IRVING, Texas — When the Dallas Cowboys selected Jason Witten in 2003, the tight end figured a Super Bowl ring was his draft right. It was a franchise, after all, that won five championships in its first 36 seasons.
Now, seven seasons into his career, Witten realizes that championships aren’t won that easily. Even by America’s Team.
“It’s been frustrating over the years not to have success,” Witten said. “It bothers you. But I think more than anything, it allows you to appreciate this opportunity you have right now and to really try to take full advantage of it. We know this doesn’t happen every year.”
Or even every other year.
The Cowboys’ franchise hasn’t won a playoff game since the 1996 season. It was so long ago that seven players on the current 53-player roster were 9 years old then.
When the defending Super Bowl champion Cowboys beat the Minnesota Vikings 40-15 at Texas Stadium on Dec. 28, 1996, Bill Clinton was president, a U.S. postage stamp cost 32 cents, only 44 percent of U.S. households owned a computer, and manufacturers had just agreed on a standard for HDTV.
Back then, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones figured Lombardi Trophies grew on trees. His teams had won three Super Bowls in the previous four seasons, filling his Valley Ranch office with trophies and his fingers with rings.
But in the 13 years since, Jones’ Cowboys are 0-5 in the postseason. He has changed coaches four times and has had 12 starting quarterbacks.
“I wouldn’t have dreamed in ‘96 that we wouldn’t have (won) a playoff, and I wouldn’t have dreamed that we would have had the turnover in the coaches that we’ve had,” Jones said. “I wouldn’t have dreamed we would have had some of the challenges, whether it was self-imposed through me or not, that we’ve had in our quarterbacking.
“All those things, as I look back over these years, I couldn’t have imagined. … I sometimes just wonder, ‘How did that happen?’ “
Jones’ current coach, Wade Phillips, is 0-4 in the postseason as a head coach and, in 33 NFL seasons, has yet to be part of a Super Bowl winner. His current quarterback, Tony Romo, has had two heartbreaking losses in his two postseason appearances.
“If you don’t win it all, that’s what your goal is,” Phillips said. “We’ve had some successful seasons, but you need to finish it off with the cherry on top.”
None of the players on the Cowboys’ 53-man roster have a Super Bowl ring. Only one player — Keith Booking — has played in the Super Bowl. In fact, the Cowboys have little playoff experience.
Cowboys players have 82 games of playoff experience. Just five players have been on a team that won a playoff game, and they have just 11 postseason victories among them.
So, here the Cowboys are, with perhaps their best chance to end the NFC’s second-longest playoff-winning drought next to the lowly Detroit Lions, who last won a postseason game with a victory over the Cowboys in 1991. The Cowboys ride a three-game winning streak into tonight’s game against the Eagles, giving them a winning record after Thanksgiving for the first time since 1996.
“You can’t get complacent this time of year,” Witten said. “You can’t think that this is going to happen every year, because it’s not. The opportunity is here. Why can’t it be us?”
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