Some people are fans of the Dallas Cowboys. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Dallas Cowboys. This 2013 Deadspin NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the 2013 NFL previews right here.


Your team: Dallas Cowboys

Your 2012 record: 8-8.

Your coach: Jerry Jones. I know that the team lists "Jason Garrett" as the head coach, but come on, now. Jason Garrett had his balls cut off and placed in a saddlebag the day he was hired. The title of "head coach" is strictly a ceremonial one in Dallas. The Double J coaches the team, and pissboys like Jason Garrett are left to handle the tedious work of attending press conferences and icing the Cowboys kicker.


Do you think Garrett had any say in whisking poor old Monte Kiffin away from his shuffleboard game and plopping him in the booth as defensive coordinator? Of course not. That's pure Jerry, right there. He picks the players, hires the assistants, writes a few nine-step drop pass plays on the back of a strip club flyer, and leaves Garrett to clean up the mess. It doesn't matter who coaches the Cowboys, and it won't until the Double J dies and leaves his kid with a 30-year head coaching contract.

I love watching the Cowboys play. They are a perfectly devised three-hour sports comedy every week. They're completely and utterly harmless. I can watch them play and know that, even when they appear to be mildly threatening, they will end up collapsing and bursting into flames at some point because, thanks to the Double J's inept personnel management, they are so fundamentally broken. They have no chance, and I don't think that Jerry really gives a shit anyway. Jerry's real passion is his stadium and his new fuckbus, and the Cowboys are the little museum diorama that he walks by every so often to dust off. Even when he does his weekly "Jerry says something stupid" bit with the media now, it feels like he's doing it strictly as a staged exercise. He is on Crazy Old Man Autopilot.

G/O Media may get a commission Aurora by Bellesa Buy for $74 from Bellesa Boutique Use the promo code AURORA25

Your quarterback: Tony Romo. Offensive genius Tony Romo! And I love that Jerry Jones is the only person on Earth who places Romo's football intellect on the level of, say, Peyton Manning. Jones treats Romo as if he's already won six Super Bowls, and is not the fumbling mess he's always been.


Keep in mind that the Cowboys gave Romo $55 million in guaranteed money this offseason. Not three seasons ago. This offseason. You're talking about at least three more seasons of the Cowboys pretending that Romo is one of the best quarterbacks in football and NO ONE in Dallas believing it. He's a Cowboy forever. Maybe they'll make him part owner! I wonder if Jerry owns a pair of magic glasses that turn Romo into Tom Brady whenever he looks at him. Some sort of QB beer goggles. I bet Jaws also owns a pair.

Your fantasy player everyone will hate: DeMarco Murray. Ever since Emmitt Smith left, the Cowboys running back position has been a 12-ingredient colostomy bag of constantly injured players: Julius Jones, Marion Barber, Felix Jones, Murray, Troy freakin' Hambrick, etc. Even when this team finds a serviceable back like Murray, he ends up being either a) injured or b) completely marginalized in favor of letting Romo run around in the pocket for eight seconds before throwing to a sextuple-covered Dez Bryant. I think they deliberately have sabotaged the position just to spite Smith. Seems like a Cowboys thing to do.


Why your team sucks: As we've noted before, the Cowboys are still trying to squeeze out victories from a core group of players that Bill Parcells put together SEVEN YEARS AGO. It's like watching a TV network burn off episodes of an old Mike O'Malley comedy. The only bright young spot on this team is Dez Bryant, who is always one step away from being arrested in a botched jewelry heist. They traded up to draft Morris Claiborne last season and Pro Football Focus rated him as the league's 83rd best corner in 2012, which seems... not good. They're an aging team that refuses to admit that they're aging, and Jones is always convinced he's just one superstar rookie away from seeing the whole thing come together.

That is where the hilarity comes from. It's one astounding pratfall after another. Their safety broke his tooth on a Jolly Rancher! They let the team golf cart drive itself! They kill each other while drunk driving! OH YOU LITTLE RASCALS. The past decade-plus of wretched Cowboys football—and the next two decades of the same—are karmic payback for all those years that bandwagon Cowboys fans lorded both their team's dominance and their popularity over the rest of the NFL.


You don't need me to tell you that saying you're a Cowboys fan is essentially shorthand for "I'm a bandwagon-jumping douchebag!" Like the Lakers and Yankees in their respective sports, the Cowboys serve as a kind of national magnet for shameless non-fans looking for a cheap sports thrill. They are the #1 favorite NFL team of empty-headed celebrities and NBA players who are far too shallow to pick any favorite team other than the most-covered, most winning, most obvious team possible (Get fucked, LeBron). They are the people happily waiting three hours in line at the nightclub just to be seen at the nightclub.


A Cowboys fan isn't really a football fan at all. I think many of them hopped on the bandwagon back in the '90s, have watched the team turn into a national embarrassment, and now just kind of half-cheer for the team because they can't quite admit to themselves that they never cared about the Cowboys to begin with. They liked the rings. They never liked the team. They just wanted to be seen around school hanging out with the most popular team, the one that gets all the attention and plows all the cheerleaders at the Michael Irvin's white house and what not. That's why I will never get tired of them fucking up year after year after year after year, while The Double J fiddles away in his luxury box.


Why your team doesn't suck: I have nothing to put here.

The nine worst Cowboys ever:

1) Roy Williams. I miss the days of Jerry Jones recklessly trading draft choices for shitty, name-brand wideouts.


2) Quincy Carter. FUN FACT: His full name is Lavonya Quintelle Carter.

3) Josh Brent

4) Shante Carver. The perfect embodiment of Jerry's "Now the Jimmah's gone I can draft MAH GUYS" phase.


5) Sherman Williams. ***BONG RIP***

6) Chad Hutchinson

7) Babe Laufenberg

8) Joey Galloway

9) Barry Switzer. I know he won a Super Bowl, but come on. He was drunk that whole week.


Emails from Cowboys fans!

Phil:

I recently attended a high-dollar fund raiser held at the Death Star to benefit The Jones Foundation. It was a black tie $1000 a plate deal that my girlfriend got invited to and felt compelled to drag me along since I am a lifelong Cowboy fan. As it turned out, I was introduced to Jerrah & The Missus during the event and I noticed that he was only wearing one shoe. I tried to contain my curiosity, but after a couple of vodkas, what the hell. "Mr. Jones, I noticed that you are only wearing one shoe. Did you lose one?" I said. Jerrah looked me in the eye and said, "Oh no, son. I found one."

Hunter:

Jerry Jones made all of his money pretty much convincing people that their land was worthless when it was filled with oil. Now he does the opposite, he convinces millions of rednecks and Mexicans that the gigantic load of billion dollar shit that is the Dallas Football Cowboys is worth something, when in reality they are worth about as much as an MLS franchise.


Matt:

If the Cowboys are playing so poorly that Jerry Jones feels the need to descend from his sky crypt so he can patrol the sidelines of his stately pleasure-dome, their winning percentage is approximately fuckall.


Britton:

Because Jason Garrett is still the coach. Why is he still the coach?

Preston:

Jerry will demand to be buried under the star at midfield thus creating a curse that sets the win total for every Cowboy team to come at 8.


Carl:

Stephen Jones is Mark Davis only with a different stupid haircut.

Donald:

Monte Kiffin was so bad at his last job, his son had to fire him.

Chris:

On his deathbed, I'm sure Al Davis was comforted knowing Jerry Jones will live for another hundred fucking years.


Lonnie:

Fellow Cowboy fans are so awful, especially the ones at the actual games. Here is a memo sent out before they played the Giants last year.


Jordan:

Dallas is a terrible city.

Charlie:

You’ve covered why the Eagles, Redskins and Giants all suck. All you need to realize is that in 3 of the last 5 years, a final regular season game against one of these three teams is all that stood between the Cowboys and the playoffs. The results were all losses, 44-6 (Eagles, 2008), 31-14 (Giants, 2011) and 28-18 (Redskins, 2012).


Zach:

A recent Wednesday afternoon:



12:10pm - Leave work with colleagues in super shitty city neighboring Dallas to head to lunch in slightly less shitty city in DFW metroplex.



12:20pm - Arrive in slightly less shitty city at decent local burger chain. Waitress with unnecessary piercings and bad tats seats us.



12:25pm - Begin talk about Cowboys and season outlook. Only talk about the teams we might beat. Find too many reasons we can beat no one. The glass isn't even half empty. Order burger.



12:27pm - Look up at flat screen. NFL Network is covering Cowboys training camp. Jerry Jones is signing autographs for fans and they WANT his fucking autograph. Shake head in disbelief.



12:35pm - Burger comes. Mayo and no mustard, exactly how I didn't order it. Fuck you Jerry Jones.

Nick:

We have a fanbase that somehow manages to be both idiotically insecure and mind-numbingly arrogant.


Chad:

Jerry Jones has as much business being GM as George Zimmerman does at a screening of Roots.


Jared:

One time Ryan Leaf's wrist popped out during a game, and he was still the best option at QB.


Ashton:

Jerry Fucking Jones will hire another human being to wipe his glasses on a fucking shirt...but NOT to run his two billion dollar football team.


Jerry:

I am a lifelong Cowboys fan who has always lived in the D.C. area who has never been to Dallas or Texas. I am the reason we suck.


Bruce:

Jerry Jones built his shiny new stadium so he that could feel like John Holmes pissing at a crowded trough. Oh, and fuck Miles Austin's paper hamstrings.

Levi:

Here is some real interactions I've had with Dallas Cowboy "fans". The Cowboys had just barely won 3 games against terrible opponents bringing their record to 8-6. I am kind of excited and asked my co-worker, who is decked head to toe in Dallas gear, "What did you think of the game last night?" His response "Oh, I don't really watch the games anymore." Another Cowboys fan I work with drafted Tony Romo in the first, Demarco Murray in the second, and Jason Witten in the 3rd in our work Fantasy League. This is the typical behavoir of every fucking Cowboys "fan" I meet. They know nothing of the NFL except the 2-3 players they know. No wonder people hate us.


Jerard:

Jerry whores out the "Star" logo and team name licensing to anyone who will give him a buck or two. In Texas, you can buy everything from Cowboys-branded charcoal to BBQ sauce to "Tackle Towels," paper towels with the Cowboys logo on them. All of the above products are overpriced & are just as terrible as they sound.


Patrick:

The loudest thing at a Cowboys home game is the fucking Ed Hardy print shirts.

Lou:

You can't get to your seat if you actually sprung for a decent one in the lower deck, because the standing-room sections and their 500 guys with mullets and bewildered tourists with kids who and are all blocking your way. People go to my team's games so they can watch on a gigantic TV. In 2010, I attended the home opener against Chicago with my Dad. We sat in a section full of Bears fans in what was MAYBE a 60% pro-Cowboy crowd. It was 96 degrees that day, and I was freezing cold in my seat because Jerry had the roof closed and the AC cranked up to the "Morgue" setting. The Cowboys lost, and on the way to the airport the next morning we expected to hear the sports radio stations just killing the team for their 0-2 start. But no, every station we could find was talking about high school football.


Pat:

Our fanbase is made up largely of people like me. That is to say, people whose lifetime experience with the state of Texas consists of 90 minutes in the T.G.I. Friday's at Dallas-Ft. Worth International Airport.


Brandon:

When you tell a stranger that you root for the Cowboys they typically react as if you just told them you're a card carrying member of the Aryan Nation.


Kevin:

I would honestly prefer it if Jason Garrett just showed up at my house every Sunday and kicked me in the dick, because at least then there wouldn't be a three-hour build-up.


Jon:

Your average Cowboys fan can name 4 players on the team (Romo, Witten, Bryant, and Ware), and comes out of the woodwork to talk shit when they win, but when the team tanks, they "don't really watch football that closely". I have a friend who is a self-proclaimed "huge" Dallas fan, to the point where he plans to build a Cowboys-themed bar in his basement (he lives in eastern PA and has never been to Texas, by the way). When I told him I met Tyron Smith on my honeymoon, he looked at me and says, "Who?"


Dustin:

Right as the heyday of the Cowboys early 90's teams began to emerge, my dad took me to my first Cowboys (and pro football) game at Texas Stadium against the Los Angeles Rams. A bonafide Billy Ray Cyrus-style mullet sporting guy sitting on the row just behind us easily drank himself 4 times the legal limit before halftime. I was only eight at the time and I'm not sure I fully grasped the concept of drunk. There was just a scary mad man screaming obnoxiously for about a good hour behind my ear and he was generally cursing people around him. Just before halftime I think the Rams scored and he ended up chucking his beer over my head and into a lady's lap just in front of me. Several men, including my dad, then had security take over and he was ejected from the stadium to thunderous applause. Several season ticket holders sitting around us conferred that his kind was something you had to become tolerant of at football games today. To our amazement in the 4th quarter in a close game a familiar howl is heard from across the field. I kid you not, the drunk had found his way somehow back into the stadium on the opposite side and we could all still hear him despite the distance. I remember the Cowboys lost and I've always preferred Sunday football in the comfort of my home with a good chip dip and some cheap beer since.


Jason:

The saddest day of my life was when Al Davis passed away….because I then realized that Jerry Jones would ascend to the crazy as fuck all, resident crypt keeper of the NFL. There is nothing that qualifies this man to assess talent in professional sports. Everything he does is superficial. His crown jewel that is Cowboys Stadium is nothing more than a pretentious shrine to himself, not the fans or the team. He has the innate ability to be disappointed in his team while never accepting responsibility for his own management, or his administrative staff that, in itself, is a poster child for why nepotism is not only unethical, but also yields shitty results.



You want proof of how shitty we are as fans? Just go to a game at Cowboys Stadium and observe a game. Quite possibly the quietest stadium in the NFL, with every fan sitting on their fat ass…..watching replays on the big screen instead of actually watching the on field action. Our defense on a goal line stand in the 4th quarter? Should we stand up and make it hard on the opposing offense? Not us. We paid $250 on a ticket to do the same goddamn thing we would do at home.


Derek:

I've never met a single Cowboys fan outside of close friends and family (and let's be frank, I could do without most of them) that I don't want to bludgeon between the eyes with a fucking tack hammer.


Jayce:

Our offensive line is made up of Tyron Smith, Travis Frederick's beard and three cardboard cutouts of Nicki Minaj from the front window of FYE. If Romo makes it to week six without being severed in half by sixteen Giants defensive tackles, this season is a success.


Ben:

The difference between Flacco and Romo is not much if at all. Over large sample sizes, Romo has been by far the better QB by just about every possible statistical measure. The difference is that Flacco has a GM and a coach who aren't so fucking retarded as to think that players 12-53 aren't actually worth worrying about.


Justin:

The new stadium sucks and has no acoustics. It's like Jerry built a special vacuum that swallows any and all sounds the crowd makes so there is no home field advantage. Reminds me of watching something in a movie theater.


Stockton:

I am the epitome of why the Cowboys suck. I am from the NYC suburbs, 23 years old, and went to Dallas for the first time in my life this year (flat, hot, and traffic by the way). My dad was one of those “only cares about the Eagles when they lose so he can bemoan the unfairness of life” Philly fans, meaning that the only reason I am a Cowboys fan is because I was a terrible human being at age seven. My favorite teams: Yankees, Lakers, Cowboys… I am what’s wrong with America.


Chris:

Jason Garrett has a job because SIX YEARS AGO he coached an offense that went 13-3 - only to abandon the run at home by halftime in the playoffs and lose by a point to the Giants. He's been a pack of shit since. I hate Jason Garrett.

Curtis:

“We’re convinced we’ve got the secret sauce to put this thing back together again and win championships,” (dipshit nepotistic waste-of-space) Stephen) Jones said. Who would believe such patent horseshit? "Secret sauce?" There's no secret sauce to winning championships, and if there were, why hasn't it been used before now?



How stupid does Stephen Jones think that Cowboys fans are, anyway?



(takes close look at Cowboys fan base) (hmm) (perhaps he has a point, there)

Lauren:

Jerry Jones is so shameless that at a party during training camp, he turned to the Dallas sports radio guy who does an eviscerating impression of Jerry on air and said "Do me!"


Aaron:

The stadium has the electricity of a sleep apnea clinic waiting room.

Chris:

Full Disclosure: I am also a Laker fan and a Man. U fan.

Jason:

They draft a center in the first round who tells the media he thought he was a third round pick. They then defend the pick insisting he was the best player left on the board only to then accidentally leak their draft board via team provided photos of the draft room showing Shariff Floyd as their highest graded player who was available when they fucking picked the third round rated center.


Dave:

Fuck Doug Free.

John:

They are an organization with zero redeeming qualities. Their stadium is a hollow, soulless symbol of excess where people pay hundreds of dollars to watch the game on TV. As I'm sure many of your readers will point out, they have the most obnoxious, overweight, embarrassing-to-be-around excuse for a fanbase this side of Notre fucking Dame. I've never met a fellow Cowboys fan that I didn't find to be an egregious chode. Because of this, and because America is forced to watch this perpetually 8-8 group of bumbling dingbats 28 times a year on TV, telling someone you're a Cowboys fan is the equivalent of telling them that you enjoy watching babies suffer. My friends see it as a significant character flaw.


Bannon:

Jerry Jones is one of the best owners in all of sports. He is also easily the worst GM to ever exist.


Andy:

No one would be shocked if Jerry's last will and testament demanded that during the first home game after his passing, the roof and doors of Jerryworld are to be sealed and the whole building flooded with sand so he can take the Cowboys fanbase into the afterlife with him.


Brad:

If I hear that Jon Gruden needs to coach this team once more, I will probably kill myself.


Glenn:

The day was March 3rd, the year 2013. I was sitting at my desk when I got an alert about the Dallas Cowboys. I read the ticker on my computer, my co-worker says, "Is everything OK? Did someone pass away?" I didn't respond, I continued to stare at the computer. Now multiple people are looking at me. One of the other sports fan in the office looks over and says, "Hey you see that contract Romo got?" Still unable to speak, I nod my head. The news of Romo being the Cowboy for another six years on top of Super Bowl winning QB money caused me to look as though someone died.


Sid: