What Was It Like?

[Sarge]

Originally Posted by Diogenes

And I'll just add that the Cowboys went to the playoffs in 18 out of those 20 years. Can you imagine what that would be like today? It was as if there were 3 things you could be sure of...death, taxes, and the Cowboys making the playoffs.

Good times indeed.

Making the playoffs back in the day was a non-issue - we were always there. It was just a matter of how far we were gonna go.

It's been too long.

[Venger]

Originally Posted by Hostile

Better than sex.

Mmmmmm... no. I am tempted to just leave it at:

Sex - you're doing it wrong.

But I think a clearer demonstration of this fallacy (phallacy? Too much humor in one post?) is to posit this simple question:

Would you rather go through life never having sex again, or never seeing the Cowboys win a championship again?

As much as I want to see the latter, I absolutely can not contemplate the former. I'd rather the team be dissolved and the stadium raised to the ground than swear off the strange. This argues sex is clearly better than a Super Bowl.

However - to a counterpoint, would I exchange one sexual encounter for a Cowboys Super Bowl? Absolutely. And I wouldn't exchange a Cowboys Super Bowl for nookie with anyone - to the heartbreak of Sophia Vergara and Kate Beckinsale, not to mention my lovely wife. This argues that winning a Super Bowl is preferable to sex.

I reckon it comes to opportunity cost - there is one Super Bowl a year, and I cannot win it, life is one giant lovemeat buffet, 24/7.

In the end, sex is better than a Super Bowl - but because sex is far more available (well, probably not on this board...) we'll exchange an instance of something common for an instance of something (far too increasingly) rare.

[Lazyking]

I don't think Hostile was being serious lol.

[Mr Cowboy]

Originally Posted by Diogenes

And I'll just add that the Cowboys went to the playoffs in 18 out of those 20 years. Can you imagine what that would be like today? It was as if there were 3 things you could be sure of...death, taxes, and the Cowboys making the playoffs.

Good times indeed.

This right here, this is why many of us are so negative when we post on here. We got spoiled in the sense that winning football and going to the playoffs were a given in those times. In today's time fans who didn't experience that era are happy with moral victories, with a .500 record, with not having the worst OL in the NFL. Game day mornings we woke up not only expecting to win, but by how much. We knew we were never out of a game, ever! A loss was a shocker!

I remember watching Cowboys football as a youngster with may dad, and watching his disappointment year after year, not because the Cowboys had a bad game, a bad year, but because they couldn't close it out and win the championship game.

Then came the 71 Super Bowl where Baltimore beat us with a last second field goal. That's when I became a fan, when I realized that for the rest of my life I was a Cowboys fan. The next year, the SB victory was so satisfying, especially watching dad going crazy celebrating. "WE FINALLY DID IT, WE DID IT, WE'RE CHAMPIONS!"

For the rest of the seventies the Cowboys were right there, then the SB against Denver, I was in high school and all my friends were big fans. It was great to win it all. The losses to Pitt in the SB were big time bummers, though.

A strange thing happened in the mid 80's, something that Cowboy fans were not used to, bad Cowboy teams. It was frustrating watching your heroes get old and not be very good, trying to hang on. Then rock bottom in 89.

A new owner, new coach and a new QB brought new hope, and sure enough, the elation soon returned. It was short lived, although those SB victories were sweet.

Again our stars got old, and tried to hang on. Jerry decided he was not sharing the glory with anyone, and guess what? There hasn't been any glory since then. Today's fans are happy with making a push for the playoffs, having a winning record, not losing too badly, and not having the worst OL in football! We have no idea what team will show up from game to game.

I doubt that we will see a championship run anytime soon. I will forever be a fan, and keep the faith.

[Carl23]

Originally Posted by Chocolate Lab

Exactly. Those people are just making excuses.

Anyway, back to what it was like as a fan... It may be different for those who live elsewhere, but in north Texas everyone is a Cowboys fan, so there was no boasting or craptalking to other fans or any of that.

As has been said many times, the first Jimmy Superbowl came a year before everyone really expected us to contend. People knew we had a lot of young talent and a top QB, but people thought we'd need another year or two of experience. So it was sort of a surprise. But the first SB wasn't that stressful as we got off to the big lead and Kelly got hurt and it was a blowout.

[View Full Quote]And it may sound crazy now, but after 92 we were so good, a lot of Sundays were just boring. Imagine your Lakers playing, say, the Nets -- you know you're going to win, it's just a matter of by how much. Well, that's how a lot of our games were then. I told you it would sound crazy given the way things are today. But that team was so good and so well coached, with such a simple and methodical game plan, that's the way it was. Before FA there wasn't the parity and quick team turnarounds we see today so the good teams stayed good and the bad teams stayed bad.

So, like TwoDeep suggested, for me it's more fun when you're building towards being great. Once you already are, there's almost nowhere to go but down. I think the best part of being a fan is when you've bottomed out and are building with young talent. That's what made 91 and 92 so great, watching all these good young players and especially QB come together and start to get some revenge over teams like the Eagles that had beaten us down in the past.

So for me, the best parts of those years for me weren't even the Superbowls, but the lead up to it. Once we were really good, the rivalry with the Niners is what I liked best. They were a great team, too, and you knew you were going to meet up with them and it was going to be an epic game. (Although the NFCE games were always good, too.)

And FWIW, I was about your age at the end of the Landry years when the team hadn't been really good for a while. So you have plenty of time to see your three SBs.

You have summarized my feelings exactly. Beating the Eagles, at the time, was a wonderful feeling after so many years of getting destroyed.

[fifaguy]

it was damned sweet. think about a HC telling his team that he wanted them to beat their SB opponent by 5 TD's, and then they did it.

[Sarge]

Originally Posted by Venger

Mmmmmm... no. I am tempted to just leave it at:

Sex - you're doing it wrong..

[visionary]

Originally Posted by Dodger12

It's sad, really. People talk about "year 2" of some mystical rebuilding plan. That's a load of crap. The hardest piece of that puzzle is a franchise QB and we have one. Every time someone talks about another year to rebuild I think of another lost year wasted with a franchise QB. Very frustrating.......

could not agree with you more
we have a great QB and the most dominant pas rusher in the game but we keep "rebuildiung" year after year

someone else said, we are spoiled by the 90s

i have to laugh at that

wanting more than 1 playoff win in 16 years is being spoilt?

[Dodger12]

Originally Posted by visionary

could not agree with you more
we have a great QB and the most dominant pas rusher in the game but we keep "rebuildiung" year after year

someone else said, we are spoiled by the 90s

i have to laugh at that

wanting more than 1 playoff win in 16 years is being spoilt?

I was absolutely certain after Jones brought in Wade and made his "walking on eggshells" comment that we were going right back to the process that brought us 5 and 11. Despite what people say, the primary reason for 5 and 11 was mismanagement and poor drafting. Well guess what, we're mismanaged and draft poorly. We have no vision of how to build a team and we have no identity.

This year will be very telling for this franchise and it's direction. And if people think we're bad now, just wait until we no longer have Romo behind center. He's getting older and it's questionable if he's not past his prime.

Even if we draft a QB with a high first round pick, he'll take years to develop and we'll have to endure the growing pains that come with it and the uncertainty if he's the right one and pans out. Screw Jerry.

[CliffnMesquite]

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

[Hostile]

Originally Posted by Lazyking

I don't think Hostile was being serious lol.

Of course not. That is obvious with the follow up joke to the youngster.

It was a line from an episode of M*A*S*H where Hawkeye talked about BBQ ribs, but the LCD can't help itself.

[landroverking]

My mother was a pro football fan(Rams) until 1960. My uncle a big Houston fan, they trained in his town. I remember watching the Oilers on black & white TV win the AFL around '62. By '63 mom & I were watching every Cowboy game together. Crushed in '65 when we lost the playoff bowl to the Colts
35-7. The next two years losing to the Packers was pure hell.
Next up the Brown losts. SB 5 was hard to take.
After that the 70s first half of the 80s and then the 90s made the losing years very sweet.

Now the Boys just need to get a run going before it's too late for Witten, Ware, and Romo.

[Clove]

1st Super Bowl in the nineties, I was 21, going on 22. The journey, AMAZING!. The pepRally at Texas Stadium, most memorable sports time of my life. Jimmy saying, we're going to win, put that in 6 inch letters and print it. Priceless.

Watching them take down the best team in football in their house, the 49ers, was like an outter body experience. And the Super Bowl victory was pure heaven.

For 16 years, I've been in pure hell.

[Hostile]

Originally Posted by Clove

For 16 years, I've been in pure hell.

You can't cheer me up any more than I already am. The Eagles and Skins lost.

[Zordon]

80s and 90s were a magical time to live in Dallas. the city was booming, Dallas was the biggest show on tv, SMU was good, and the Cowboys owned the world. You were proud to tell people you were from Dallas, Texas.