The Dallas Cowboys have earned the right to be considered ‘contenders’

By Martin Rogers
FOX Sports Columnist

At various times over the past several years, a lot of people have written a lot of stories, made countless statements and defended innumerable arguments claiming that the Dallas Cowboys were legitimate Super Bowl contenders.

The discussions have come at the beginning of seasons, in the early weeks of them and, occasionally, near the end, but given that for a quarter of a century all of them turned out to be manifestly wrong, it is a dangerous business to be getting into.

Yet here comes the flurry anyway, as the Cowboys head into their bye week at 5-1, having won five straight, with all the little things that used to go wrong suddenly going right. This year’s team packs a punch on both sides of the ball and the confidence to make it tick.

Cowboy Nation is in full force, swaggering and strutting once more, finding historical nuggets in the statistical vagaries of what has happened so far and, more than anything, believing that something good is about to happen without the lingering fear that it’s all going to go down in flames.

The latter option could, of course, still happen. Dak Prescott leaving Sunday’s overtime victory over the New England Patriots at Foxborough in a boot wasn’t a sight anyone wishes for, but the early prognosis was good, the rest week couldn’t have come at a better time, and luck, for now, seems to be turning.

Prescott has been accurate and composed, Amari Cooper, CeeDee Lamb and tight end Dalton Schultz have proven to be reliable targets, and Trevon Diggs’ ability to make the big play on defense has charged that unit into a genuine force.

All that has led to a collective buoyancy, and when that happens in a place where titles used to be not hoped for but expected, it gets everyone believing the sky is the limit.

"We know we’re for real, and we believe we’re for real," Prescott told reporters after the team survived some questionable officiating and a spate of penalties to sink the Patriots 35-29. "I don’t think we’re necessarily out here trying to send a message to anybody as much as we’re showing it to ourselves. When you have a group like this, you believe in yourselves."

When he says "for real," he means for real as challengers for the biggest prize in football — partly because that was the question and partly because that’s just how the Cowboys are thinking right now.

"When you’re on a roll like this, you start thinking about a Super Bowl," Cooper said last week. "You start to want it more and more the closer you get."

That's not talk that will slow in this part of Texas — at least, not until someone lets the wind out of the sails. And it might be a while before that happens. The Cowboys' opponent in Week 7 is the 3-3 Minnesota Vikings, then the 3-3 Denver Broncos, then the 2-3 Atlanta Falcons.

The last time the Cowboys got out of the second week of October before recording a second defeat was in their 13-3 2016 campaign. The last time they opened a three-game lead in the NFC East so early in a season was 1996, the last time they won it all.

Cowboys luminaries are in heavy supply in the media, and their confidence is only fueling the positive feelings from the fan base. FOX Sports’ Troy Aikman described the current squad as being "right there" and a "team that can play with anybody," while on CBS, Tony Romo said the front office has "built a team that can win the whole thing."

Now for the boring "perspective" bit. It should be remembered that Dallas would have fallen to 0-2 had the Los Angeles Chargers not messed things up late in their Week 2 meeting, and the Patriots could have squeezed one out, too, even if such an outcome would not have accurately reflected the game’s overall momentum.

Meanwhile, concerns about the decision-making of head coach Mike McCarthy linger.

"The Cowboys have the talent to come for, get to and potentially win the Super Bowl," FS1’s Nick Wright said on "First Things First." "But they are going to be held back by what is proving to the be the most inept game manager, clock manager, situational coach in the entire NFL."

It hasn’t mattered much until now. After back-to-back years of finding creative ways to lose games, the Cowboys are winning the close ones and dominating the rest. McCarthy isn’t to everyone’s taste, but his players are performing, and the game plans have been consistently on point.

It’s all going so well. The NFC East looks like it’s going to be a cakewalk, the schedule is kind, and smiles are on faces. What could go wrong? The answer, as always, is many things, and history has shown us that they typically do.

But they haven't yet, sparking the thought that maybe this is the year when the Cowboys take all those years of collective disappointment and misfortune and flip the script entirely.

There you have it — not even the end of October and another story saying Dallas is a contender. For now, at least, the Cowboys have earned the right to be thought of that way.

Martin Rogers is a columnist for FOX Sports and the author of the FOX Sports Insider Newsletter. You can subscribe to the newsletter here.