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These are not the Cowboys you're looking for.

With a 42-7 win against the Indianapolis Colts in Week 16, the Dallas Cowboys improved to 11-4 and locked up the NFC East thanks to both their surprising record and the Philadelphia Eagles' misstep against Washington just a night before.

This isn't how a Cowboys season is supposed to end. They're supposed to let us down. It's what we're looking for.

The road was laid bare before them. Every single brick.

The Cowboys just didn't fulfill the kind of destiny that so many of their detractors had ordained for them. How dare the Cowboys actually take care of business and win when they need to? How could they ruin all of our pre-written narratives about Tony Romo interceptions, Jason Garrett coaching mistakes or defensive lapses?

What are we supposed to do with all these water-cooler jokes and Internet memes?

Let's take a step back here and realize that the Colts, on the road, had little to play for. While the Cowboys were worried about things like clinching a division and maybe even jockeying for home-field advantage or a first-round bye in the playoffs, the Colts had already won the AFC South and weren't going to catch the New England Patriots and Denver Broncos in the race for a top-two seed.

Still, even in that context, this was a beatdown.

Remember Romo, that guy we expect to choke when it counts the most (even against all actual statistical evidence)? That guy only managed to complete 18 of 20 passes for 218 yards (10.9 average per attempt!), four touchdowns and zero interceptions.

That's right, you read it correctly: zero interceptions.

Romo didn't have a fumble either.

No botched snaps.

No mishandled holds on a kicking attempt.

That sound you hear is fans and members of the media from across the nation furiously wearing out their delete keys because they've been saving up the same sort of narrative-driven drivel for weeks, just waiting for the Cowboys to collapse and either fall to their usual 8-8 or find an even more heartbreaking way to ruin their fans' years yet again.

Except, of course, for those who will continue saving those stupid, idiotic, absent-from-reality ideas for each round of the playoffs as they try to pretend this is all some sort of long con and Romo won all of these games and passed for all of these yards just to really let us all down in more dramatic fashion.

The juxtaposition of what we collectively expect from Romo and what he consistently delivers was never more stark than in this game. Romo not only helped his team clinch a playoff spot, but also passed Cowboys legend Troy Aikman as the franchise's career passing leader.

Let's make something clear up front: There's a very real argument that the NFL has become a much more passing-friendly league in the years since Aikman was starting. Stick guys like him, Miami Dolphins great Dan Marino and Denver Broncos now-owner John Elway into today's NFL with today's passing-friendly rules, and their numbers could've been absolutely amazing.

Still, without saying Romo is better than Aikman (which I'm not doing), it's silly to distill the argument to Aikman's Super Bowl rings just as it would be to solely distill it in terms of passing yardage.

2014 is the first season when Romo has truly had the kind of help around him that Aikman enjoyed almost every year of his heyday.

Running back DeMarco Murray, playing with a broken hand, nabbed 58 yards in about a half-game's worth of work against a Colts front that would've stacked 12 men in the box on each play if it were allowed. Murray, whose career is on the tail end of a whole lot of failed backs in Dallas, is only a couple of long runs away from Emmitt Smith's single-season Cowboys record.

It's worth noting too that Smith himself played with a broken hand in 1993—a year in which the Cowboys won the Super Bowl.

What does Romo's career look like if he had a Murray-type back to take some pressure away from him for more than a couple of the last years? What does Romo's career look like if he had an offensive line for the past decade like he does now—stocked with guys like tackle Tyron Smith, guard Zack Martin and center Travis Frederick? What does Romo's career look like if he had more years of a Dez Bryant-like wide receiver rather than piddling away with guys like Miles Austin and Roy Williams?

I bet Romo's career looks a lot more like Aikman's in more than just passing yardage.

Instead, Romo's spent most of his career as the strongest link on a team with a lot of weak links. There was no consistent help like he got against the Colts. No defenses that could hold an Andrew Luck-led offense to only seven points. No running games that could put up 127 total rushing yards and help tilt the time of possession to over 35 minutes to 24. No offensive lines that could keep Romo upright to the tune of one sack against a Colts pass rush that's been decent all season.

In an NFL season filled with twists, turns and surprises, the Cowboys are one of the more pleasant turnarounds we've seen in a while. (Condolences to the New York Giants, Philadelphia and Washington fans who may not think so.)

The Cowboys are the one team we expect to fall flat on its face.

We expect them to build us up only to let us down all the harder.

This Cowboys team isn't what we expected.

It's time to adjust our expectations.

Michael Schottey is an NFL National Lead Writer for Bleacher Report and an award-winning member of the Pro Football Writers of America. Find more of his stuff on his archive page and follow him on Twitter.