History always finds a way to repeat itself.
A few weeks ago we talked here at BTB about the insane similarities between the 2007-2009 Dallas Cowboys and their 2016-2018 counterparts. Three years of basically the same thing with so many coincidences among them.
It was then that the United States Women’s National Team was in the early parts of their quest to repeat as World Cup Champions over in France. On Wednesday, they were celebrated in New York City for having accomplished that. Two straight titles in anything is incredible, two straight times being the best in the world is something to me marveled at.
If you’re unaware, the World Cup is played every four years. This means that the last World Cup the USWNT played in (which they also won obviously) took place in the summer of 2015. Shockingly, not really, a lot of things then feel like a lot of things now with regards to the Cowboys.
The Cowboys were coming off of winning the NFC East and a Wildcard playoff game at AT&T Stadium
What took place in January of 2015 at AT&T Stadium was a very special thing for a lot of people. In many ways it was vindication for Jason Garrett and the era that he had (and still does) overseen, but it was particularly special for Tony Romo who had put together the best season of his career.
Needless to say, that 2014 Wildcard Round win over the Detroit Lions was monumental with regards to how it defined those Cowboys. Similarly to then, we are currently sitting in a moment in time where the last Cowboys victory also took place in the first round of the playoffs, this time against the Seattle Seahawks.
January’s postseason win was obviously very defining for Dak Prescott and Ezekiel Elliott, it was the first win beyond the regular season in the short era that they have defined the team. Amazingly, it was also quite symbolic for Jason Garrett as he seemed to be holding on by a thread in an earlier part of the season, but the Amari Cooper trade saved a lot of jobs. It all came together in the playoffs.
Dallas had lost in the playoffs to a team with yellow pants that featured a quarterback from Cal
One of the best players, perhaps the most signature one, on the USWNT is Alex Morgan. She is in many ways the face of the program.
Morgan played collegiately at the University of California which is home to a few notable names across all of sports. Unfortunately for our own memories Cal also gave the NFL both Aaron Rodgers and Jared Goff.
It was Rodgers that ended the 2014 Cowboys dreams when Dez Bryant definitely caught it at Lambeau Field. He wore the signature yellow pants of the Green Bay Packers that day, and as if that memory weren’t painful enough we practically had to re-live it four years later.
Jared Goff did indeed sport pants a bright shade of yellow when his Los Angeles Rams vanquished the Cowboys in the divisional round a few months ago. Yellow is one of Cal’s signature colors so maybe there’s some sort of symmetry to all of this, all I know is that all of the losses hurt greatly and were not fun.
In both offseasons the Cowboys were faced with huge contractual decisions on offense
Back in the 2015 offseason, the Cowboys already had Tony Romo locked up for the foreseeable future (it really is amazing to think that he would only start four more games though) but had some huge decisions to make with their offensive stars.
Dallas ran into the unfortunate situation of having both Dez Bryant and DeMarco Murray finish the last seasons of their rookie contracts at the same time. Murray was of course coming of of setting a team record in the rushing department and Bryant was a fixture in the passing game. As your memory serves the Cowboys paid Bryant, his own career never returned to the form of the three years prior, Murray went to Philadelphia, he flamed out, and now we’re all sad again.
While the Cowboys don’t have quite the same circumstances encircling them today they do have some huge offensive decisions to make in the financial department. Both Dak Prescott and Amari Cooper are entering the final seasons of their rookie contracts and it is imperative to get them both locked up (cue the “it is definitely NOT imperative to get Dak locked up!” outrage). This is even coming off of Dallas already paying DeMarcus Lawrence and having yet to really reach the same negotiating ground with Ezekiel Elliott. The dollars and cents are mounting up, some things never change.
While we all celebrate the United States winning a world championship we can look forward to 2023 and hope that none of these situations really presents themselves again. We want things to be very different for the Cowboys moving forward as far as all of these results are concerned. Let’s hope that’s the case!
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