🏈 The Cowboys Have Earned The Right To Be Considered ‘Contenders’

After years of figuring out how to find creative ways to lose games, the Cowboys are winning the close ones and dominating the rest. [View in browser]( [FOX SPORTS INSIDER WITH MARTIN ROGERS] In today’s FOX Sports Insider with Martin Rogers: The NFC East looks like it’s going to be a cakewalk for the Dallas Cowboys ... we take a look at how the Cardinals, Chiefs and Ravens all passed big tests this week ... and we invite you to take part in the debate of the best college football players from California. 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 a legitimate Super Bowl contender. The discussions have come at the beginning of seasons, in the early weeks of them or, 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. And yet here comes the flurry anyway, as the Cowboys head into their bye week at 5-1 and 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’s 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. [STORY IMAGE 1] Prescott has been accurate and composed, Amari Cooper, CeeDee Lamb and tight end Dalton Schultz have proven to be reliable targets, while 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 something expected not hoped for, it gets everyone feeling 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 a challenger 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. [STORY IMAGE 2] Cooper brought up the Super Bowl topic a week earlier and it’s not talk that will slow any in this part of Texas, not until someone lets the wind out of their sails. It might be a while. The 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 the 13-3 2016 campaign. The last time they opened up a three-game lead in the NFC East so early in a season was in 1996, the last time the team won it all. “When you’re on a roll like this, you start thinking about a Super Bowl,” wide receiver Amari Cooper said last week. “You start to want it more and more the closer you get.” 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.” [STORY IMAGE 3] OK, so 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 that game’s overall momentum. Meanwhile, some concerns over the decision making of head coach Mike McCarthy linger, and aren’t going away. “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 figuring out how to find creative ways to lose games, they’re 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. [STORY IMAGE 4] 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 not 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 at the end of October yet and another story saying Dallas is a contender. For now, at least, they’ve earned the right to be thought of that way. [STORY IMAGE 5] Here’s what others have said ... Jimmy Johnson, FOX Sports: “Dak is so much more accurate now than when he came into the league.” Colin Cowherd, The Herd: “Mike McCarthy and clock management are not allies. He is now a major liability.” Skip Bayless, Undisputed: “On scale of 1-10 on the impressive scale, the Cowboys deserved a five. That was the worst my team has played all year. Yet they won and we are now 5-1.” [IN OTHER WORDS] - [FOX Sports NBA Writer Yaron Weitzman ranks all 30 NBA teams]( heading into the 2021-22 season, from the Brooklyn Nets to the OKC Thunder. - The Cardinals are unbeaten, Dak looks like an MVP and Carson Wentz looks better than Patrick Mahomes. [FOX Sports NFL Analyst Bucky Brooks breaks it all down](. - The Chiefs, Cardinals and Ravens all passed big tests this week, while the Browns and Chargers disappointed. [FOX Sports NFL Analyst Geoff Schwartz has the story](. [THE INTERNET IS UNDEFEATED] [THE INTERNET IS UNDEFEATED]( As our rollout of the [“Top College Football Player Born In Every State”]( series continues, we ask the following question: Who is the best player to come out of the state of California? FOX Sports Senior Editor Sean Merriman and College Football Writer RJ Young went with Reggie Bush as their choice, but as you can see in this graphic, this was far from an easy decision. The others included in this debate were Marcus Allen, O.J. Simpson, Matt Leinart and Ricky Williams. Did they get it right? [VIEWER'S GUIDE] Houston Astros at Boston Red Sox (FS1, 8 p.m. ET) Jose Altuve and the Houston Astros take on Xander Bogaerts and the Boston Red Sox in Game 3 of this ALCS matchup. Buffalo Bills at Tennessee Titans (ESPN, 8:15 p.m. ET) Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills go up against Derrick Henry and the Tennessee Titans on Monday Night Football. [BET OF THE DAY] [BET OF THE DAY] Odds provided by [FOX Bet]( Buffalo Bills at Tennessee Titans: OVER 52.5 Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills travel to Tennessee to take on Derrick Henry and the Titans on Monday Night Football. The Bills have the highest scoring offensive attack in the NFL this season, averaging more than 34 points per game. On the other side, the Titans are putting up a lot of points too, ranking in the top 10 in the NFL in scoring with an average of 26.4 points per content. Look for this to be a high-scoring affair, Taking the over of 52.5 points looks like a good bet. [WHAT THEY SAID] “It’s not the will to win that matters. It’s the will to prepare to win that matters.” — Paul "Bear" Bryant [FOLLOW FOX SPORTS] [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [YouTube]( [Instagram]( Download FOX Sports App: [Fire TV]( [Roku]( [Google Play]( [App Store]( [Fire TV]( [Roku]( [App Store]( [Google Play]( Also available on these devices: [fireTV | AppleTV | ROKU | Google Chromecast | XBOX ONE | SAMSUNG Smart TV] [fireTV | AppleTV | ROKU | Google Chromecast | XBOX ONE | SAMSUNG Smart TV] Trademark & Copyright Notice: ™ and © 2021 Fox Media LLC and FOX Sports Interactive Media, LLC. All rights reserved. Please do not reply to this message. If you do not wish to receive emails like this in the future, please [unsubscribe](. FOX Sports respects your privacy. Click [here]( to view our Privacy Policy. Fox.com Business & Legal Affairs - Manager Digital Media P.O. 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