Gut-Check Time For Real Dallas Cowboy’s Fans
By Joshua Huff
It happened again, didn’t it? It’s okay because we talked about this, right? We talked about managing expectations. We talked about not letting a few games early in the season throw us into a tantrum, turning our backs on the Cowboys and retiring our jersey’s halfway through the season.
Sept 16, 2012; Seattle, WA, USA; Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo (9) rests on the bench during the fourth quarter against the Seattle Seahawks at CenturyLink Field. Mandatory Credit: Joe Nicholson-US PRESSWIRE
Apparently that was easy to say before the season started, but hard to do when, once again, we find ourselves in the all too familiar situation we are currently in. Following the abysmal performance against the Chicago Bears last Monday, fans have been jumping ship like the Cowboys are the titanic. Which, I guess in a way they are.
We, as fans, spent all offseason touting the Cowboys as this juggernaut, this unbeatable, unsinkable entity. That hasn’t exactly proven to be the case, and now the weaker willed fans are ready to cut and run. I can’t count the number of tweets, comments, posts, and articles I’ve read from self-proclaimed “fans” stating they are done with the Cowboys. That they are fed up with this, that the Cowboys don’t want to win, and that there is plenty of room on the Houston Texans’ fan ship for people who wanted to be fans of an “undefeated” team. To these people I say good riddance. Go to the Texans, please, the rest of us want you to. But this time when you go, stay gone. We don’t want to hear you cheering the Cowboys if they turn it around mid-season. We don’t want to see you in blue and silver in December if/when we make the playoffs.
Anyone who is going to cheer for a team based solely on their record is going to go through quite a variety of officially licensed NFL koozies in a season, and again, let me invite you to turn in the blue one that says COWBOYS on it.
I may sound angry here, and I guess I am, but not at the Cowboys. Sometimes things happen that feel as though they are beyond your control. Sometimes the ball glances off your receiver’s hands just right. Sometimes you change ball carrying hands at the worst possible time. And sometimes, trying too hard to make things happen leads to the worst possible thing happening. Some instances are a result of a lack of polishing, others are completely inexplicable.
Oct 31, 2010; Arlington, TX, USA; Dallas Cowboys tight end Jason Witten (82) on the bench against the Jacksonville Jaguars at Cowboys Stadium. The Jaguars beat the Cowboys 35-17. Mandatory Credit: Tim Heitman-US PRESSWIRE
The football glances off receivers’ hands for almost every team in every game, but when it happens to the Cowboys it lands perfectly into the arms of an opposing player who appears to have been waiting for it before the play began. Over the years, I have seen the most incomprehensible bounces of the football, off Cowboy’s players’ helmets, elbows, and even the back of their shoes, directly into the waiting arms of the defense. It’s “mind bottling”, as Will Ferrell would say.
Do we need more practice? Yes. Do we need the offense to “gel” together to help stop the miscommunications that lead to these bizarre occurrences? Absolutely. Do we need to turn our backs and give up on a team because things haven’t gone exactly the way we wanted them to? I won’t, and I invite all of you true fans to stand here with me. As for the rest of you, you can go; no hard feelings, I promise. Just don’t expect to be welcomed back.