A chronicle of the season · Anno 2026
“We Were Great Once”
Three thrones in four winters in the early 1990s. And then nothing — not a conference championship appearance since, which is now thirty years of the most valuable, most televised, most discussed house in the realm arriving every January with nothing to show.
Every autumn they are declared rich. Every winter they are eliminated by someone poorer. It has happened so many times that the realm has stopped finding it interesting, which Dallas finds more insulting than the losing.
Dak Prescott. Reliable, well-paid, and permanently on trial. He has been good for a decade in a house where good has never been the question. The question is January, and he has not been given many chances to answer it.
Last year: 7–9–1. Not even a proper failure.
Gary by trade, Javonte Williams extended, Aubrey paid. Modest work for a house of this size — Dallas spent the offseason patching rather than rebuilding, after a season that finished under .500.
“This is the year.” Said every August. Said with real feeling.
Baltimore let John Harbaugh go after eighteen seasons. New York, which won four games last year, hired him — and his first night in the colours was a Sunday-night win over Dallas.
The line you say tomorrow“Eighteen years at Baltimore, and they let him go — so John Harbaugh went to New York and beat Dallas in front of the whole realm.”