Could Sunday’s Loss Actually Be a Good Thing for the Cowboys?

This past weekend, ESPN was running a series of shows titled “ESPN’s Greatest Games” and since the wife was out to a movie with her friends I took full advantage and tuned in to one of these. The program featured a particular game of interest from the past along with commentary from coaches and players as the game progressed. The particular game being reviewed in this episode was the 1996 playoff game between the Denver Broncos and Jacksonville Jaguars. Jacksonville, in only it’s 2nd year of existence at the time, barely made the playoffs and was playing the heavily favored Denver Broncos, in Denver. Jacksonville, behind a young and gritty Mark Brunell, pulled off the upset against a stunned Broncos team which pretty much thought they would be playing in the Super Bowl.

When interviewed about this game, most of the Broncos players said that they didn’t like to think about the game because of the memories it brought back. The Broncos (like the Cowboys this year) had a successful season and were one of the top teams in the league, not just the AFC. Most people had at least penciled Denver in the AFC Championship if not the Super Bowl altogether. However, it was not meant to be that year.

Interviews from some of the Denver players indicated that when they returned for training camp the following August, the attitude of the team was that anything less than a Super Bowl win would be unacceptable. That season, Denver made the playoffs as a wild card but would eventually go on to face the defending Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers in the Super Bowl. Denver was a pretty heavy underdog but the team had the resolve, it didn’t have the year before when playing Jacksonville, to gut out an improbable win against the Packers. Many of the Denver players said, as painful as it was to lose to Jacksonville, that loss helped galvanize the team and propel them to a world championship a year later.

Many people had Dallas penciled in the Super Bowl this year…or at least playing in the NFC championship game. However, collectively, they blew it. My hope is that the same attitude that brought the Broncos together back in 1997 will permeate the Cowboys locker room next Fall. Outside of Dallas’ WR corps, the team is really pretty young. Hopefully in another ten years we will be watching Dallas talk about winning their 6th Lombardi Trophy and how loosing to the Giants in 2008 helped make that possible.