Some people are fans of the Dallas Cowboys. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Dallas Cowboys. This 2024 Defector NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the previews so far here.
Your team: Ach, ze sadboys.
Your 2023 record: 12-5. NFC East champs. Highest scoring team in the entire league. Fifth-best scoring defense in the league. Nine All-Pro selections. Let’s see what all of that got you.
Lather, rinse, repeat. As ever, Dallas put together a dominant regular season, only to reach the playoffs and immediately forget how to play football. There were a few warning signs on the way to that beatdown. An inexplicable, wire-to-wire thrashing at the hands of Josh Dobbs and a previously winless Cardinals team. San Francisco handing them their most lopsided loss in a decade. Coming up five yards short in a loss to the hated Eagles. Losing by three TDs in Buffalo while giving up 179 on the ground to Other Dalvin Cook. And a last-second loss to the Dolphins.
But if you’re the kind of pundit who likes talking up the Cowboys as a Super Bowl contender every November—I know who you are; I keep a list of names—you gleefully ignored all of that. You pointed at their extensive list of blowout wins against unspeakably shitty teams, and a cheap win against the Lions aided by the usual bit of rulebook fuckery at the gun, and you told the world, “This time, it might be different.” It’s never different. I could fall into a cryogenic sleep for 30 years, wake up, and these Cowboys would EXACTLY the same: same QB, same coach, same disinterested fans, same broken wind-up toy of an owner. I guess I should be grateful that some things will remain the same in this ever-changing, crazy wack funky world we live in. But the Cowboys’ enduring sameness is roughly as heartening as the persistence of systemic racism.
Let’s go back to that playoff loss in January. The Cowboys were the No. 2 seed in the NFC. The Packers were a 7-seed that didn’t expect to make the playoffs in Jordan Love’s first year at the wheel. No one would have dinged Green Bay for losing a playoff game, on the road, to an opponent favored to beat them by a touchdown. Truly, these Packers were just happy to be there. Turns out they were also happy to run up a 27-0 lead and beat the unholy shit out of the Cowboys for good measure. Dallas’s QB completed one pass the entire first quarter of that game. He threw two picks, a pick-six included, before throwing his first TD pass. He couldn’t get the ball to his best wideout until the game was all but over. The entire Metroplex fell into a dead silence that, as far as I’m aware, is still ongoing. Jerseys were performatively burned. Stephen A. did his played-out black-hat shtick to zero laughs. And everyone wanted the coach fired. That coach?
Your coach: Yup, still CBS sitcom dad Mike McCarthy, who’s coaching on the last year of his contract. Contract years will be a running theme for the rest of this preview, but let’s focus on Beav for the moment. Here’s what our man had to say in the face of yet another playoff chokejob:
“We have established a championship program. It’s just not a world championship yet,” McCarthy told a packed news conference Thursday. “We know how to win. We know how to train to win. We have the right people.”
I don’t think you do. If you did, you’d already have your “world championship” program, instead of the intercontinental championship program that your owner seems content to keep in place for the next 78 years. However, I must note that former defensive coordinator Dan Quinn left for the head coaching job in DC, allowing McCarthy to bring in this teddy bear as the replacement:
That’s former Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer, whom the Cowboys nearly traded for five years ago, and who will gleefully take McCarthy’s job for the final two weeks of this season. Zimmer left Minnesota under perhaps the most acrimonious circumstances possible, with one of his former players accusing him of creating a “fear-based culture” within the entire Vikings organization. Did the Cowboys sign that very same player this offseason? Hey man, Jerry Jones has a TV show to produce. He needs storylines, not wins!
Your quarterback: Dak Prescott, who will be a first-ballot inductee into the Hall Of Probably Not Worth It the second he hangs up his work khakis. Dak will be a free agent after this season, possibly with a disgraced Navy SEAL acting as his agent. The Cowboys could have extended Dak at any point over the last year and change. Instead, they sat there with their thumbs up their asses while Trevor Lawrence, Jordan Love, and Tua Tagovailoa all got deals that pushed the QB market into the ionosphere. Now they’ll have to exhaust 80 percent of their cap allotment on a guy who can’t win dick? Welcome to the last six years of my life, Dallas. They were super fun.
Behind Dak are respectable QB2 Cooper Rush and thoroughly unrespectable QB3 Trey Lance. So the Cowboys can pay a truckload to keep losing playoff games with Dak, or they can cut him loose after this season and pray that they luck into a third straight choking legend at that position. Jerry already has a custom-made Arch Manning Cowboys jersey that he wears around his yacht, sans pants, every morning.
What’s new that sucks: Nothing! No team spent less on free agents this offseason than the Cowboys. In fact, virtually no other team has spent less in free agency over the past three years than this organization. They won’t even pay their own upcoming free agents. Not only is Dak in a contract year, but so are WR CeeDee Lamb (currently holding out), G Zach Martin, and DT DeMarcus Lawrence. God-level pass rusher Micah Parsons’s contract is up after next season to boot. Literally any other team would have locked these players up by now, but Dallas didn’t. Why? Well, Ty Dunne looked deep into that question two months ago and, as usual, came back with the goods:
“They hate dead money,” one former Cowboys exec says, “and paying people not to work… What they don’t want is to extend out Dak and then have to move on from him, and then there’s going to be a bunch of dead money there that they’re paying.”
Dunne reports that Stephen Jones, son of Jerry, is the one responsible for this needless frugality. Whenever Jerry wants to do something cool, his kid is like BUT WAIT THAT’LL CUT INTO MY INHERITANCE! The Dallas Cowboys are the most valuable team in the NFL. They have a long history of making splashy free-agent moves, drafting Hall of Fame–caliber players, and importing brand-name coaches to run things. Glitz, glamour, all that bullshit. And yet, Dunne exposes an organization that’s cheap as shit. It’s like if Mike Brown used all of Cincinnati’s personnel budget to buy pinwheels at the Dollar General.
Dead money is a fact of life in pro football. If you give a player a big contract, there’s always a good chance that you’ll have to eat part of that contract. That’s just how shit works. But apparently the Jones family believes that every dollar they spend has to produce some sort of tangible return, which is literally not possible in the modern NFL. That’s why teams hire capologists and data-savvy GMs who can fuck with the books to mitigate all of that dead money. The Cowboys could do this as well. Right now. They have people in the building who could execute such tasks. More important, who gives a fuck about paying out dead money? You assholes are worth billions. What, were you setting that money aside for a Windjammer barefoot cruise one day? Fuck’s wrong with you?
So here we have a roster that’s both loaded and yet also on the precipice of collapse. All of the keys parts remain in place. And oh hey, the Cowboys brought Ezekiel Elliott back to head up their running attack, even though present-day Zeke is about an effective runner as Cardinals-era Emmitt Smith.
Meanwhile, depth is a genuine concern, thanks to the losses of WR Michael Gallup, LT Tyron Smith, CB Stephon Gilmore, RB Tony Pollard, EDGEs Dorance Armstrong and Dante Fowler, DT Neville Gallimore, C Tyler Biadasz, LB Leighton Vander Esch, and S Jayron Kearse. The only decent wideout past Lamb is Brandin Cooks, who sucks. The LB corps is counting on a thoroughly washed Eric Kendricks to be a capable starter. And the formerly vaunted O-line will try to replace Smith and Biadasz with a pair of rookies in T Tyler Guyton and C Cooper Beebe. Any of this strike you as shit that’ll put Dallas over the top at last? I have more faith in RFK Jr. winning.
What has always sucked: The stadium won’t stop trying to blind everyone through its giant mezzanine windshield. Their corners are constantly going between scoring touchdowns and allowing them. The only reason to watch the Cowboys in any given season is to see if anyone gets fired. And they still get a dozen primetime spots every year despite being as relevant to the league’s power structure as the fucking Bucs. This is a team designed to waste everyone’s time, in a state designed to crush every resident’s spirit. I’m done here. Fuck these clowns, and fuck Texas.
What might not suck: Zimmer is a lousy guy, but he can coordinate the shit out of a defense. Sacks will abound.
HEAR IT FROM COWBOYS FANS!
Danny:
I am so tired of this team.
Rob:
God damnit Drew, they did it again!
Jim:
Jerry Jones has more illegitimate children than NFC Championship appearances in the last 30 years. My only goal in life now is to outlive him.
Phillip:
Jerry proclaiming to the world that the Cowboys were going "all in" this off-season was just like me talking game before the first time I had sex. In both instances, the expected outcomes were wildly exaggerated, and no one involved would call it a satisfying time.
Andrew:
I’m so glad Aaron Rodgers fucked off to the Jets so we could get pantsed by a different Packers QB in the playoffs. My fiancé doesn’t understand why I do this to myself and frankly, I don’t either.
Mark:
Jerry Jones got liquored up and fired the best coach in team history. He single handedly destroyed a dynasty because he wasn’t getting enough pats on the back. I’ve submitted this fact multiple times and it never changes. I hate everything.
Clint:
There are two categories of Cowboys fan: 1) those who hate themselves for following this team year in and year out, 2) the biggest assholes in the universe.
Christian:
I’ve had to deal with a decade of Jason Garrett, and now almost a decade of discount Russell Wilson. I legitimately miss Tony Romo.
Chris:
Jerry Jones still doesn’t know how a salary cap works.
Richard:
We have three of our best players in decades needing extensions and we haven’t signed any of them. We flamed out in the playoffs again, did nothing to get better, and are clearly contemplating blowing it all up to go find a cheap (white?) QB that the fans can all bitch about until 2038.
At least Zeke is back so that we don’t need a backup center.
Michael:
Last year I convinced myself that no matter what, I was not going to get my hopes up. I knew that we weren't going to do shit in the playoffs. Even after attending the Lions game, I kept my word and said nope, not doing it. Let me tell you, it was the most enjoyable NFL season I've ever had. Just effing keel over, Jerry.
Elliot:
You know what made that embarrassment of a playoff loss sting a little less? A couple weeks before that, my now-ex-wife let me know our marriage was over. My world felt like it was falling apart, so when our defense fell into a coma and Dak began vomiting all over himself, all I could do was shake my head and sigh. Not even the Cowboys could truly hurt me.
One of the only good things about my divorce is now my ex won’t be around to silently (and rightfully) judge me for watching this ridiculous team every week. I will be alone with myself and my shame. That’s probably how it should be.
Ward:
There is a lovely video of my daughter learning to roll over for the first time. My wife oohs and ahhs as this tiny bundle of joy revels in her newly learned skill. This idyllic scene is suddenly up-ended with the sharp verbal assault of “WTF Campo????”, followed by a stream of curse words that would make a sailor blush as I lose my mind over Campo’s latest draw call on 3rd and long. My wife always looks at me when this video comes up and says, “You must be so proud.”
I feel like that’s the same thing everyone else thinks when they hear I’m that a Cowboys fan, and I can’t really argue with that assessment.
Dave:
Wild Card Weekend was interrupted by a massive ice storm here in Portland, Oregon. Power went out at 8am, and my wife and I spent the next 24 hours without heat, hot water, or playoff football. 50mph winds knocked down huge trees all over our neighborhood, every time we heard one crack, we worried that we might be goners. It was a stressful, frigid, and sleepless night.
When Sunday dawned and I saw the wreckage on our block, I knew that we would be out of power for many days. We scrambled to evacuate, turning the water off and emptying the fridge. WiFi was down, so I could not even Google a hotel telephone number. Luckily, I was able to call a friend who booked us a room downtown.
Between the icy roads and the fallen trees, we almost crashed the car several times on our drive to the hotel. By this time, I knew that the Cowboys-Packers game had kicked off. I’d never missed a second of a Cowboys playoff game in 47 years of masochistic fandom, but I chose not to turn the radio on because I couldn’t afford to be distracted.
The hotel lobby was a refugee scene, filled with families who hadn’t been fast enough to snag a room. We got in line to check in and I finally pulled out my phone. I saw that the score was 27-7 at the half, and assumed that ESPN had mistakenly swapped the teams. No way the Cowboys (who had been a 7-point favorite) were getting blown out at home by Jordan Love, right?
I texted my close friend Chan who, even knowing what I had been going through, assured me that I had been lucky to have missed the first half. That's when it struck me. My team sucks because I honestly was better off evacuating my house during a life-threatening natural disaster than watching them host a playoff game.
Tony (not Romo):
These morons are going to somehow lose Dak, CeeDee, and Parsons all at once, and the moron fans are going to lap it up because they’ll say those guys are selfish somehow. Fuck this stupid team, fuck this stupid owner, and fuck every moron Cowboys fan I've ever interacted with.
Tyler:
AT&T Stadium will have more upside down American flags in its parking lots this year than upright ones.
Brad:
The owner is such an attention whore that he’d rather reschedule press day at training camp than allow his head coach to speak about the team. Jerry couldn’t make the original press day because he was busy in a Texarkana courthouse trying to get out of a paternity suit after Jerry-mandering an airplane gate agent.
Patrick:
Dan Quinn sat courtside at a Georgetown basketball game in February, shortly after getting hired as the Commies' next HC. He left a little early in the second half via the players' tunnel. I was sitting over that tunnel. As Quinn walked through, I yelled out, "COACH! THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING! GO BOYS!" to which he gave me a head nod.
Had I had a few beers? Yes. Was I 100% sincere? Also yes. The highlight of my football *and* basketball seasons was thanking a coordinator who bailed on us for a divisional rival. I suck.
Luke:
Jerry Jones fucked up the Zeke deal SO bad that it’s now affecting the current deals with Lamb, Prescott, & Parsons.
Jack:
Our owner is a geriatric sex pest who would rather let this stupid fucking team languish for another 10-20 years of mediocrity instead of selling the damn team.
But "Oh! Jerry isn't that bad, look at how well they've drafted!" you might say. You'd be wrong. Jerry Jones drafted a running back fourth overall, and had to be physically restrained from drafting the likes of Paxton Lynch and Johnny Manziel. We lucked into Dak Prescott. CeeDee Lamb fell into our laps and is going to cost $40 million a year to keep around. And Micah Parsons is fucking invisible from November on.
Kyle Shanahan wipes his ass with our playbook, and Matt LeFleur seems well on his way to 10+ years of doing the same.
Dez caught the ball, though.
Carlos:
I had this coming. We all do. There's a howling spiritual void at the center of this country. The Dallas Cowboys are the team that I and America deserve.
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