The following was sent to a family group chat of Cowboy fans in the early morning hours following the inexplicable collapse of the Cowboys against the Packers in the 2024 Wildcard Round. It addresses the irrationality and consequences of the Cowboy fan experience.
On a Fall Sunday afternoon in the early 2000’s I sat on my dad’s lap and watched what must have been Vinny Testaverde drop into the pocket. With each step, he became more luminous in the spotlight that used to beam in through the open roof of old Texas stadium. A Cowboys linebacker from the 70’s used to say the hole in the roof was there so God could watch his favorite team play football. Jerry Jones closed that hole and put the world’s two-largest flatscreens in the way. That’s neither here nor there.
I couldn’t give you a final score, a winner, really any details about that game, but I always look back on that play as the moment I was hooked. The color contrast on the almost animated astroturf, the eleven navy blue John Wayne’s pushing their territory ever westward against the hapless Redskins. Even in my toddler brain, they were America.
As the years passed, a handful of playoff losses that would have devastated me snuck by with nothing other than my dad’s mood to clue me in, but in 2009, I was all in.
I sat in the corner of the family living room watching a Saturday night matchup which was miraculously streamed on the NFL’s website. The parents were gone for an event at Church. My siblings were home, but entirely awol on football. The 8-5 Cowboys were headed to the Superdome to play the undefeated New Orleans Saints.
On a gritty 720p desktop screen, I watched Romo drop back and unveil an absolute dime to Miles Austin for a fifty yard touchdown on the first drive of the game. For three hours, a ten-year-old with the attention span of a two-year-old was glued to his chair. I watched every play. I refreshed the box score. An unmanned Xbox waited for me down the hall and I didn’t care. It held every ounce of my attention.
In the waning minutes, the Saints were in Cowboys territory with a chance to tie it up when Demarcus Ware leveled the tackle en route to a game-ending strip sack. I ran around the living room screaming at no one. I called my dad from our landline to no answer, but it didn’t matter. My team had done the impossible.
A few weeks later, the camera followed a dancing, air guitar-playing Donovan McNabb and the Eagles out of the tunnel and onto the field in Jerryworld for its first ever playoff game. Dallas never trailed in a 34-14 romp. That game was the last time that the playoffs have brought me pure joy. I felt like Adam in the garden with no concept of sin and death.
The following week, Brett Favre and the Vikings shoved the knowledge of good and evil into a place the Texas sun should never shine. Every day I’ve spent as a fan of the Cowboys since has been tainted. Even victory leaves a slight aftertaste.
Today, I could list each and every thing this organization has done to me. I could wax on the Dez Bryant catch. I could call our owner and general manager a terminally egotistical has-been. I could complain about our statistically impossible inability to advance more than one (if we’re lucky) game into the playoffs. It won’t change anything. I’m just sad. I’m sad, and I know I will be next year. As sure as the sun will rise over Dallas tomorrow, I will lie awake in the middle of the night trying to console myself again this time next year (if we even make the playoffs).
I am not a fan of this team of my own accord. I don’t have enough will or dedication to do this on purpose; very few people do, and honestly nobody should. I could try to quit loving this team and find joy as a free agent, just loving the sport of football. But I know as soon as I see the next snap of Dallas Cowboys football, the next quarterback glide into the pocket, plant his feet, and unfurl a pass high and out of frame, I’ll be back like none of this ever happened.
Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains.
Go Cowboys.
