Something special is happening with the 2021 Dallas Cowboys.
The players feel it.
Their success-starved fans can sense it.
And it’s not just about their NFC East leading 3-1 record or their first month of overall sound play.
The team has a different look and feel to it.
Certainly, it has a different look from last year’s 6-10 disappointment, but also from other recent Cowboys squads, even those who had strong starts.
From the coaching staff to the complementary play on offense and defense as well as the plethora of emerging playmakers, the Cowboys appear to have the making of something special.
“You have to put it in perspective, we just finished the first quarter of the season,” receiver Amari Cooper said. “We won the first quarter. We won three out of four. Everyone on this team is genuinely getting really close to each other. It’s a great culture. We’re building a great culture. I can’t even really explain it. But it feels like something special is going to happen.”
The question is how special? ... Dare we say Super?
Reality check time: This is a franchise that hasn’t sniffed the Super Bowl in 26 seasons, dating all the way back to 1995. And for the first time, the NFL regular season is 17 games, and playoff fields have been expanded. A lot can happen over the next few months.
The first step was getting off to a good start because winning in September is “difficult and crap shoot”, according to McCarthy because of the newness and uncertainty your team and your opposition.
“So finding a way to win those games and to continue to grow as a team is critical because that’s really the foundation for your season,” McCarthy said. “You just look at the historical statistics of if you go 1-5 or 1-4, it’s very difficult to climb out of those holes. It will be interesting what the extra game gives to this season. I think it’s going to make for a really exciting first two weeks in January.
“We’re building a foundation for the success we want to have this year, and we’re off to a pretty good start with a 3-1 record.”
What it is known is that 3-1 starts have been indicators of good things for the Cowboys in the past. They have 23 such starts in franchise history, and have made the playoffs in all but seven of those instances.
The 16 postseason trips have included three berths in the Super Bowl, culminating with being crowned world champions following the 1971 and 1992 seasons. Prior to the Super Bowl Era, they also made the NFL Championship Game in 1967, losing to the Green Bay Packers in the famed Ice Bowl.
They have also reached the NFC Championship Game eight times.
The last three seasons they started 3-1 were in 2014, 2016 and 2019 when they finished 12-4, 13-3 and 8-8, respectively.
Both the 2014 and 2016 seasons ended with losses to the Green Bay Packers in the NFC Divisional round, coincidentally to current Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy.
In 2019, they actually squandered a 3-0 start in what was Jason Garrett’s last season as coach. Many of the key players on the current team were around in 2016. Some were here in 2019.
Some were a part of both, including quarterback Dak Prescott, running back Ezekiel Elliott, guard Zack Martin, tackle La’el Collins, tackle Tyron Smith and defensive end DeMarcus Lawrence.
All will tell you that this team has a different feel to it because of the depth and contributions on both sides of the ball.
“We’ve been saying this since the beginning. We’re deep at every position,” Elliott said. “We even have some guys injured right now, so just the ability for us to go out there and everyone play well, no one has to take too much of a load. No one has to put too much on themselves.”
Cooper says being deep and players stepping up when one guy does go down are the hallmarks of a championship team in his experience
“If I breakdown whenever I won a championship, whatever sport I was playing, the common theme was depth,” Cooper said. “Any given game day, anybody could make a play. One guy goes down, the next guy makes a play. I feel that here. You’ve seen it offensively, defensively. Everybody is making plays and that’s a good thing.”
Prescott, who was a rookie starter in 2016 along with Elliott, says Cooper is right when he talked the Cowboys building a winning culture.
That has been goal and the focus from McCarthy to all the team leaders.
They have believed they had the makings of something special dating back when they starting training camp in Oxnard, Calif.
But while starting 3-1 is nice, they want to be playing great football late in the season and end their season at the Super Bowl in Southern California.
“We want to be the best. We want to win,” Prescott said. “And we want to win late in the year. And we want to go play in the last game out in California. So we got to continue to build on this culture week in and week out no matter what situation we’re in in the game. We’ve got to lock arms and just trust our brotherhood and everything, and all the commitment we’ve had up to this point and continue to grow and continue to get better.”
