"Can you make me some of your famous Crownies?"
Last Year: 12-4, first place in the NFC East, lost in Divisional Round to the Packers.
Key Acquisitions: Greg Hardy (jerk), Darren McFadden (RB), Keith Rivers (LB).
Key Losses: DeMarco Murray (RB), Anthony Spencer (DE), Sean Lee (Let’s be honest, it’s probably inevitable).
Last year’s Cowboys weren’t supposed to happen. In 2013, they had just come off an 8-8 season with them blowing a chance at the division in the final game for the third year in a row. Romo had back surgery. They had one of the worst defenses in history the year prior, and hadn’t gotten any real talent to fill the holes. Their best defender (Sean Lee) went down before the season started. Their starting running back (Murray) could never stay healthy. Jason Garrett was still a bad coach and was now very much on the hot seat. Then they had a disaster of a game against the 49ers to open the season, and we all laughed. Then everything changed.
They beat Seattle. In Seattle. A feat considered nigh “impossible,” yet the same Cowboys who were supposed to be mediocre at best pulled it off.
Then, over the course of the season, they proved it wasn’t a fluke. Murray set all sorts of records and stayed healthy. Romo finally got some recognition for being good. Most importantly, they had the best offensive line in football, and rode it all the way to the playoffs. Then they won a close game against the Lions, thanks to some questionable officiating, and then they lost to the Packers thanks to a questionable rule. (Dallas fans can whine all they want. According to how the rule is written, that was not a catch. The refs technically made the right call. The argument Cowboys fans need to be making is that the rule is stupid.)
This year, expectations are officially sky high, and it looks like they only got better. They grabbed La’el Collins (a first round prospect) as a UDFA, thanks to some weird legal issues causing his stock to plummet. They grabbed first round talent Randy Gregory in the second round, thanks to red flags over his weed habits. They also got Greg Hardy, for part of the season anyway. They may have lost Murray, but still have the best line in football, which might just be enough to make McFadden stay healthy for once. The NFC East is filled with dysfunctional competition (Washington), mediocre fingerless competition (New York), and who knows what the hell competition (Philly). The Cowboys look to be an NFC favorite, but now officially have everything to lose. After a decade of heartbreak, Cowboys fans are bitter and ready to get revenge on all the haters.
Cowboys Fan Big Bob Pataki‘s fan perspective:
Every year. Every goddamn year. You would think at some point I would take a look at my shell of a life and realize that I devote all of my time and energy into football as a distraction of my trash existence, and yet it brings me nothing but sadness. As sure as I am that the sun will rise in the morning, there is one thing I am certain of this year: In Week 2 at Philly, DeMarco Murray will tear his ACL on the second handoff, then Tim Tebow will rub his hand over his thigh and he will return to the game and rush for 300 yards.
Tony Romo finished last season leading the NFL in completion percentage, passer rating, and as a choke artist coward who will never win the Big Game. Or any Big Game. Except for the ones he did. But, other than those Big Games, he is a blight upon this franchise and disrespects the same star on his helmet that has been worn by legends such as Roger Staubach, Emmitt Smith, and Steve Hutchinson. Tony Romo is the proof that numbers lie because, although he holds the second highest career passer rating in NFL history, that little statistic doesn’t account for the fact that he fumbled a snap nine years ago. Differentiate that numerator, dorkasaurus, and don’t call me with your facts and numbers until he’s holding up the Lombardi. Don’t give me a ring until he gets one, you get me, Poindexter?
What is Romo working with this year? He’s being protected by the best offensive line in football and also Doug Free, and Dez Bryant is signed long term. Behind Tony is a motley crew of running backs in the sense that they were serviceable what seems like 30 years ago, and now they’re all broken down and sad to watch, held together by pharmaceuticals and prayer beads.
On the other side of the ball, you have a defensive end whose biggest impact play in the last two years was throwing his girlfriend on a gun-covered futon, one corner who is as good at staying healthy as he is at taking the Wonderlic, and another corner who got photoshopped off the Madden 16 cover. I have done a lot of thinking about this defense, and sitting down and writing this is the first time I actually considered Sean Lee because, up until now, I had just assumed he was on IR. So, that’s going well.
We drafted Greg Hardy insurance in the form of Randy Gregory, who dropped to the second round because old white people are still scared of marijuana. Gregory will be a crucial part of this offseason, as Romo won’t complete King Kai’s training until he catches him.
The offense should be fine. The defense should improve. The rest of the division looks imminently beatable. But none of that matters. None of that matters because Jerry Jones will never die. If I live to be 100, he will live to be 300. It doesn’t matter how many points the offense scores, how well the defense holds up, what you do, what I do. We’re all just living in Jerry’s snow globe.
One day, a century from now, him and his Krang suit and monkey heart will finally win that sixth Super Bowl, and he will hit the red button in the Jerrydome control room, and it will launch into the sky and fly towards Valhalla, shiny and chrome. It will explode into a thousand fiery pieces and black out the sun, bringing about an eternity of darkness. And that right there is why we should have drafted Johnny Manziel.
Romo would have run in that bobbled snap if Gramatica threw a block. It was a catch. F*ck the Eagles. God bless.
