DALLAS — The good news for the Dallas Cowboys is that if you were to be objective about these things, Dallas wouldn’t even rank among the league’s five biggest disappointments.

That list would have to include: Carolina 0-3 (down from 12-4), Pittsburgh 2-2 (defending Super Bowl champs still wobbly at times), Tennessee 0-4 (Titans won first 10 a year ago); San Diego 2-2 (after winning playoff games last two seasons); and Arizona 1-2 (trip to first Super Bowl seems hazy already).
Also, the Cowboys cannot be totally at fault for the depressing gray weather that has settled over this city and shown zero interest in leaving.
Beyond that, anything you might want to attach to a team tied with Washington in the NFC East is fair game.
One of the biggest surprises to me is that anyone wants to bother with playing the blame game on a 2-2 Cowboys team. A 9-7 team that pretty much sat out the draft in April and made no big splash in free agency — you thought this was a team bound for 12-4?
Of more relevance is to determine why the Cowboys have gone 12-12 since reaching the 12-1 mark late in 2007. Without question, the two favorite pinatas are those that feature the heads of coach Wade Phillips and quarterback Tony Romo.
(Note: There is no point in even trying to picture what the Jerry Jones pinata might look like. He’s the owner. He’s not going to fire himself. Get over it.)
My question is that when the Denver game was on the line and the Fox cameras brought you close-ups of Romo in the huddle or Phillips on the sidelines, which was a more depressing sight?
This wasn’t even a contest a year ago. It probably wasn’t fit for discussion even when Romo was giving away the Pittsburgh game or doing more than his fair share to embarrass the team in a 44-6 collapse in Philadelphia.
Wade had history on his side, if that’s a good way to put it. Phillips as defensive coordinator has almost always been a good thing in the NFL. Phillips as a head coach has never been the answer to anything that matters.
In seven full seasons, Phillips has led three teams to wild cards and the ’07 Cowboys to a division title. The 0-4 playoff record isn’t something easily written off.
Worse for now is the manner in which Phillips continues to dismiss defeats. How many coaches who ultimately won championships ever spent so much time discussing the good things his team did in a losing cause?
In Phillips’ eyes, the Cowboys always win something — the first-half battle, the yardage totals, whatever. When Brandon Marshall won Sunday’s game on a play in which the Cowboys had more poor tackling efforts than some coaches put up with in an entire game, Phillips’ response was to say he thought Marshall might have interfered with Terence Newman.
If you’re a Cowboys player, with the owner pumping his fist in the locker room or the sideline and the head coach unable or unwilling to visualize the disaster around him, accountability is someone else’s headaches.
That’s why Phillips still beats Romo in any argument as to the Cowboys’ biggest high-profile problem. But it has to be said that the quarterback is entering the discussion.
Life after Terrell Owens was supposed to create so much comfort for Romo, at least in the minds of those who wanted Owens gone. Instead, he still gets sacked and loses the ball and continues to throw interceptions at about his career rate of one per game.
With four TD passes in four games to go with all the troubles, Romo doesn’t even rank in the league’s top 20 for passer ratings. The easy confidence and self-assuredness that Cowboys fans fell for in 2006 is about as long gone from this team as Bill Parcells’ hard-line demeanor.
What many of us must stop doing in Romo’s defense is pointing to that shiny career record as if being 29-14 as a starter means something.
Most of the really nice part of that record was achieved in 2007. Few things are less relevant in the modern NFL than what was happening to a quarterback two years ago.
In 2007, Giants fans were booing Eli Manning, Packers fans were cheering Brett Favre and Ravens fans didn’t know Joe Flacco from Joey Buttafuoco.
It may have been coordinator Jason Garrett who chose Champ Bailey as the Bronco to attack with Sam Hurd — a laughable decision to examine on another day.
That doesn’t change the fact that Romo had a first-and-goal at the Denver 7 Sunday and couldn’t push the game into overtime.
We should not be shocked.
A few of the things that helped this team win in recent years are gone. Most of the things that made this a very average Cowboys team in 2008 remain in place.
New blood in the off-season, whether in the form of free agents or high draft picks, never arrived.
The Cowboys in 2009 are blessed with a new stadium and cursed with too familiar excuses.
Why should 2-2 surprise anyone?