Great Expectations?
Training camp begins in just about 24 hours, and the good news is it will be very hard for your Dallas Cowboys not to live up to expectations this season. There are no expectations.
Not for a Super Bowl.
Not really beyond 9-7 and just OK.
Certainly not nationally.
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Just look at NFL power rankings going into 2009, and almost every newspaper/.com/blog/fanboy page has a 1-32 list of NFL teams. Most have the Cowboys wedged somewhere between 13 and 19, with No. 19 being a fairly popular landing spot.
The rankings seem to say what nobody in these parts is willing to, namely: Until they prove otherwise, this is a middling NFL team.
This seems to chap some people, most notably the head coach of the Cowboys, who likes to argue 13-3 and bye-week wins and the promise of big talent and pretty stats. But the reality is the Cowboys have not won a playoff game since 1996 and thus rightfully have earned the rep as an underachieving circus. They are good drama. They are not so good in December and beyond.
This is why they are no longer the chic pick to win the Super Bowl. They have yet to prove they are deserving of the expectations. They have yet to prove they can live up to what they say is their goal.