COMMENTARY

Cowboys become model of mediocrity

— Dallas Cowboys tight end Jason Witten opened training camp by saying that 2012 “can’t be the same old story” as the previous season, but five months later the Cowboys’ season came to another crashing end, and for the first time in franchise history they finished 8-8 in consecutive years.

It seems no matter what the Cowboys say or do of late, they can’t escape mediocrity.

The bottom line: The Cowboys are an average team in a league that strives for parity.

“The true world here in this age of parity, you’ve got to do something in my mind inordinate to shake out of parity,” Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said Friday. “Hopefully, we’ve got the tools to do that.”

Turns out, they don’t.

Two days after Jones’ comments, the Cowboys lost a playoffs-or-bust game on the road against a division opponent for a second consecutive year.

Witten was reminded of his training camp mantra Monday as players cleaned out their lockers at Valley Ranch.

“I believe in what I said,” Witten said. “It’s a bad feeling to have this feeling again. When you don’t do a good enough job, then it is the same old story, and that’s why we’re in this situation.”

How mediocre are the Cowboys?

They are 140-141 since they won their last Super Bowl to end the 1995 season.

They were 4-4 at home, 4-4 on the road and 3-3 in the NFC East this season.

Over past two seasons, the Cowboys have scored a total of 745 points and allowed a total of 747 points.

The Cowboys thought they took a big step toward escaping mediocrity when they signed seven free agents last off-season, headlined by giving cornerback Brandon Carr a $50 million contract. In the end, it wasn’t enough. Again.

So, how do the Cowboys propel themselves from the middle of the pack?

“You just got to get back up and do it again. We got to work harder,” Carr said. “We just have to be smarter so these same mistakes won’t keep coming up each week. It’s a game of inches right now, and we lost eight of those games due to the lack of detail. We have too much talent to be coming up short each week in ballgames that we should be winning.”

Nine teams — more than 25 percent of the league — finished with seven, eight or nine victories. Last season, 13 teams did so. The Cowboys were one of two teams to finish 8-8 this season and one of eight last season.

“There’s a reason for that, all the rules, all the economics, everything points to doing it that way,” Jones said. “That’s what you get when you’ve got everybody who can spend the same amount of money.”

Perhaps truer words have never been spoken by Jones. The Cowboys simply haven’t been the same since the NFL leveled the playing field by introducing a salary cap in the mid-1990s.

Jones was a much better general manager and owner when he could fix problems by continually throwing money at them.

The Cowboys are still the NFL’s wealthiest team, but they are handcuffed by a salary cap that ensures parity.

Only three teams in the NFL over the past two seasons finished either 8-8 or one game away from .500 in both years: the Cowboys (8-8 both years), Giants (9-7 both years) and San Diego (8-8 in 2011 and 7-9 in 2012).

“The expectations will be high again [next season], and we’ll have to go prove it,” Witten said. “It’s not anything magic that has to happen. You’ve just got to play winning football and do it consistently to give yourself a chance.”

Sports, Pages 16 on 01/02/2013

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