Cowboys Pregame Three Thoughts: Wk 14
The Bengals come to town as Dallas starts final stretch of games to decide futures.
Monday Night Football was certainly delighted to be able to get an early December “Clash of the Titans” affair on their schedule last spring when they snapped up the opportunity to get Joe Burrow and the Cincinnati Bengals taking on Dak Prescott and the Dallas Cowboys.
Things have a way of changing by the end of a season and tonight will definitely provide a football game for us to witness, but if we seek “titans of the sport to do battle for high stakes”, well that will require us to look elsewhere.
There is no joy in Cincinnati or Dallas this year as the combined records of 9-15 will attest. Things have gone wrong. Very wrong. We will resist drawing too many conclusions about how both of these teams have experienced such poor years after they both had some success for a while, but you can’t help but notice.
Dallas had gone 12-5, 12-5, and 12-5 before arriving where they are today – a spot that seems to be destined to finish under .500 as their final three opponents all have something to play for and the Cowboys will not.
Meanwhile, the Bengals are “wasting Joe Burrow’s prime” which amazingly tomorrow morning, he will have his 28th birthday. Time flies while you are having fun, I guess, because we see him as being just a baby, but remember, he was an old prospect and is wrapping up his 5th season in the NFL this month.
They went to the Super Bowl – and probably should have won it – in his 2nd season and then the AFC Championship Game in his 3rd season. But, they missed the playoffs last year and will miss them again this year and now we find out if they can put a team around a QB who is making a ton of money.
Sound familiar?
I cannot resist telling you what else they have in common:
They are the only two teams who have a GM who cannot get fired.
Jerry Jones installed himself in 1989. Mike Brown, son of Paul Brown, installed himself in 1991. Jones is now 82 years old and Brown is 89. Jones has Will McClay and Brown has Duke Tobin, so they definitely have the ability to gain assistance when required, but only two organizations have the inability to fire the GM when things go bad – like 2024 has.
These two.
Anytime you can see the “longest-tenured GM’s list”, you see that those two chaps have reigned supreme at a rate that seems like they must be the best two team-builders ever. In reality, they are just the two that cannot be fired.
What does this team us? It teaches us to try to born into a rich family, if at all possible. I am told that helps one design the world to their specific terms and these two men will tell you that it has pleased them greatly to answer to nobody.
I believe their customers might have a different impression, but I digress.
Let’s get to this game where Dallas plays for the first time since Thanksgiving, so they are clearly the more rested team