When the Cowboys last won a Super Bowl, moving their all-time total to five, the Eagles had been to only one — a loss in Super Bowl XV.
Since then, the Eagles have three Super Bowl appearances and two wins. The Cowboys haven’t even been back to an NFC Championship.
Hall of Fame running back Emmitt Smith, who hasn’t been bashful about bashing the ‘Boys in recent years, doesn’t like what has happened in the Dallas-Philly rivalry.
“I’m sick of it,” Smith said during an appearance on WIP Radio. “We have allowed others to nitpick at The Star and make fun of The Star and make fun of The Star and that’s what happens — now all of a sudden over the last 20 years, they win two Super Bowls and they think they’re the best thing on the planet, and everywhere I go I hear, ‘Go Birds.’ I’m sick of hearing, ‘Go Birds.’ I’m always asking where are you going? You still got a long way to go to get to us.”
But they’re getting there. The Eagles are far better positioned to get to the Super Bowl this year than the Cowboys, along with most of the other NFC teams.
“That part bugs me, it bugs me because in my heart I truly believe our organization should be contending for an NFC Championship and even a Super Bowl at least once or twice every decade because every team recycles every decade,” Smith said. “For us not to be there over the last 30 years is a crying shame.”
Indeed it is. And it’s not as if the Cowboys don’t have talent. But they don’t manage the talent well, in that they wait too long to reward it.
When it comes to paying key players, owner Jerry Jones and company drag their feet. Last year, they waited too long to extend the contracts of receiver CeeDee Lamb and quarterback Dak Prescott. If they’d moved more quickly, who knows? Maybe the Cowboys — not the Eagles — would have pilfered running back Saquon Barkley from the Giants.
Yes, New York routinely gets dragged for letting Barkley go. But anyone could have had him. And the Cowboys, who have spent plenty of time explaining away the decision to not sign running back Derrick Henry a year ago, could have had the guy who ended up being the very large straw in an extremely potent drink that propelled Philadelphia to another Super Bowl.
Meanwhile, the Cowboys missed the playoffs. Which makes it very hard to end the streak of non-appearances in the NFC Championship.
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