It’s not just fans who are excited by the team’s current record. After starting the season with the sixth-best odds to win the Super Bowl, according to the Las Vegas sports book BetMGM, the Cowboys now have the second best odds (-800), behind the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers, both at -600.
The national media are hopping aboard the Dallas bandwagon as well. Pro Football Focus moved the Cowboys up three spots to take third position in its power rankings, while the NFL’s official site places Jerry Jones’s favorite club as the fourth-best team in the league.
So, sure, four years doesn’t feel like a very large gap to celebrate on the surface. It definitely isn’t as long as the dozen years between hot starts that the Texas Rangers endured when they got off to a 3-0 start in April. But give it some thought: this specific set of four years isn’t like pretty much any other four-year period in recent memory.
The best example of that is that the last time the Cowboys began 2-0, most of us were still months away from hearing the word “coronavirus” for the first time. Kobe Bryant was still alive. We had yet to elect Joe Biden as president, which also means that Jan. 6 of that year was just another day. You know, not a somber reminder of when a few thousand people tried to violently disrupt the peaceful transfer of power we all hold dear.
Here’s another fun fact from four years ago: Micah Parsons, the maniacally disruptive edge rusher who is the favorite to win this year’s Defensive Player of the Year award, wasn’t even close to beginning his NFL career yet. On Sunday, X (formerly Twitter) was bursting with praise for the third-year All-Pro. But in 2019, Parsons was starring for the Penn State Nittany Lions as a sophomore and was majoring in criminology. In 2020, Parsons chose to skip the football season due to COVID-19 concerns and was also named in a lawsuit filed against Penn State, alleging he had hazed a former teammate. (Parsons denied the allegations. A district attorney chose not to pursue charges, and a school investigation found no wrongdoing by Parsons).
Head coach Mike McCarthy was also not a North Texas resident back then. Jason Garrett, the red-headed coach with the robotic voice and smile, was still leading the team he once played quarterback for.
Micah Parsons is unfair 😳 pic.twitter.com/bApf2HCdAD
— PFF (@PFF) September 17, 2023
None of this feels like it was yesterday, does it?
The year-round soap opera that is the Cowboys is always on the front pages, but In 2019, we were preoccupied with plenty of other things as well. It wasn’t coronavirus-related, but health and safety discussions were paramount following a viral video showing a girl in Lufkin licking an open container of Blue Bell ice cream in a grocery store.
Much of the year’s headlines were taken up by the Amber Guyger murder trial. In October 2019, former Dallas police officer Amber Guyger was found guilty of the 2018 murder of Botham Jean, a 26-year-old accountant. Guyger testified that she mistakenly entered Jean’s apartment after her shift, thinking it was her own, and shot Jean, who she thought was an intruder. Guyger was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Also that October, as many as 10 horrific tornadoes slashed through much of North Texas, including parts of Dallas, Richardson, Garland and Rockwall, among other cities. Thomas Jefferson High School in Northwest Dallas was destroyed and did not reopen until this year.
Nationally, 2019 began with the federal government shutdown after then President Donald Trump initiated a standoff with Congress near the end of 2018. By the end of 2019, Trump would be at odds again with much of the U.S. government when he was impeached for alleged abuse of power.
North Texas also said goodbye to its greatest-ever basketball star, Dirk Nowitzki. Luka Doncic reigns these days, but we'll never forget the 21 years of excellence and the NBA championship trophy the Big German brought to town, regardless of how many years pass.
The hope of Cowboys fans is that the 2023 season will end better than the 2019 season did. Even with that 3-0 start, the team floundered the rest of the season, failing to make the playoffs with an 8-8 record. That's why Garrett is the former coach and McCarthy is the current one.
Given the exciting start to this season, such a fate is tough to picture for Parsons, Prescott and the gang. But, hey, it wasn’t that long ago that the Cowboys wasted a great start — even if it feels a lot longer.
