Dallas Cowboys Not 'America's Team,' Says NBC & ProFootballTalk.com in Trolling Fail
FRISCO - Once again, casual observers - or trolls - are failing to understand what "America's Team'' means.
The latest stab at trying to assign the Dallas Cowboys' nickname to another team comes courtesy of the good folks at NBC and ProFootballTalk.com, with the latter reflecting on the weekend ratings by writing the following:
"Football Night in America'' host Maria Taylor has suggested a couple of times in recent weeks that the Jets might be the new America’s Team. And she might be right.
What is Taylor's reasoning? What is PFT's reasoning? It seems that Sunday’s Eagles vs. Jets game brought more than 26 million viewers to Fox, and that now each of the top three most-watched games of the year have involved the Jets.
So ... the Jets are "America's Team of the Month''?!
America's Team
We assume Taylor is aware of how this really works, and we're sure PFT does ... and that PFT is simply trying to gain some poke-the-bear traction with its outrageous headline, "The New York Jets might be the new America's Team.''
But just in case: The Jets being a popular attraction on TV in the first few weeks of a singular NFL season is a blip on the radar in terms of NFL popularity, which is of course founded in decades of fandom. (We also assume, without even looking it up, that one of those "highly-rated Jets games'' was against Dallas, meaning it was actually a "highly-rated Cowboys game.'')
But there is something more here, something bigger than a month of TV ratings, something bigger than even the Patriots or the Steelers or the 49ers winning multiple Super Bowls in an era: No matter how many times and no matter how many teams stake their claim - as new Washington owner Josh Harris recently did when he said, "I’ve seen the numbers: The Commanders were once the No. 1 franchise in the NFL back when they were the Redskins, not the Dallas Cowboys'' - the Cowboys are "America's Team,'' because ...
That's the Cowboys' nickname. Dallas as "America's Team'' is etched in stone. It's not a trophy that changes hands year to year based on the whims of the media or even on the Super success of a franchise.
Pittsburgh is "The Steel Curtain.'' Not even in a season in which the Steelers defense isn't impregnable do the Ravens or the Dolphins get to call themselves, "The Steel Curtain.'' The Montreal Canadiens are "Les Habs,'' regardless of whether they have a poor season. "Bronx Bombers,'' "Phi Slamma Jamma,'' "The Purple People Eaters,'' "Monsters of the Midway''? These concepts are not transferrable. They are ... official.
NFL Films created the Cowboys-as-"America's Team'' connection in 1978. It stuck, for better ... and yes, sometimes for worse, when Dallas fails and gets mocked for it. And that's all the more reason Cowboys Nation owns it.
The Jets being interesting? That'll come and go. The Dallas Cowboys as "America's Team''? Trolls and casuals aside, that's forever.
