Does TV 'Flex Mean Cowboys Are Insignificant?

Does TV 'Flex Mean 'The Not-Ready-For-Prime-Time' Dallas Cowboys Are Insignificant?

FRISCO - The Dallas Cowboys were one of the most popular "TV shows'' in the world before Jerry Jones ever crossed the Arkansas-Texas border to buy the franchise. And, it can be theorized, the Cowboys will be one of the most popular "TV shows'' in the world well after Jones, 78, passes through "the fourth quarter'' of his life, as son Stephen puts it.

But this weekend? The Dallas Cowboys are a televised afterthought.

Sure, the Cowboys have reasons of "loss'' that pushed the NFL to utilize, for the first time ever, its "flex'' authority to move Dallas out of the previously scheduled prime-time slot. It was to be Niners at Cowboys on Sunday Night Football on NBC.

READ MORE: NFL Has Seen Enough: Cowboys Flexed Off Prime-Time TV

Instead, on Sunday at AT&T Stadium, it'll be a noon game, buried down there on the schedule where franchises like the Jacksonville Jaguars and Cincinnati Bengals and the New York Jets are accustomed to existing ...

“I think it’s a reflection of where we are right now as a football team,” coach Mike McCarthy said. “I mean, these are the types of things that I guess happen when you’re not successful. We’re disappointed in the season, make no bones about it.”

Those "reasons of loss''? They start with the early-season injury loss of QB Dak Prescott. He's a dramatic player and a dramatic presence, gone. But most of all, they continue with the Cowboys being 4-9, and presently not as interesting as the new Sunday night game, the Giants vs. Browns.

And a Dak-like note there: Each of those teams endured their own season-ending losses to high-profile offensive weapons, Saquon Barkley out for the year in New York and Odell Beckham Jr. out for the year in Cleveland.

Try as he might, Jerry Jones cannot downplay the significance of "America’s Team'' experiencing the humiliating, unprecedented insult of being flexed out of NBC prime time.

“Make no mistake about it,” Jones said. “I can tell you first-hand the Cowboys are the premier draw there is out here in television, period.”

That's absolutely true, in the big picture. The decades-long cumulative impact of the Cowboys on TV is unmatched. But we're not talking here about 1973 or 1993. We're talking about this particular Week 15 NFL Sunday, when Cowboys fans will watch while eating breakfast instead of drinking beer, or worse (for ratings) will allow themselves to linger at church or go clean out the garage or - in what would be a nightmarish decision hurting Dallas' pride and pocketbook - to maybe not watch at all.

But, argued the optimistic salesman Jones, "This is to the Cowboys’ advantage and will be because over the years we’ve had such huge television audience that the ability to flex us and move us around can make a lot of difference ... That’s not a bad strategy to put the Cowboys in a potentially lesser slot, i.e. prime time, and have more eyeballs watch the NFL.”

Yeah, but ... the NFL didn't do this to "take advantage'' of the viewership power of the Cowboys. It was done to "take advantage'' of the hoped-for viewership power of the Giants and Browns.

The Cowboys have been bad before. But they’ve never been irrelevant. And until we see the TV ratings result of "The 'Boys for Breakfast''? "Irrelevant'' will be a Jones family fear.