Dallas Cowboys

From Dallas, Texas, The Dallas Cowboys is a prominent football team that plays in the top flight of American Football, NFL, as a member of the NFC’s East division. A $4 billion franchise, as of 2015, the Cowboys won 5 Super Bowls of their 8 appearances, 10 conference championships and 24 divisional titles. Their present home ground is the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas and headquarter is the Ford Center at The Star, Frisco, Texas. The current head coach of the Cowboys is Jason Garrett and the current owner is Jerry Jones.

Current Team Roster

Quarterbacks: Dak Prescott (4), Cooper Rush (7), Mike White (3)

Running backs: Jordan Chunn (46), Ezekiel Elliott (21), Darius Jackson (26), Jamize Olawale (FB, 49)

Wide receivers: Tavon Austin (10), Noah Brown (85), Amari Cooper (19), Randall Cobb (18), Reggie Davis (11), Michael Gallup (13), Allen Hurns (17), Lance Lenoir (14), Devin Smith (15), Cedrick Wilson Jr. (16)

Tight ends: Rico Gathers (80), Blake Jarwin (89), Codey McElroy (84), Dalton Schultz (86), Jason Witten (82)

Offensive linemen: Jake Campos (T, 63), La’el Collins ( T, 71), Cameron Fleming (T, 75),Travis Frederick (C, 72), Joe Looney (C/G, 73), Zack Martin (G, 70), Adam Redmond (C/G, 61) Tyron Smith (T, 77 ), Dustin Stanton (G), Xavier Su’a-Filo (G, 76), Cody Wichmann (G, 78),Connor Williams (G, 52)

Defensive linemen: Dorance Armstrong Jr. (DE, 92), Taco Charlton (DE, 97), Maliek Collins (DT, 96), Christian Covington (DT, 95), Tyrone Crawford (DT/DE, 98), Kerry Hyder (DT/DE, 62), Demarcus Lawrence (DE, 90 ), Robert Quinn (DE, 58 ), Daniel Ross (DT, 93), Shakir Soto ( DE, 67), Antwaun Woods (DT, 99)

Linebackers: Chris Covington (OLB, 59), Sean Lee (OLB, 50), Justin March-Lillard OLB (53), Kyle Queiro (OLB/SS, 41), Jaylon Smith (MLB/OLB, 54), Joe Thomas (MLB, 48),Leighton Vander Esch (OLB/MLB, 55)

Defensive backs: Chidobe Awuzie (CB, 24 ), Anthony Brown (CB, 30), Treston Decoud (CB/FS, 34), Kavon Frazier (SS/FS, 35), C. J. Goodwin (CB, 29),Jeff Heath (SS/FS, 38 ), George Iloka (SS, 20), Byron Jones (CB, 31), Jourdan Lewis (CB, 27), Donovan Olumba (CB, 32 ), Jameill Showers (SS/FS, 28),Darian Thompson (FS), Xavier Woods (FS/CB, 25)

Summary of History

Formed in 1960, as the NFL at long last awarded another franchise breaking up the monopoly in the South by Washington Redskins’ and despite the stiff opposition of owner George Preston Marshall, the newly form franchise constituted of head coach Tom Landry (1960–1988), general manager Tex Schramm. Their journey in the professional football began horribly as a five successive seasons of losing record and the opening totally disastrous opening season of 1960 with 1 tie and 11 defeats. Before they turn around, beginning a 1965 7-7, following in 1966 and ’67, winning both the divisional and conference championships in each season. During this first half of the 60s, few distinctively better players were Don Meredith, Don Perkins, Chuck Howley, Lee Roy Jordan, Mel Renfro, Bob Hayes, and Dan Reeves.

Following 1965 the Cowboys achieved a 20 years at a stretch winning seasons and in 1966 they berthed their first ever playoffs. In 1969 the Cowboys signed quarterback Roger Staubach, who led the team twice in Super Bowl victories along with 5 NFC titles. For a new team the Cowboys appeared relatively much quicker, within just a decade they appeared in their first Super Bowl (1970) but lost to the Colts 13-16, but in the following year, they managed to clinch their first ever Super Bowl victory by beating Miami Dolphins, 24-3. They repeated their Super Bowl victory in 1977 by defeating the Denver Broncos 27–10, in between they had seasons of winning records, they did appear in the 1975 and 1978 Super Bowls in which they lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers in both of the times respectively by 17-21 and 31-35. Few key players of the 70s, apart from one of the most distinguished quarterbacks Roger Staubach, were Bob Lilly, Randy White, Rayfield Wright, Tony Dorsett, and Mel Renfro.

The 80s was a mixed decade for the Cowboys, many off-field things happened, the club changed hands and their longtime coach got fired. Beginning from 1980 they lost 3 successive seasons’ conference championships. In 1984, Murchison sold the Cowboys to H. R. “Bum” Bright, who later sold the Cowboys to Jerry Jones in 1989. Jones replaced the team’s longtime coach Tom Landry by Jimmy Johnson. Landry last season for the Cowboys was first losing a season, 3-13 since 1964. Though Johnson’s opening season was the team’s worst record ever, 1-15, for a season. Unlike the 70s the team’s performance declined during the 80s, though a few playoff berths and a couple of divisional titles, don’t match up with the past prominence of the team. But Jhonson turned the team around after some time, following some very reasonable drafts and trading of players, one such key draft pick was quarterback Troy Aikman of UCLA and the following year Emmitt Smith.

With a flurry of very measured and well-chosen beginning from 1989, the Cowboys quickly got back in the winning track that reflected by their Super Bowl victory thrice in the decade, led by ‘The Triplets’ Troy Aikman, Michael Irvin, and Emmitt Smith. The Cowboys won successive 1992 and 1993 Super Bowl by beating the Buffalo Bills in both their championship encounter by respectively 52-17 and 30-13 and again in 1995 by beating the Pittsburgh Steelers by 27-17. Nothing major did happen for the Dallas Cowboys following their Super Bowl title of 1995, they headed toward a steep decline, a quite a few divisional titles though but they had to remain satisfied with that. This meritocracy can be attributed to many factors along with injuries, age and free agency. From 1997 to 2011, the team had quite a few short term head coach appointment, a total of 5 head coaches in 12 years. Though they had a strong regular season in 2014, 12-4, followed by a reciprocal season in 2015, 4-12 and in 2018 they finished their regular season 10-6, winning the divisional title and beginning the later 90s till now they couldn’t able to come out of their mediocrity.

Championships of Dallas Cowboys

League titles (5)
Super Bowl (5): VI (1971), XII (1977), XXVII (1992), 1993(XXVIII), 1995 (XXX)

Conference titles (10)
NFL Eastern: 1966, 1967
NFC: 1970, 1971, 1975, 1977, 1978, 1992, 1993, 1995

Divisional titles (24)
NFL Eastern: 1966
NFL Capitol: 1967, 1968, 1969
NFC East: 1970, 1971, 1973, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1981, 1985, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1998, 2007, 2009, 2014, 2016, 2018

Most Notable Players

Over in about 60 years among many standing out players that played with the Dallas Cowboys are:

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas_Cowboys
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Dallas-Cowboys
https://www.profootballhof.com/teams/dallas-cowboys/team-history/