Cowboys Country

Dallas Cowboys Can Win Super Bowl; Will DFW Ever Again Host One?

Next Cowboys' Super Bowl, Kyrie Irving's crystal (basket)ball for Mavs, Rangers for real, and a Spartan existence, all in this week's DFW sports notebook.

Richie Whitt

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WHITT'S END 5.26.23

Whether you’re at the end of your coffee, your day, your week or even your rope, welcome to Whitt’s End …

*Which will happen first: The Dallas Cowboys win a Super Bowl, or merely host one?

It’s been 27 long years since they won Super Bowl XXX. But, don’t look now, it’s also been 12 – and counting – since XLV was played in Arlington’s then-Cowboys Stadium.

With quality acquisitions on both sides of the ball after consecutive 12-win seasons, the team believes it is knocking on the door. But with NFL owners this week approving another Super Bowl for Santa Clara, Calif., does it signal a permanent pass for a return of the game to North Texas?

As we remember all too well, February 2011 was an unmitigated disaster. An ice storm ground Super Bowl week to a near standstill. Our roads became icebergs. Chunks of snow/ice fell off the roof of the stadium and injured seven people. A ticket/seat fiasco led to multiple lawsuits from fans.

The NFL hasn’t forgotten, either.

The San Francisco 49ers’ Levi’s Stadium hosted Super Bowl 50 in 2016, and has now been awarded LX on February 8, 2026. That’s twice in 10 years, while the Cowboys and their 100,000-seat, $1.2 billion cathedral will go at least 15 years without a second chance. (This season’s Super Bowl will be played in Las Vegas; 2025 in New Orleans.)

The league briefly considered Arlington as an alternative site during the pandemic in 2021, but …

“What we’ve really run into is the NFL likes to, when you build a new stadium, they really like to take that market and give it the big bump that goes with that new stadium and have a Super Bowl in that area,” Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said in 2022. “And I think that more than anything, the building of other new stadiums, has kept us from having another one sooner than we have.”

But with a return to the Bay Area, Jerry’s rationale no longer holds water. His peers continue to turn a cold shoulder.

The World Cup covets a championship game at AT&T Stadium, but not the NFL.

DFW: Home of futbol, but not football?

*Timeout, Dallas Mavericks fans. Sure, Kyrie Irving sat courtside for two Los Angeles Lakers games this postseason. But, as he reminded this week, it don’t mean diddly-poo without his shoe. In his first press conference as a Maverick last February, Irving was asked about signing with the team long-term and he cautioned that he wouldn’t have his free-agent road map until after he negotiated a new shoe contract this Summer. 

He lost his deal with Nike this season, and is apparently in talks with both Adidas and Puma. So when his new shoe is known, then we can begin making educated guesses about his new team. Until then …

*For a short blip this week, the Texas Rangers had the best run differential in all of baseball. A 31-18 start, despite the combustible bullpen. And despite those two horrendous losses to the Oakland A’s (who are now 10-41!).

*Call me crazy, but wading through waist-deep, muddy creek water while carrying a 60-pound sandbag, crawling under 100 yards of barbed wire and then jumping over fire in a Spartan race on the Hill Country outside Austin makes it much easier to deal with life’s little obstacles. The more comfortable you become with being uncomfortable, the less uncomfortable you will become.

*Pathetically penultimate. The next-to-last home games were memorable for all the wrong reasons this season for the Mavs and Dallas Stars. As in, they both quit. 

While still mathematically alive for a playoff berth, the Mavs decided to sit their starters and purposely lose to the Chicago Bulls in order to hang onto their NBA Lottery draft pick. Embarrassing! Tuesday night at American Airlines Center was even worse, as the Stars lost 4-0 to the Las Vegas Golden Knights in Game 3 of the Western Conference Finals. 

The lowlights included giving up a goal one minute into the game, having captain Jamie Benn ejected for a unnecessarily violent hit, pulling their starting goalie in the first period, a fan getting hit in the face by a wayward puck, and later the crowd pelting opposing players with popcorn and the ice with so much trash that the second period had to be delayed. Embarrassing x 2! 

Cherry on the sad sundae: Cowboys’ quarterback Dak Prescott was in attendance and when showed on the video screen, he was loudly booed. Keep it classy, Stars fans.

*Hot.

*Not.

*No Cowboys, not Adrian Peterson! It’s not about the fact that he once admitted to beating his 4-year-old son with a tree branch. And it’s not that the Cowboys don’t need a veteran running back to support starter Tony Pollard. 

It’s just that, if you’re a fan of Emmitt Smith, you’re not a fan of Peterson. He’s a good 3,437 yards behind Emmitt, so catching him as the NFL’s all-time leading rusher is unrealistic. But Peterson is the closest active player. Behind him is Derek Henry (42nd) and a fellow named Ezekiel Elliott (43rd), both more than 10,000 yards behind Emmitt. Peterson retires and Emmitt’s record may become unbreakable.

*This week I saw a pickup cut through a gas station to avoid a red light, and multiple cars totally ignore and blow through the same stop sign at a parking lot crosswalk. Ever wonder how we got here? “The rules don’t apply to me!”, that’s how.

*If the Miami Heat finally extinguish the Boston Celtics, the Mavs will be a part of this year’s NBA Finals. Sorta. If it’s Heat-Denver Nuggets, you’ll see countless stories about the 2021 exchange of dirty hits between Nikola Jokic and then-Heat forward Markieff Morris. Markieff, in case you weren’t paying attention, came to Dallas in the Kyrie trade.

*At the Spartan event last weekend I struck up a conversation with a guy whose family moved six years ago to Texas from Iran. “To tell the truth, your people complain too much,” he said. “In Iran there is no music, no dancing and women get beaten to death for not wearing their Hijab properly.” Check. Mate.

*I told you late last year that former Rangers pitcher Derek Holland was going to attempt a comeback. It took a minute but, sure enough, he’s pitching for a small-time team in Pennsylvania. Couldn’t be any worse than Texas’ bullpen arms, could he? In the last month Rangers starters have an ERA of 2.97; relievers 6.61.

*You go ahead and fixate on complaining about the people getting into Texas because of “open borders,” I’ll go ahead and worry about the ones already here in positions of power. Like, say, attorney general Ken Paxton, who is accused of securities improprieties, misconduct in claiming 2020 voter fraud, and using his office to assist a big donor who, in turn, helped him remodel his home and hire him a mistress. Four aides who blew the whistle on Paxton’s illegal actions were – curiously? – promptly fired. But about those immigrants?

*One year ago on Memorial Day we were convinced the Cowboys were going to minimize the loss of receiver Amari Cooper with the shrewd signing of … James Washington. Then he suffered a knee injury in training camp, played in only two games with one pass thrown his way, and now plays for the New Orleans Saints. 

CowboysSI.com has eyeballs inside The Star for these workouts. Still ... Moral to the story: Let’s not get too revved up about what we may or may not see in OTAs, deal?

*So in 2023 we might see the final games played by Tom Brady, LeBron James and … Miguel Cabrera. “Miggy” obviously is no “GOAT”, but in his 20-year career he has 3,000 hits, 500 homers, two MVPs, four batting titles, a Triple Crown, 12 All-Star teams, a World Series title and a first-ballot ticket to Cooperstown. Not a bad trio.

*The French Open starts this weekend in Paris and I’m an admitted tennis geek. But with 14-time winner Rafael Nadal injured and not playing, it’s dead to me. The French Open without Rafa is like the Mavs without Dirk.

*This Weekend? Friday let’s take Dad to the Senior PGA tourney in Frisco. Saturday let’s hang out with Big Brothers Big Sisters lil’ bro Ja. Sunday let’s head to the tennis court. Memorial Day Monday let’s take the Murph Challenge, and then hang by the pool. As always, don’t be a stranger.

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Richie Whitt
RICHIE WHITT

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