ARLINGTON, Texas -- After the confetti was swept into a trash can and all of the champagne bottles were sent to the recycling bin, a familiar stench flowed from the Dallas Cowboys' locker room once again.
You've smelled it before too much to not realize what we are all drinking. I'm talking about an overpriced bottle of Dom Ahver-hage. The packaging is pretty, and the label is gorgeous, but in the end it tastes like something you could have purchased at the drugstore for $4.99.
Dom Ahver-hage: the stuff not of champions but rather the truly mediocre who confuse relevance for success.
The Dallas Cowboys improved to 2-2 after Dan Bailey 2.0 drilled the game-winning field goal as time expired to defeat the Detroit Lions on Sunday at Jerry's Club.
Running back Ezekiel Elliott was as good as he's ever been as a Cowboy. Dak Prescott played as well as he has since his rookie year.
The kicker from the Canadian Football League made us forget Bailey with his 38-yard, game-winning field goal that sent all North Texans to the souvenir stand to buy more Cowboys' merchandise they have to have.
For those of you who want offensive coordinator Scott Linehan fired, Jason Garrett sent to Estonia and Dak Prescott traded to the Golden State Warriors in return for DeMarcus Cousins, Sunday's result is killing both your dreams, and this team.
No NFL franchise owns the "interesting" game quite like the Cowboys under Garrett, and it's either destroying, or making, the team.
You can't bottom out if you're always right near the middle.
In the eyes of our Pro Football Hall of Fame owner and general manager, Sunday's win is a sign that his favorite toy is traveling down the playoff-conveyor belt.
In the eyes and hearts of these weary and beaten-down fans, Sunday's win is another sign that Jerry's toy is going to tease us all and wind up right around .500 once again.
Since Garrett was named the head coach of the Cowboys and molded into Jerry Jones' vision as his Tom Landry, Garrett always keeps it close.
The Cowboys have played a total of 116 regular-season games with Garrett as the permanent head coach. I know. It feels like 516 games.
Of those games, they have been either .500 or one game above or below that mark 62 times.
Other than two periods in Garrett's tenure -- during the 2014 and 2016 seasons -- the Cowboys can't quit their love affair with Miss Mediocrity.
Whether Garrett's quarterback is Tony Romo, Jon Kitna or Prescott, the team knows how to flirt. The only time they couldn't even tease us was when Coach Process' QBs were Brandon Weeden and Matt Cassel.
Mediocrity wanted nothing to do with those two.
So even after the Cowboys played so poorly one week ago in Seattle where they could only barely move the ball sideways, their return home to defeat a Detroit Lions team that just blew out the Patriots should not be a surprise.
This is what they do.
After one month of the regular season, they are doing it to us again.
While the defense was not great, Zeke was on Sunday. He played as well as an offensive player possibly could against Detroit. He had 240 total yards, and proved definitively he is their No. 1 wide receiver, too.
Dak was efficient, and threw some gorgeous, pinpoint passes, as well as two touchdowns.
The decision to go with Brett Maher over Bailey is playing out well.
And now they all head down Interstate 45 to Houston to play a weak Texans team that is barely 1-3.
We all want the Cowboys' result on Sunday to be the start of one of those long winning streaks that good teams assemble. We also know better. Including his stretch as the interim head coach in 2010, Garrett has coached 124 regular-season games for the Cowboys; he has winning streaks of four games or more a total of four times.
So let us all revel in this win over the Detroit Lions, and try to forget what we are drinking is not the stuff of champions but a $4.99 bottle of Dom Ahver-hage.
Sports on 10/02/2018