brand shouldn’t matter to any of us anymore. Sure, it can offer you pride and some dusty history books, but unless trophies and parades are given for big TV game ratings and for how many segments can be filled on national sports talk shows, there is no value in this currency. Just frustration.
We know what matters. We just don’t know how to get there.
I love Football Outsiders and their essays on each team. Having read the Cowboys essay last week, I had to tweet a screenshot to you loyalists who think as I do. Here it is:
I feel like that last Mr. Jerry quote deserves italics.
“The foibles, the soap opera, the issues. They create interest. Add in the Senior Bowl, the combine, free agency, the draft, training camp, we always got something going. People follow us year ’round. The owner every now and then gets in the paper. It just adds to the interest, all of it. People love that.”
People love that, he says.
I basically listed the resume of the Cowboys and how much it resembles the Browns and the Lions, and his response is that people love the foibles and the soap opera.
Honestly, I think it is more that society loves a great underdog story for sure. But what they love even more is a heavyweight that has all of the advantages and all of the money and still fails. It makes them feel like there is justice in the galaxy. Maybe the big bullies don’t always win. Maybe brand names don’t win in the end. Maybe Jerry could buy any yacht or mansion he wants, but he can’t buy a Super Bowl any more than you can buy the secret to living forever.
I am confident the Cowboys will win it all again someday. But seeing quotes like this makes me wonder if it will be anytime soon. After all the losses and disappointments and yes, 10,000 days in the wilderness, he still might not get it. You would think he would stop at nothing to fix it, but instead, he doubles down on doing it his way. The eternal stubbornness is probably admirable at a certain point that he won’t budge despite the results. As recently as this weekend, when given a chance to allow Tony Pollard to win more time from Ezekiel Elliott, he did what he always does: He slams talk of proper competition shut like a flimsy door. He told the NFL Network, “It’s critical that we make Zeke — because he’s capable of being that — really the focus of what we’re doing.”
He could have said nothing. He could have said my coach will determine the best options based on this training camp. Instead, he does what he does and continues to allow his coach very little authority and his players very little reason to feel challenged.
I shake my head. He still doesn’t seem to get it. And for that reason, I anticipate I will write this column again for you in 12 months’ time.
2h ago
If you feel like you have read this piece before, it’s probably because you did — 52 weeks ago.
I pride myself in trying to offer readers unique materials to consume for most all of my assignments, but there is one easy exception. My first in-person time with the Dallas Cowboys at training camp will be accompanied with the same “start of another season” piece. I vowed many, many years ago that I would keep this piece and simply update it every year until the Cowboys exit the desert.
What will that mean? Will they have to win a Super Bowl? Or maybe just attend an NFC Championship Game without a ticket? I’m not certain. But like we always say about so many things in life, we will know they are out of the football wilderness when we see it.
And we haven’t seen it for a long, long time.
So, here I sit in seat 14D on the flight to Santa Barbara, Calif. I will be at practice in the morning and I will talk to the players and coaches, and they will all look fresh and energized. Ready to challenge for it all.
But for me, this is my 25th training camp. I have been doing this long enough to know I have heard it all before.
I also know that when I first arrived at camp, there was optimism because Barry Switzer had just been fired and it was time for Chan Gailey to fix it all. Heck, a few years ago, it was used to describe the Jason Garrett era ending and the hiring of Mike McCarthy, who had actually won a Super Bowl and been to a fistful of NFC Championship Games. If anyone would sort this mess, it would be Mike.
Well, now, the fan base seems to have shifted to who will replace Mike McCarthy in five months’ time. The optimism is low.
Good news about that? As far back as I remember, the fan base has always had a bad season when they feel great and a great season when they feel bad.
2014: An out-of-nowhere great year.
2015: Coming off the Dez Bryant catch, this was going to fix everything. Dud.
2016: Tony Romo hurt in the preseason. All is lost. Great season.
2017: Finally, Dak Prescott and Ezekiel Elliott are here! Dud.
2018: Entering the season without Dez and Jason Witten? Excellent year.
2019: Follow-up to a fine year, this will be great! Dud.
2020: McCarthy is here to finally show us how much time was wasted with Garrett! Dud.
The 2021 season probably went about as we expected, but after the exciting first two months, the dud came to town in November and lasted till January.
So here we are with no expectations and a coach about to get chased for an out-of-work coach with a nearly identical resume. Sometimes you just have to do it.
The royal Jones family, of the Castle Cowboys, delivered its version from the tennis courts in Oxnard last week, welcoming us to a sun-soaked destination and plenty of smiles and reasons to believe. This might be the year.
Before a single practice snap, they find everyone healthy and in “the best shape of their lives.” Hope is overflowing and Super Bowls of this franchise’s history are always mentioned. We hear about the new draftees and acquisitions and how they will fix the noticeable gaps from last season. Holes have been filled, we are told. Progress has been made, we are told. Even the subtractions are being sold to us as addition by subtraction! There is even that annual special moment when Mr. Jerry tells us he can be anywhere in the world right now, but he chooses to be here.
We also feel like we have been here before — because we have. We have very often been in the exact location hearing this exact message for years and years. In my case, now 25 of them.
That’s where I come in.
Call me what you want, but I cover this team for you. I don’t work for the Cowboys. I also have spent a lot of time honing my craft as a detector of refuse. If my alarms go off, I will tell you.
But, I will also try to shoot you straight. Mr. Jerry last week told us that it was difficult to be fully negative about a 12-win season. In theory, that is correct. We cannot just boil down the pass/fail of every year with the playoffs, can we?
You bet we can.
The richest franchise in sports must be a playoff team. The Cowboys have every advantage imaginable and are held to a higher standard. Why? Because they demand it. They trumpet the accomplishments at every turn in a way that places them with the New York Yankees, Boston Celtics/Los Angeles Lakers and, yes, Real Madrid and Manchester United (who they battle with for franchise value listings). It’s all about the trophies for those franchises and finishing second isn’t good enough.
So I found Tuesday’s words from Jerry a mellowing and perhaps a sign of defeat. Not only did he point to the 12 wins, but he also pointed to “returning to an NFC Championship Game soon.” Seems reasonable, right? Unless you notice that the rhetoric has changed from winning Super Bowls to simply trying to make a final four. Not sure he has lowered the bar, but those comments make it seem like he wanted the basketball rim in the driveway to be brought a little lower so his son could possibly make a basket and feel good. Even if it is only eight-feet high.
Baby steps!
Look, I am optimistic. I always am. I love camp and I missed football. But I don’t own your favorite team. I will absolutely enjoy the season, regardless of whether the Cowboys find the exit out of the football wilderness.
But I vowed to many of you years ago that I would write a version of this piece every year until it gets fixed. The purpose is to remind us how long it has been and how little has been accomplished since Super Bowl 30 was played on Jan. 28, 1996.
According to my friends at TimeandDate.com, here is the truth about that date compared to this one:
- It is 9,682 days from that day to today.
- Or 26 years, 6 months, 4 days.
- Or 318 months, 4 days.
It has been a bit.
Mike McCarthy and Jerry Jones are tasked with leading the Cowboys to their first Super Bowl since the 1995 season. (Kirby Lee / USA Today)
Before we speak to the specifics of 2022, allow me to review important talking points that tradition dictates I review carefully at the start of every season so we are all on the same page and can agree that this must change for anyone to feel good about the direction of this franchise. We call these the cold, hard facts about the Dallas Cowboys and what they have become since things shifted dramatically for this franchise more than a quarter-century ago.
• This is the 27th season since the Cowboys last won a Super Bowl. They have won five Super Bowls, which ties them with San Francisco and is one behind Pittsburgh and New England for the most Super Bowl titles. But the last 26 years have been bleak. Very bleak. Somehow, financial success is not linked to just how pedestrian this franchise has become in a post-triplets/Jimmy Johnson world. But given that this proud group’s last parade came during the first term of President Clinton — and we had another term of his, two with George W. Bush, two with Barack Obama, one with Donald Trump and are halfway through the term of Joe Biden — well … we are all getting significantly older. You need to be about 35 years old now — old enough to run for President yourself — to remember the last time. Yikes.
• During this stretch, 13 different teams have won a Super Bowl, and eight teams have won multiple Super Bowls, including the Rams after their win in February. Two teams have won more than two Super Bowls, and one team has won six Super Bowls. All those teams, and the Cowboys are not one of them.
• Twenty-one NFL franchises have won a conference championship game to go to a Super Bowl since 1995. The latest to break on through to the other side is the Cincinnati Bengals, of all teams. So 21 of 32 teams have won a conference title. Dallas is not one of them.
• Twenty-six NFL franchises have won at least a divisional round playoff game to advance and play for a conference championship during this stretch. We have even welcomed Buffalo to the group after it reached the AFC Championship Game in 2020 and the Bengals in 2021. Dallas is not one of the 26 teams. The list of those who have not made it continues to grow shorter. Think about that.
• Only three NFC franchises have not played in an NFC Championship Game since 1995. They are Washington, Detroit and Dallas. If you are curious, only three AFC franchises have also not played in an AFC Championship Game since 1995. Houston, Cleveland and Miami round out the six teams that haven’t made it.
• Four franchises (New England, Green Bay, Pittsburgh, Baltimore) have won more playoff games during this stretch than the Cowboys have played (15).
• Dallas has won four playoff games in 26 seasons. They have all been home wild-card games. This is the same number of playoff wins as the Raiders and the Texans. Seven teams have fewer wins during that stretch: Chicago, Miami, Washington, Cincinnati, Buffalo, Cleveland and Detroit.
• Dallas is 4-11 in the playoffs during this stretch, for a win percentage of .266. Furthermore, their 11 playoff losses during this stretch ties them for the eighth-most losses, but only the 25th-most wins.
All of what I have listed here is factual. It is not an opinion, and it is certainly not fake news. It is admittedly a somewhat arbitrary sample sizing of years, but I think when you consider the Cowboys’ exit time of the freshly inducted-into-Canton Jimmy Johnson, the introduction of the salary cap and the aging process of Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith and Michael Irvin, it is not coincidental — 1996 is the line in the sand. What needed to be recycled was not, and remains such to this day.
The Cowboys are the most valuable franchise in sports and the most televised franchise in the NFL by a mile. They play all the high-profile, high-ratings games, and they have proven that, unlike other franchises, it is not about a special player who has attracted the eyeballs. It is the brand, the logo, the uniform and the franchise that has people wanting to see the next chapter.
But like we have tried to say a thousand times in this space, the brand shouldn’t matter to any of us anymore. Sure, it can offer you pride and some dusty history books, but unless trophies and parades are given for big TV game ratings and for how many segments can be filled on national sports talk shows, there is no value in this currency. Just frustration.
We know what matters. We just don’t know how to get there.
I love Football Outsiders and their essays on each team. Having read the Cowboys essay last week, I had to tweet a screenshot to you loyalists who think as I do. Here it is:
I feel like that last Mr. Jerry quote deserves italics.
“The foibles, the soap opera, the issues. They create interest. Add in the Senior Bowl, the combine, free agency, the draft, training camp, we always got something going. People follow us year ’round. The owner every now and then gets in the paper. It just adds to the interest, all of it. People love that.”
People love that, he says.
I basically listed the resume of the Cowboys and how much it resembles the Browns and the Lions, and his response is that people love the foibles and the soap opera.
Honestly, I think it is more that society loves a great underdog story for sure. But what they love even more is a heavyweight that has all of the advantages and all of the money and still fails. It makes them feel like there is justice in the galaxy. Maybe the big bullies don’t always win. Maybe brand names don’t win in the end. Maybe Jerry could buy any yacht or mansion he wants, but he can’t buy a Super Bowl any more than you can buy the secret to living forever.
I am confident the Cowboys will win it all again someday. But seeing quotes like this makes me wonder if it will be anytime soon. After all the losses and disappointments and yes, 10,000 days in the wilderness, he still might not get it. You would think he would stop at nothing to fix it, but instead, he doubles down on doing it his way. The eternal stubbornness is probably admirable at a certain point that he won’t budge despite the results. As recently as this weekend, when given a chance to allow Tony Pollard to win more time from Ezekiel Elliott, he did what he always does: He slams talk of proper competition shut like a flimsy door. He told the NFL Network, “It’s critical that we make Zeke — because he’s capable of being that — really the focus of what we’re doing.”
He could have said nothing. He could have said my coach will determine the best options based on this training camp. Instead, he does what he does and continues to allow his coach very little authority and his players very little reason to feel challenged.
I shake my head. He still doesn’t seem to get it. And for that reason, I anticipate I will write this column again for you in 12 months’ time.
