Ranking the top 5 Dallas Cowboys teams since 2007

Last year, Dallas entered the season with high hopes after missing the playoffs two years in a row. They lived up to regular-season expectations as they ran away with the division, finishing three games ahead of Philadelphia.

This biggest flaw of this Cowboys team was exposed in the first round of the playoffs, this time against a much more physically dominant San Francisco 49ers squad. Another recurring theme that bit QB Dak Prescott and the ‘Boys in the butt was clock/time management.

With 14 seconds remaining in regulation, down by six points with no timeouts, Prescott ran the ball down the middle of the field, failing to leave himself enough time to spike the ball. That play is a microcosm of the Cowboys and their fortunes over the past 25 years.

After Dallas’ latest win over the Minnesota Vikings 40-3, everyone is back on the bandwagon they’d jumped off just a week ago after they dropped a “gimme” to their old nemesis, Green Bay. This is life following the Cowboys. It’s one extreme to the other week to week.

Early in the year, when Prescott was out, and Cooper Rush filled in, everyone was high on Dallas because of how they’d looked with a backup and how dominant the defense was playing. They lost their first matchup with the Eagles, which wasn’t too big of a deal since Prescott was sidelined with a thumb injury. Plus, they had that bad loss to the Packers a couple of weeks ago.

After beating the brakes off the Vikings, Dallas is 7-3 and looking to keep pace with the Giants and Eagles in the formerly NFC least. They’ve still got a shot at making a great run, but until they do, all the Super Bowl talk needs to cease. Anything short of a trip to the NFC Championship Game will be a disappointment for this franchise and its fan base.

Another great regular-season team, but this one was led by young bucks Dak Prescott and Ezekiel Elliot. The Cowboys won 13 games and, at one point, went on an 11-game winning streak that year. Dallas’ rookie duo of Prescott and Elliot led the offense to a top-five ranking, and the defense wasn’t bad either, ranking in the top five in fewest points allowed.

But right on schedule, Big D ran into Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers once again, and was eliminated in the divisional round of the playoffs. Every time Dallas gets rolling and builds momentum, they run into Rodgers and the Packers, just like this year in the regular season. If the Cowboys had to point out one player/team as their kryptonite, it’d have to be Rodgers and Green Bay.

The 2014 season will forever be remembered for the Dez Bryant “no-catch” game where the Cowboys were on the cusp of making their first NFC Championship Game in nearly two decades. This was a surprise year for the Cowboys, where they won 12 games after going 8-8 in the previous three seasons and having not made the postseason in four.

It was also Tony Romo’s last full year (played in 15 games) as the Cowboys starter, with him appearing in just four games in 2015 and a preseason injury causing him to miss most of the 2016 season, he was replaced by Prescott. Those Cowboys teams under head coach Jason Garrett and Romo at QB always felt like they left too much on the table for the level of talent on the roster.

This was supposed to be the year Dallas returned to glory, with Tony Romo leading the way with a high-powered offense featuring Terrell Owens, Jason Witten, and Marion Barber pounding the rock. Romo finished second in touchdowns and third in yards, yards per game, and QBR.

It was the best season for the Cowboys in over a decade, as they won 13 games while capturing the No. 1 seed in the NFC and home-field advantage. Unfortunately, they ran into a Giants team in the divisional round that they’d swept during the regular season and beaten by double digits in both games.

That playoff upset was also surrounded by controversy, as this was the year Tony Romo (with then girlfriends Jessica Simpson), Jason Witten, and others traveled to Cabo San Lucas during the playoff bye week they’d earned. Whether it truly had anything to do with the team coming out flat against the Giants will never be known, but they sure got their share of criticism for the timing of their vacation.