Relax Dallas Cowboys’ fans, your next Super Bowl appearance may only be 9,490 days away
For the Dallas Cowboys fan, Super Bowl LIV may make you LIVid.
After all, it’s been a short 8,771 days since your favorite team last appeared in a Super Bowl. It only feels like 8,771 years.
Sure, you can watch the Kansas City Chiefs play the San Francisco 49ers, or you can just YouTube Super Bowl XXX from January of 1996 when the Cowboys defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers. Think of it this way, about half of the people watching it at your house weren’t born or were too young to even remember it. So this will all be new to them.
It’s fun to watch, and listen to the late Dick Enberg call the play that secured the Cowboys their last Super Bowl.
“Intercepted Larry Brown! And Brown has a shot at a touchdown,” Enberg said. “Brown again, not even near the play, the ball thrown right to him!”
It’s either this, or look at the two franchises and their respective roads to this Super Bowl. That will make you feel worse.
The case of the San Francisco 49ers
The last time the Dallas Cowboys made the Super Bowl they were in a bit of a fight with the 49ers as the team of the ‘90s. The 49ers won two Super Bowls in the ‘90s to the Cowboys’ three.
Since the start of the century, both franchises have gone through multiple cycles of good to bad, and bad back to good. The Cowboys are now on their fifth head coach this century to the 49ers’ eight.
The Cowboys actually have more playoff appearances this century than the 49ers, seven to six. Both teams have had six 10-win seasons since 2000.
The only difference is at least when the 49ers went to the trash, their good included Super Bowls. This is the second time this decade the 49ers have returned to the Super Bowl after having bottomed out.
The 49ers reached at least the NFC title game three straight season, from 2011-13. And they reached the Super Bowl in 2012, where they narrowly lost to the Baltimore Ravens in New Orleans.
After the ‘14 season, the 49ers essentially ran off coach Jim Harbaugh, and the team flopped around until this season under coach Kyle Shanahan.
At least with the San Francisco 49ers, there has been a respite from losing, and idiot management.
With the Dallas Cowboys, there has been no such relief.
The case of the Kansas City Chiefs
If you think, as a Cowboys fan, surely your time is coming, the Chiefs are the reminder your wait time could be much longer than you might fear. And objects, such as the Lombardi Trophy, are not closer than they appear.
For some reason the Chiefs never did elicit the type of sympathy of a Chicago Cubs, or Cleveland Indians when their record says they should.
The franchise was born was the Dallas Texans under founder Lamar Hunt in 1960, and actually won the American Football League championship in 1962. Hunt moved the team to Kansas City the following year and re-named them the Chiefs.
Although they had initial success that decade, and won Super Bowl IV after the 1969 season, this franchise has toyed with their fan base much like the Cowboys. The only difference is that the Chiefs have kicked their fans for more than 40 years whereas the Cowboys have done it for about 25 years.
This is the first time in 50 years the Chiefs have reached a Super Bowl.
From 1970 to ‘90, this was one of the worst teams in the NFL. In that span, the Chiefs had two 10-win teams, two playoff appearances, and 10 losing seasons.
After those two decades, the Chiefs have been consistently “around it.” They just never broke through under coach Marty Schottenheimer in the ‘90s.
Sixteen times since 1990 have the Chiefs made the playoffs, but before this season twice did they reach an AFC title game, in 1993 and 2018.
After all of this time, of building and re-building, they have their franchise quarterback in Patrick Mahomes and a team good enough to win the Super Bowl.
It took them 50 years to do it. Cowboys fans, it’s been 24 years, so you may only be about halfway there. Another 26 seasons would be about 9,490 days from now. Give or take a few.
When the Chiefs play the 49ers Sunday, there is no guarantee, much less a sign, that the Dallas Cowboys are on any more of a path to be in a Super Bowl for the first time since Jan. 28, 1996.
So fire up YouTube, or try to enjoy Super Bowl LIV without turning livid.
