Most often when a team misses the playoffs but comes into the following year with renewed enthusiasm that optimism is driven by a strong finish the previous season.
This year, the Dallas Cowboys have high expectations.
Of course, Jerry Jones, the Cowboys flamboyant owner, is always promoting his team as being on the cusp of another Super Bowl win. He’s been preaching that for 30 years, and “America’s Team” hasn’t won a Vince Lombardi Trophy since the 1995 season. And, despite this year’s optimism, the Cowboys closed out their 2025 campaign with losses in four of their final five games.
What is driving the high expectations in Big D now?
Perhaps it is based on the regular season performances of their long tenured starting quarterback, Dak Presoctt.
Prescott is talked up by Jones each year as if he were the likes of Roger Staubach or Troy Aikman, the only two quarterbacks in Cowboys history to guide Dallas to Super Bowl victories. Prescott has stats that rank him among the best quarterbacks in the league if only factoring in the regular season. Prescott in the playoffs has been a dismal failure.