FRISCO, Texas -- Cliff Harris hears the complaints about the New England Patriots, and they sound familiar.

The Patriots will play in their eighth Super Bowl since 2001 on Sunday against the Philadelphia Eagles. They have five Super Bowl wins; only the Pittsburgh Steelers have more. The more the Patriots win, the more there is to hate. A jealousy rages from 31 other fan bases, whether or not those fan bases want to admit it.

“You find people against them and the only reason is for them going to all these Super Bowls,” said Harris, the Dallas Cowboys’ Ring of Honor safety from 1970 to 1979. “I’ve thought back to during my career and my timing was good enough to play in all five of our Super Bowls in the '70s. I know people resented the Cowboys back then because of the success we had, the media attention, and I definitely think there are people pulling against New England just because.”

From 1966 to 1985, the Cowboys never had a losing record, a 20-year run that is an NFL record. They won 13 division titles. They played in two NFL championship games. They played in 10 NFC Championship Games. They made it to five Super Bowls and won two. They finished first or second in their division 18 times. (They did not make the playoffs in 1974, finishing 8-6, and 1984, finishing 9-7.)

The Patriots have posted a winning record in 18 straight seasons, dating back to their first Super Bowl win following the 2001 season. They have finished first or second in the AFC East every year. They missed the playoffs in 2002 with a 9-7 record and in 2008 with an 11-5 mark. They have won at least 11 games 14 times during this current run.

“That’s why I root for them,” Ring of Honor wide receiver Drew Pearson said. “It’s pretty easy to root for them this weekend, to root against the Eagles. But I do respect them. I do take offense whenever I hear people try to downgrade their accomplishments because of Deflategate or Spygate. Despite all that, they still had to play, they still had to tackle, they still had to do the things necessary to win football games. What’s amazing is they’re doing it in this era with the salary cap and free agency. We did it back in the day, seven championship games, all that, but we could do it with the same guys, the same system. It wasn’t a transient league the way that it is now.”

Lee Roy Jordan was a Cowboy from 1963 to 1976 and is in the team’s Ring of Honor. When he retired, he was the franchise leader in tackles. The Cowboys did not have a winning record until his fourth season. They won fewer than 10 games in just two of his final nine seasons.

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“They’ve won a few more Super Bowls than we did with our run of the Tom Landry era,” Jordan said. “We got there and in the championship games quite often, but we made teams of the century out of the Green Bay Packers and Pittsburgh Steelers. ... But we expected to win. We thought we had the caliber [of] players and the caliber of coaching that we felt we should win every year.”

The winning brought more winning. It kept the standard high as the players in the mid-1960s gave way to the players of the '70s and into the '80s. The Cowboys never felt they were out of a game, and it wasn’t just because of Captain Comeback, Roger Staubach. They simply had a belief.

“We played a lot of teams that jumped out on us and they’d talk a lot of noise, ‘Yeah, we got you, Cowboys,’ and we’d be so patient, try to get through what we needed to get through and we’d get to the fourth quarter and you know who would be talking? Us,” Pearson said. “I think the Patriots feel the same way and the opponents feel the same way. They’ve got to feel the same way.”

As Harris, Jordan and Pearson watch the Patriots, they see the similarities between their teams, and the biggest is the head coach. For 29 years, Landry symbolized the Cowboys’ excellence. For the Patriots, it is Bill Belichick and Tom Brady at quarterback.

“They’re both kind of quiet, but I think they’re both planning on the next play being the play that would win the game or thinking about the next move they make,” Jordan said. “Both were intense with their preparation and everything in the game. And not giving the press too much information [they] could bring up.”

Said Harris, “Coach Landry had a real subtle way of motivating guys through kind of an insecurity thing. If you didn’t play well, he was like, ‘You’re like an amateur drawing pay. You’re not a pro. You’re an amateur drawing pay.’ He had this deal that was set up in our head of what a pro football player really was.”

Belichick has the most playoff wins in NFL history with 28. Landry is second with 20.

“The No. 1 thing I see is discipline and respect,” Pearson said. “We feared Coach Landry, and that was just respect. They fear Belichick, and that’s the respect that he has earned. Coach Landry earned that from us. He earned it from the players. They wanted to perform for him. Same with Belichick. ... You have to respect what they tell you. Obviously, we believed everything Coach Landry would tell us. With Belichick, they know how he approaches the game. They know his commitment to the game and the success that comes with that commitment. You have to respect it.”