Dallas City News

It’s a dark time for the Dallas Cowboys. After losing their fourth-straight game on Sunday, the team sits with a 3-6 record. The Cowboys have had rough seasons before, but this year feels different for many reasons. They haven’t been playing well, seem unprepared each week, and just lost Dak Prescott for the remainder of the season. Each week things only get worse.

The feeling this leaves in the stomach of Cowboys fans is hard to describe, and it’s not one we feel often, so it got us thinking – when was the last time we felt this low about this football team? There are few that jump out at us, but you’d have to go way back to feel this low this early in the season.

The 2020 season

Many will quickly point to the dreadful “COVID season” as the last time things were really bad for the Cowboys. And that’s fair. That was a really bad season. The team lost Dak Prescott in Week 5, the defense was miserable, and first-year coach Mike McCarthy had no answers as the locker room discourse was hot and heavy during those tough times. It was a mess.

And while we knew any aspirations for a Super Bowl were lost the moment we saw Prescott’s foot pointing in the wrong direction, the Cowboys playoff chances didn’t end until the season finale. Even after a terrible 3-9 start, the Cowboys remained on life support and went on a three-game winning streak in December.

The reason that was possible was because the entire NFC East was terrible. No team finished with a winning record and it came down to the last game of the season to determine which team would win the division. Coincidentally enough, the division went to Washington who had a new head coach that was a former defensive coordinator who had been fired from his last head coaching gig even though he took his NFC South team to a Super Bowl. Sound familiar?

The 2015 season

Just like in 2020, the season was tough to sit through due to an early season injury to their starting quarter. Only this time it was Tony Romo. The Cowboys had just come off one of the best seasons in four years as the 2014 squad looked sharp. Sadly, a Week 2 injury to Romo appeared to derail their season. After starting the season 2-0 with Romo, the Cowboys lost their next seven games as the quarterback potpourri of Brandon Weeden and Matt Cassel did not go well.

Similarly, the NFC East was a dumpster fire as no team ran away with the division. This created hope for the Cowboys that a Romo return would still give them a chance. And after that seven-game losing streak ended when Romo finally came back and helped them beat the Miami Dolphins, a glimmer of hope remained. Unfortunately, things went south fast as Romo was injured again four days later in their Thanksgiving game against the Carolina Panthers. The Cowboys season was officially dead.

The 2010 season

While the previous two seasons offered some reasons to be hopeful, that was not the case back in 2010. The Cowboys started by losing five of their first six games with a healthy Romo. But things went from bad to worse when Romo broke his collarbone and was lost for the year after just six games. The Cowboys continued to lose dropping to 1-7 and Wade Phillips was fired midseason after a pathetic 45-7 showing against the Green Bay Packers. It was evident he had lost control of the locker room as players were accused of giving up.

The rest of the season wasn’t as bad as the team finished 5-3 under interim head coach Jason Garrett and with Jon Kitna as quarterback. Another element of the 2010 season that wasn’t evident at the time is that the Cowboys were in a slow rebuild. They were an aging team with a lot of money on the books. Over the next few years, they remodeled their offensive line and went from old to new with a handful of All-Pro draft picks. Defensively, things were messy for a while as they slowly moved away from filling voids with high-priced free agents and relied on cheaper resources.

Regardless of which year the current season most feels like, the similarities to the 2010 and 2020 seasons are uncanny.

The Cowboys won’t be given any additional chances to sneak into the playoffs by a weak NFC East. Both Washington and Philadelphia have seven wins. Not only that, but there are several good teams in the NFC this year so getting in via a wild card doesn’t look likely either. For this reason, the Cowboys’ season looks to be kaput. And it’s been a long time since we could say that before Thanksgiving.

There is some good news though. The Cowboys should be able to lick their wounds and come back next season with some new hope. They have been hit hard this year with injuries, so better health is coming. They also have several young players in key roles who are only getting better.

The coaching situation is a bit murkier as it feels like, similarly to 2015, that McCarthy’s tenure is coming to an end. Change is coming, but change doesn’t guarantee better. The uncertainty of this transition is something we’ll stew over all offseason.

And then finally, there’s the front office. If you have your mind made up that they’re terrible, then there is little reason for optimism going forward. Jerry Jones isn’t going anywhere and neither is his cap-conscious son Stephen. Will McClay should still be involved in building the roster, so don’t expect this trio to suddenly change their stripes. They should be assembling the same great/terrible (you pick) roster as they have been.

Whether or not good things are in the future, it’s been a long time since fans can say they have felt this bleak about this football team.