The Worst-Case Scenario

Of course the Cowboys beat the Giants last night. It’s November. Of course they did. Of course Tony Romo led a stirring fourth-quarter comeback. It’s November. Of course he did.

I don’t hate Tony Romo. He has been a very serviceable quarterback for the Cowboys for a very long time. And every year, he’s done something that’s caused the Cowboys season to be over before it should have. Sometimes that’s just bad luck in getting hurt at the wrong time. More often, it’s incredibly bad decisions at the worst possible times.

This year, though, this year there hasn’t been a game (outside of the Week One stinkeroo against the hated 49ers) where Romo has underperformed. He got mauled by the Redskins–hard to blame him for losing that one, the way he got flattened, and of course wasn’t playing against the Cardinals. But when he’s played this year, he’s done well, if not heroically.

I think Tony Romo has one more good game in him. I think the Cowboys will win on Thursday. I think they will win nine games this year for what seems like the first time in forever.

And I think that the Cowboys will lose all four games in December, finish 9-7, miss the playoffs, and make me very, very unhappy.

This would require very bad, painful losses at Chicago and at Washington, teams that should be patsies at best. I am going to predict that they lose both games. I am basing this on years of experience at being a Cowboys fan, and because this defense could not tackle Mother Teresa in a flag football game.

I don’t know how this will happen, but it is what I believe will happen.

Having said that–even if it happens, just this way, I am going to be deeply disappointed and hurt by the outcome. I want to believe I’m wrong. I want to believe that this team is better than I think it is, that it has lost the habit of giving games away, that it has a quarterback that can take them to the post-season and make noise there.

I just know what the worst-case scenario is, and I hope the Cowboys can rise above it. It would be nice to be wrong, just once.