It’s spring 1978. You’re engrossed in the inaugural episode of Dallas. A year ago, you met the love of your life at Billy Bob’s in Ft. Worth, the largest honky tonk on the planet. You scream and cheer on the Von Erich brothers as they wrestle at the Dallas Sportatorium. And just a few months back, the Cowboys won the Super Bowl, beating the Denver Broncos and outscoring all their playoff opponents, 87-23.
Even the Cowboys cheerleaders dominate pop culture. Showing up on the Love Boat (3 TIMES) and soon in their own made-for-tv movie.
Life is wild.
Your dad mumbles every once in a while about the Dallas Texans. A short-lived NFL franchise that bailed after half a season, back in 1952.
It doesn’t make sense to you. For you, it’s always been the Cowboys. People now are jabbering about UT running back Earl Campbell getting drafted by the Houston Oilers this spring, but the Cowboys are the only serious NFL team in Texas.
In fact, the Cowboys have made the playoffs every year, except one, since you were 12. In the last eight years, they’re 2-2 in Super Bowls. The modern Patriots dynasty is still over two decades away. So besides the Steelers and the Dolphins, the Cowboys are a national phenomenon. Bandwagon jumpers all over the country LOVE them, but they exist in YOUR backyard. Congrats!
In Major League Baseball, there’s no expanded playoffs yet, so even though the Texas Rangers, who play in Arlington, have recently put together some winning seasons, they NEVER get a whiff of the post-season. The Dallas Mavericks do not yet exist. There’s a Dallas soccer team that won whatever league they were in back in 1971. But life revolves around the COWBOYS and now JR Ewing, too.
You’re pregnant with twins. Your kids Darwin and Debbie will be Cowboys fans, too. The Cowboys will lose the next Super Bowl. They’ll lose in the NFC playoffs for 5 of the next 7 years after that. And then a bigger drought will come. The Cowboys will be certified 100% poodle shit.
(Who the fuck is Steve Pelluer?)
Stoic, dapper Head Coach Tom Landry and his fedora will be fired. In Ronald Reagan’s second term, the Cowboys collapse is an existential crisis. A metaphor. Who are we? What are we permitting? What the fuck is happening? There are big shifts happening. The success of Appetite for Destruction and Straight Outta Compton are signs that America is DONE with “America’s Team” and American Horseshit. George Bush barfing at a dinner …. LOL. No.
No one has time for this shit. It doesn’t make sense. Not even in the timeline.
But your twins could have become disenfranchised burn outs. Goths collecting Marlboro Miles. They could have seen Nine Inch Nails at the first Lollapalooza. Or former Dallas-native Gibby Haynes firing a shotgun from the stage.
But just as they hit their pre-teen years, oily weasel/reptile, Jerry Jones bought the Cowboys. And hired head coach Jimmy Johnson, who made a deal with the devil — perfect hair and eternal football success in exchange for his face resembling a pie stuffed with all the mincemeat and cherries in this hemisphere.
The Cowboys were back, dominating the early 90s, winning three Super Bowls. After over a decade in the wilderness, they beat the everloving shit out of the Buffalo Bills, 52-17 in January of 1993.
Troy Aikman. Emmitt Smith. Michael Irvin.
You — forget it. We couldn’t escape these fuckers. Even Deion Sanders came along for the ride.
It wouldn’t be unusual for a guy sitting in a bar in a place like, say ,Hudson, Wisconsin — who’d maybe only traveled 100 or so miles from there in his entire life — to turn to another patron and spew 15,932 words on HIS Cowboys before anyone else got a word in.
“The thing WE need to do is…”
Fun fact: Every kid named Chad in the United States would fight you about the Cowboys in this era.
Jerry Jones and Jimmy Johnson fought after two Super Bowl wins. Johnson left. Jones hired former Oklahoma Sooners coach Barry Switzer. He is called a moron by everyone. A guy who puts talcum powder on waffles. But he wins another Super Bowl for the Cowboys. Before they collapse.
If you are the fictional person I turned into a lifelong Cowboys fan for the purposes of this post, you stick with the team.
January 28th, 1996 is the last time the Cowboys are in the Super Bowl.
Today, your children are 45. They were 17 back in 1996.
An era where 2% of American households had “internet” access.
Prince was still married to Mayte.
Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee were still married.
A lot of shit like this came and went since the Cowboys won a Super Bowl:
Limp Bizkit
Joey Fatone
Jon Benet Ramsey
9/11
Titanic
Rae Carruth
Teams like the Carolina Panthers and the Jacksonville Jaguars — teams with the charisma, soul, energy, mascots, and color-scheme of failed medicated children’s cereals have played MANY more relevant NFL games than the Cowboys in the interim.
The USA now has 70 million more people than in 1996.
An incomplete list of dudes who have won TWO Super Bowls for TWO different teams since the Cowboys last appeared in a Super Bowl.
LeGarrette Blount
Peyton Manning
Ricky Proehl
Torrey Smith
Sony Michel
Blaine Gabbert
Chris Long
Dannell Ellerbe
Jason Pierre-Paul
Malcolm Jenkins
Shaquil Barrett
Terrell Suggs
Von Miller
Adam Vinatieri
I was going to make a list of all the Cowboys coaches and QBs of their failed eras. Why?
Anyway, after 1996, Troy Aikman’s concussions piled up. Michael Irvin was always in trouble. And the team aged out of relevance.
They turned to dudes like:
Bill Parcells. Jason Garrett. Drew Bledsoe. Jon Kitna. Brandon Weeden? Even Kyle Orton wound up there. Vinny Testaverde. Quincy Carter.
They got hot with Tony Romo. Or sort of hot. Semi hot. Lukewarm.
The bottom line is even when the Cowboys have a chance, they do not have a chance:
Now they have a QB with an unfortunate cadence. He is 2-3 in the playoffs.
Oh, and the Cowboys have not even been to an NFC Championship since they went to the Super Bowl. They have not been participants in the game to get into the Super Bowl since the 1995 season.
What is my point? Shit, I don’t know. It looks bad again this year for the Cowboys. And that makes some people happy.
Jerry Jones is a billionaire. One of the few billionaires that we get to see in pain. It’s cathartic to see success elude this guy. To see him frowning in his luxury box, galaxies away from the Super Bowl, and the clock continuing to tick. To hear the word “unacceptable” when it looks like losing is pretty acceptable and inevitable.
However, the Cowboys will likely win 35-0 tonight.
But it will not get any easier to be a Cowboys fan.
This is so dead on that it hurts. It seems just like yesterday that Gibby was pointing a shotgun at me at 11:00 in the morning at the Coca Cola Starplex in Dallas.
Can't stop the goddamn run!
Well at least they (barely) beat the Giants.