Dallas Cowboys fans may have an issue with perspective. It’s not entirely their fault, either. Up until the New England Patriots’ run with Bill Belichick and Tom Brady, the Cowboys were the face of organizational excellence. They’ve won five Super Bowls and eight NFC championships, setting the standard for performance. Teams weren’t judged by their regular season wins, only in terms of whether or not they looked ready to compete for the big prize.
Still, to this day, that is the standard they live by. So when Dallas started this season 6-1 with an MVP candidate at quarterback, defensive player of the year candidate at cornerback and a rookie of the year candidate at linebacker there was no question where Cowboys’ fans and the media’s projections were headed. That the team had a midseason stumble wouldn’t be too bad if it were the usual suspect of the defense returning to earth.
But it’s been the offense that has been broken for the better part of two months now, and that is causing a ton of panic for those who started dreaming of No. 1 seeds and winning the whole thing.
Only, those dreams aren’t that far off and people seem to have lost perspective over all that Dallas has accomplished this season, even with the recent downturn in offensive performance.
Something is clearly off with quarterback Dak Prescott. He’s no longer the model of consistency, still having flashes of excellent play with jaw-dropping passes but also having both wayward passes and lacks of both awareness and aggression in both passing and running the ball. Injuries and COVID outbreaks have impacted the Cowboys more than the average NFL club and sometimes putting things back together isn’t as easy as getting everyone back.
Sometimes, the fortunate need to be reminded of all that is working in their favor, so before getting to the NFC playoff picture going into Week 15, here’s some perspective on what the 2021 Dallas Cowboys currently are.