This was supposedly a Super Bowl-or-bust season for the Dallas Cowboys. Remember how Michael Irvin was telling Dallas fans to book their Super Bowl tickets just six games into the season?
Irvin was so confident that his former squad was Super Bowl-ready that Dak being in a walking boot didn’t deter his proclamation one bit. His optimism reflected the media at large, who were all drinking the Cowboys Kool-Aid.
ESPN analyst Bart Scott blames the media hype and the sense of entitlement and lack of accountability and toughness that permeates the Cowboys organization from its owner down to the delusional fans.
“Attitude reflects leadership. And what the attitude and leadership (in Dallas) is portraying are excuses,” Scott said on Thursday morning’s episode of “Get Up.”
“They’re pointing the finger. You hear it coming from McCarthy. You hear it coming from Dak Prescott. Until they change that mentality in that building and start earning that star and the respect that’s supposed to come with that star, they’re never going to get over the hump”
Scott didn’t stop there.
“We always knew that the Dallas Cowboys were a soft team. Because they walk around with a bravado like they accomplished something and they’re not the great 90s teams of Leon Lett, Deion Sanders, Troy Aikman, but they walk around with that persona. They’re going to always be a team that gets beat up by a team that has a tougher mentality. They always look to point the finger and never the thumb. They never take accountability and say it’s on us. We have to be better. It’s too cushy around there.”
As we’ve grown accustomed to seeing, the Cowboys fell short of expectations. The $160 million quarterback couldn’t make the crucial throws when it counted and the vaunted Cowboys defense — which Dan Quinn helped elevate from 28th to seventh in scoring defense — got pushed around by a tougher, more physical, more desperate San Francisco 49ers team.
Following Dallas’ embarrassing wild card game exit, the franchise has been turmoil-ridden, with no one willing to take accountability for the team’s failures. First Dak Prescott blamed the referees.
Head coach Mike McCarthy refuses to take any blame for another in a long line of clock management gaffes. And Jerry Jones is always trying to convince everyone that he has the situation under control. For a team that is the center of major network NFL talk daily and was supposed to be such a strong Super Bowl contender, Dallas fell miserably short.
Bart Scott’s total evisceration of the Cowboys, a team he faced in battle as a star linebacker with the New York Jets and Baltimore Ravens, reflects what a lot of people outside of Texas were thinking.
It was just delivered like a 100 mph fastball with hot sauce and no filter. Jerry Jones has invested a lot of money in building a team capable of winning the Super Bowl. Projections is one thing and actually playing the game is another.
What Scott is saying is pretty simple. The Cowboys need to stop riding on their reputation from the early ’90s and develop a culture of resilience and grit, because they play in Texas, not Hollywood. Scott insists that entire franchise is living the life of an emperor with no clothes on and definitely needs a reality check.
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