Cowboys vice president Stephen Jones said Thursday he was confident his team could “compete for a championship.”
Well, sort of.
Jones said he thought the Cowboys were good enough to belong to the club of the-many-teams-who-have-a-shot-in-any-given-year.
“The last three teams that won championships barely got into the playoffs and did something about it,” Jones said, via Todd Archer of ESPNDallas.com. “You’re probably not being realistic if you don’t think things have changed in the last 10 years. There’s probably a lot of people who feel they have a chance to win a championship based on the level playing field and how the [salary] cap has affected the game.
“We feel like we have an opportunity to compete for a championship.”
From that standpoint, he has a point, even if the Cowboys have consistently underwhelmed.
They’ve gone 8-8 the last two years, have made the playoffs once in the last five and have one postseason win since 1996.
But they also have, by any reasonable expectation, a puncher’s chance.
Quarterback Tony Romo has played well, in stretches, and can be outstanding. They have a wide receiver in Dez Bryant who might be as talented as any in the game.
Coupled with an expected bump on defense from replacing Rob Ryan with Monte Kiffin at defensive coordinator (given two good pass-rushers in DeMarcus Ware and Anthony Spencer), and it’s feasible to see the Cowboys making the postseason.
“I feel like the teams that won championships last year, we can compete with them and were right there competing with them maybe without a full deck,” Jones said of last year’s injury plagued defense. “We have confidence that this team will win a championship.”
Or of having a shot, which is probably being honestly believed in about 20-some-odd camps right now.
Maybe more.
