I recently had a (very) minor surgical procedure to remove something called a pilar cyst.  They’re benign but can get annoying, they run in my family, and I’ve had 2-3 removed.  In short, they don’t mean anything and they’ve been with me a long time.

The procedure to have these things removed involves getting numbed up with lidocaine, feeling some general pulling and tugging sensations as something is removed, and then a gradual increase in pain as the lidocaine wears off and your head realizes that someone just stuck a sharp object into it and tore a chunk of (fingers crossed), benign tissue out, before sewing the whole thing up.

Which is a lot like rooting for the Cowboys these days.

And with that, your 2025 Dallas Cowboys, keeping in mind I’ve done no research, my head hurts, and I’m two beers in.

On offense Dak! Dak! Dak! is back, and that’s generally good news.

In the regular season.

Cee Dee Lamb is back too, still rich, and still talented.  Is he the best WR in the NFL?  MAYBE! Top 3 anyway.  Dallas also gave TE Jake Ferguson an ungodly amount of money to be a safety valve for Dak, which honestly?  not a bad investment.  They traded Pittsburgh a bag of magic beans for George Pickens.  I think that was a good trade for both teams, as Pickens goes to a team with other receiving options and a very good (regular season) QB, and Pittsburgh gets some draft picks that they could maybe use to draft a QB and some other receiving options.

Dallas will apparently try to win without a running back.

Brandon Aubrey kicks for the Cowboys, and he’s very good at it.  Probably because he got so much practice at it when the offense bogged down without Dak last year and he had to kick a 50+ yard field goal.  Whatever the reason, Dallas’s kicking game is solid.

Dallas as a new coach!  That’s good!  The new coach is a Schottenheimer!  That’s just as good as Dak!  In the regular season!

Look, I have no idea how Brian Schottenheimer will be as a head coach.  He’s probably better than Mike McCarthy, simply by not being Mike McCarthy.  If he’s anything like his old man, Brian will go 14-3 in the regular season, then bomb out in the NFC championship game.

As Sydney Sweeney might say, it’s in the genes.

On defense, the Dallas…

You know what?  Fuck it.

Dallas lucked into Micah Parsons when he somewhat inexplicably fell to them at #12.  Parsons has been pretty much All-World since, an absolute wrecking ball when he’s on the field, the kind of guy who an offense game plans around, and who a good defensive coordinator can build a game plan around every week by exploiting the opponents focus on Parsons to allow other players to run amok.

So now Parsons, in the 4th year of his 5-year rookie deal, would like to GET PAID.  Jerry Jones, who is fucking crazy, and possibly racist-curious, is almost definitely a shitty negotiator, and did I mention is definitely fucking crazy, is refusing to sign him and being annoying to the point that Parsons is requesting trades and napping on training tables during games.

Are Parsons and his agent without sin in this?  Probably not.  Is Parsons a billionaire NFL owner whose only limit on his future earning ability is the cold hand of Death, which in certain situations

could speed things up any time now?

Also no.

Micah Parsons plays a demanding position in what is probably the most physically destructive sport, with the shortest window to actually make money that there is short of drunk bullfighting.  I am never going to criticize a player for holding out to get what is theirs, especially when they’ve more than earned it, and Parsons has.  Instead, however, Cowboy fans are left to watch another off-season where a megalomaniac owner drags negotiations out unnecessarily, alienating a player and, increasingly, the fan base, for no purpose other than his own ego.

So yeah, the defense is “I don’t know” until they get Parsons back onto the team and happy.  Frankly they’re probably not great with him.  Look at that roster and tell me one person not named Micah Parsons that an offensive coordinator looks at and says “hoo boy, better game plan for him!”

You can’t do it.

So the defense is going to be mediocre with Parsons, and probably roll over and show its belly as though it were Chuck Schumer faced with a constitutional crisis without him.

What does this mean for Dallas?  To me it takes us back to the halcyon days of 2020, back when nothing bad at all was happening, when Dallas had tissue paper for a defense and an offense that had Dak throwing to Lamb, Amari Cooper, occasionally Michael Gallup, handing off to a-not-dead-yet Ezekiel Elliott, and doing things like losing 38-31 and 49-38, while winning 40-39 or 37-34.

At least until Dak shredded his Achilles, but let’s not talk about that.

I suspect this will be the same sort of season, although hopefully without Dak shredding any limbs and being able to finish the season.  Looking at the schedule

I have them going 8-9, including a horrific 0-6 stretch to almost end the season.

Thank god for the Giants, and that’s only if Jaxxxxxxxxxxon Dart plays like you’d think someone with that name would play like.  If Russell Wilson discovers the fountain of youth, or Dart can actually play, it’s probably 7-10, at best.

I’d rather skip the lidocaine next time around.