Have the Dallas Cowboys steadied their roller coaster season?

The 2018 Dallas Cowboys season has resembled a ride on a roller coaster. Jump on board and let’s check how the ride has progressed.

As a child, I loved roller coasters. After enjoying the ups and downs, turns and twists and whatever g-forces a roller coaster could offer, I would run from the end of the ride to get back in line to do it all over again.

As an adult, I can’t stand roller coasters. The ups and downs now make my stomach turn. That’s the same feeling I have when thinking about how the Dallas Cowboys have played with my emotions this season.

The ride started back on New Years Day, the day after the 2017 season ended. The roller coaster began to move forward as the team and more importantly running back Ezekiel Elliott were freed from the six-game suspension that loomed over the team for 14 weeks last season.

For the first time since what seems like 1993, the Cowboys were not in a salary cap hole. Wide receiver Dez Bryant was cut because his contract exceeded his production but it was not made of necessity. Dallas even had money to spend and did so locking up offensive guard Zack Martin.

By now, the roller coaster was firmly on the ascent slowly rising towards the apex along with hopes of returning to the successful formula from 2016. Optimism may have been at his height as the first-team offense scored three times in their four series and the first team defense yielded zero points allowed in the first two preseason games.

Then the news broke that center Travis Frederick was diagnosed with Guillain-Barre syndrome and thus began the downward descent as the Cowboys offense was non-existent for the rest of the preseason and the first game against the Carolina Panthers.

For the next six weeks, the team was up one contest and then down the next arriving at their Week 8 bye with a 3-4 record. The roller coaster steadied as the Cowboys regrouped by trading for wide receiver Amari Cooper and promoting offensive line coach Marc Colombo during the bye.

But there was one more sudden turn as the Cowboys left too many points off the scoreboard in the first quarter in their game against the Tennessee Titans and were not able to recover dropping their fifth game at the halfway point of the ride. At this point, most pundits and fans assumed that the roller coaster was off the track and the season was lost.

Then a strange thing happened and a team with their backs against the wall played with the required desperation to win a road game no one thought they could win. Building momentum, they came back the next week for their first winning streak of the season and level their record at five wins and losses.

Now, after a third straight win in twelve days, the Cowboys have climbed from third in the division to a tie for first. Can this team handle the expectations and finish their fight to claim the division? Or will this roller coaster ride of a season prove the naysayers correct? Either way, the last five games of the season will capture Cowboys nation’s attention. We’re on to New Orleans.