Ladies and Gentleman: The Dallas Cowboys Are America’s Team Again

The Dallas Cowboys! America’s Team! The talk of the town and social media. Ladies and gentleman, America’s Team is back.

It’s so 1992 again.

Dallas fans waited a long time. America’s Team, the football empire, the most loved and hated team of all, is back in a favorable and exciting way. Minus the mediocrity attachments. Subtract the many I hate the owner/general manager hash tags.

Bury the word different while we’re at too. The Cowboys, after collecting three rookie rated first-round picks, moved beyond the level of different. The Boys are in new territory with renewed life in Randy Gregory (DE), Bryon Jones (CB), and La’el Collins (OT). Throw in the rest of the 2015 draft selections and you have ingredients for a great recipe.

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The Cowboys are no longer the laughing-stock scrambling to stay above 8-8 waters, a constant elephant in the room a couple of years ago. Expectations are different because, well, there are actually expectations this go around.

Even the language in the flight manual is clear. These days it’s about one thing: Getting to the Super Bowl.

If in doubt about the culture change in Dallas, one doesn’t have to look any further than rookie LSU tackle La’el Collins’ press conference.

It took one dinner conversation to upload head coach Jason Garrett‘s way of thinking into the 21-year-old, like when Neo learns martial arts in the Matrix movie. Collins channeled Garrett’s message. He chewed it. Swallowed it. He pushed it back out like a student who memorized the first 40 presidents without an encyclopedia.

Collins bought into the new Cowboys, their new way of thinking, the direction the team was heading.

At the end of the day it was simple for Collins: There was the Cowboys and the rest of them. He made his choice. The six-foot-five signed for three years on a $1.65 million dollar contract with a $21,000 signing bonus.

Collins arrival in Dallas easily draws comparison to the offensive line the Cowboys had in the 90’s. The Cowboys were already rich at the position. Now the rich is richer, and some.

So rich you’d think other envious teams are calling lawyers about the suppose loophole Dallas found. So rich that if a member of the offensive line decided to use a sick day on Sunday, the Cowboys got some depth and will be okay.

Dallas doesn’t have an Emmitt Smith type running back behind this line, but how many teams right now can say they have four quality first-round lineman blocking for them?

The owner and general manager deserves applause here. Jerry Jones made a power move. While other general managers had to move red tape to get this deal moving on wheels, Jones made the package okay and then swam to this opportunity like a shark on an empty stomach.

Deal. Done.

Jones showed us there are benefits to being both the owner and general manager.

This great band recruitment isn’t something normal, or something that happens everyday. Some call it a lucky lottery. Whatever hashtag you come with, there’s no denying that Dallas is filling their positions — both players and staff — with quality.

The same type of quality that earned Dallas three rings in four years back in the 1990’s.

Yeah, America’s Team is back. Hashtag that.

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