I keep thinking they’ll fold. Three times this season the Cowboys have shot themselves in the foot enough times to cost them games. They spotted St. Louis 21 points. They missed a game winning field goal against the Texans. They coughed the ball up in Seattle twice and had a punt blocked for a touchdown. The Cowboys won all of these games. They’ve won five in a row, and it’s not hard to figure out why.

These are your father’s Cowboys. They can run when they want to. They can throw if they want to. The offensive line in Dallas gives this team the flexibility it hasn’t in years. But this offensive line has received praise from notables around the league, the internet, and TV. Their blocking is a thing of beauty. Watch their combo blocks and watch them clear freeway lanes for DeMarco Murray. Watch the tight ends and WRs seal edges and the outside simultaneously, it’s a team effort.

But the defense? This defense?

The Cowboys defense is a bunch of nobodies that was laughed at on the week one Sunday morning preview shows by the commentators on both ESPN and NFL Network. These weren’t chuckles. They were openly laughing at and deriding the defense. They stood no chance. They would be historically bad. They losses of Ware, Lee, and Hatcher would be far too much to overcome. This defense doesn’t give a shit.

They’re not a great defense. They might not even be a good defense. But don’t tell them that, because they don’t share our sentiment. They held the Seahawks to nine first downs in a game that both teams had the ball 11 times. Marshawn Lynch, aside from his 32 yard run, was nonexistent. Percy Harvin might have had the most useless touches I’ve ever seen in an NFL game.

They have no stars except the one on their helmet. Their most heralded free agent signing Henry Melton isn’t even starting at the three technique. Tyrone Crawford is, you know, that highly regarded 3rd round pick from Boise State that’s coming off an Achilles rupture. They’re anchored by not even a has-been, a never was in Rolando McClain. Twice retired, twice forgotten, and acquired in a swap of 6th and 7th round draft picks from the Ravens, McClain looks like the player the Raiders thought they had drafted all those years ago. Orlando Scandrick, often derided (see Bill Barnwell’s piece on overpaid players) anchors a secondary that isn’t hemorrhaging the same kind of plays it had in the previous seasons.

It’s hard to single out players on this defense. They’re anonymous. They’re grimy. They have little to no pass rush and rely on guile and timely stops.

After week one, it felt like it’d be a long season. The Cowboys faithful were lacking the operative part of that word: faith. 49ers fans flooded AT&T stadium. Saints fans and Texans fans did the same. Maybe the season ticket holders already unloaded as many games as they could this year and it’ll be like that all year. Maybe it doesn’t matter.

This is America’s Team, after all.

In Tennessee you could hear Cowboys fans overrunning the locals. Could hear it in St. Louis too as the Cowboys mounted a comeback and silenced the home crowd. Seattle would surely be a different story. Home of the 12th man, (you know, unless you count the real 12th man, Texas A&M). It would be loud. It would be brutal. Romo would crumble under the noise and the pressure and the same tired story you hear about him all the time. And for a moment it felt like it would. The Seahawks blocked a punt for a TD after a hit that looked like it would end Romo’s day, if not his season. It didn’t. And he nor the rest of his teammates didn’t crumble.

And as the Seahawks were trying to mount a comeback in their last two drives you could hear a beautiful sound. Clear as day on the TV broadcast (and surely in person) chants of “Let’s Go Defense. Let’s Go Defense” came echoing down onto the field as the Cowboys faithful begged this group of nobodies to hang on one more time.