One of the toughest offseasons in recent memory keeps getting harder
On Friday, music sensation and cultural phenomenon Taylor Swift released her album titled The Tortured Poets Department. While the album has received almost universal praise, it’s also been noted for its heavy tones of anger and sadness. Jason Lipshutz of Billboard described it as “knowingly messy and unguarded” while comparing its lyrical content to the five stages of grief.
Perhaps that makes this album the perfect anthem for the Cowboys offseason, one in which Jerry and Stephen Jones have made moves – or, rather, not made moves – that have puzzled just about everyone else in the league.
And on Friday, while legions of dedicated Swifties (myself included) were studying the nuances of The Tortured Poets Department, the tortured fans department in Dallas was weathering their own storm in the latest installment of a miserable offseason.
That moment came courtesy of Dak Prescott, who was predictably asked plenty of questions about his contract status during an appearance at the Children’s Cancer Fund Gala. Prescott, who had been overflowing with optimism about a new contract earlier in the offseason, had a noticeably different tone this time around:
“I’m not going to say I fear being here or not. I don’t fear either situation, to be candid with you. I love this game and love to play and love to better myself as a player and my teammates around me. Right now it’s with the Dallas Cowboys, it’s where I want to be, and that’s where I am, and that’s the focus. And after the season we’ll see where we’re at and if the future holds that. And if not, we’ll go from there.”
To borrow a line from Swift, Cowboys fans are now down bad and crying at the gym. Prescott’s contract situation has been one of many rather simple things the Cowboys could have, should have taken care of this offseason, but have instead refused to do so.
While there are some fans who don’t believe Prescott is the answer, he’s undeniably been among the league’s top quarterbacks for the duration of his eight seasons in Dallas. Unless the Cowboys intend to hit a hard reset button, the wisest approach is to keep your quarterback happy and under contract at all times. Dallas came dangerously close to failing that test multiple times during the end of Prescott’s rookie contract, using the franchise tag twice before finally caving to the quarterback’s demands. Now, the light at the end of the tunnel seems even dimmer.
There are also issues with the contracts of CeeDee Lamb and Micah Parsons, neither of whom showed up to voluntary workouts last week and are anticipated to hold out of mandatory training programs as well. The Cowboys have always played hardball in contract negotiations, or at least since Stephen Jones started handling those duties, but doing so with the team’s three biggest stars all at once is a whole new kind of reckless. Some may even say it’s knowingly messy and unguarded.
As hard as this offseason has been for Cowboys fans, it just keeps getting harder. The reality is that this team will field a talented roster in 2024 and will likely make the playoffs yet again. There will be some blowout wins here and there, and for a fortnight there will be all the optimism in the world in Cowboys Nation.
Beyond that, though? Hope for something to change come playoff time remains extremely low, and the Cowboys have set the deck in such a way that they could decide to blow it all up and start 2025 with a brand new coaching staff and a roster devoid of its biggest names and best players, adding even more pain to the prospect of another early playoff exit. Once again, Cowboys fans would be left wondering “how did it end?” and exclaiming “I hate it here.”
The added pressure of this season, all of which has been completely and totally engineered by the front office and their brazen inactivity and lack of urgency, has already turned into an albatross on the backs of each and every coach and player in Dallas. Just wait until the season actually begins, and that pressure will only ratchet up several notches.
So continues the struggle that has been the 2024 offseason for the Cowboys. While other teams are making aggressive moves to bolster their roster or extending star players without a knock-down, drag-out saga, the Cowboys are still doing the same thing they’ve been doing for several ring-less decades.
And the fans will do the same thing they’ve done, too: show up and root for this team that will inevitably crush them. This offseason may be the ultimate test of that fandom, but Cowboys fans are used to this. Like Swift, they can do it with a broken heart.
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