Dallas Is Dead

by Tuesday Night Tailback

Actor Larry Hagman died on Friday at the age of 81. He had a long and distinguished actor career but was best known for his role as J.R. Ewing on the television series Dallas. The show began in the late 1970s, about the same time that the Dallas Cowboys were deemed “America’s Team”, and concluded in the early 1990s, about the time the Cowboys got good again. But both the show and the team’s winning fortune disappeared soon after.

This year, a sequel to the original series was launched with much of the original cast, including Hagman, making cameos. This is perfectly allegorical to the way the sports media tries to resurrect the Dallas Cowboys as a “great” team every time they give the slightest whiff of being a coherent team. This is the kind of hype we got prior to the Thanksgiving game against Washington, where pundits had the Cowboys poised to overtake the World Champion New York Giants by the end of the weekend. Then the actual games were played.

The Cowboys were torched by Robert Griffin and the Washington Redskins, while the Giants cruised over the Green Bay Packers. New York is firmly in control of the division and, for all intents and purposes, Dallas is dead.

A year ago this week, I covered the hype around the Cowboys more extensively in an article entitled November’s Champions. But that was about good Cowboys teams which were in the mix and just over-hyped. This year’s team is 5-6 with five games remaining and November hasn’t been quite as kind. But I’m sure we’ll see a re-run of it all next year.

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Tuesday Morning Tailback is a weekly article during football season which take a critical look at the NFL. We do this from the base belief that NFL football is the greatest game in the history of mankind, but some recent policies and the overall direction of the league has chipped away at this greatness. Our primary goal is to spark debate on these subjects, so please leave your own opinion on this article in the comment box below.