I Was Wrong.

Yes. I was wrong. I was wrong about the 2014 Dallas Cowboys. I was wrong to think that they would go 0-16 after the opening loss to San Francisco, after what may have been the worst quarter in Cowboys history. When the Cowboys started reeling off wins, I was wrong to think that they would regress back to the mean and go 8-8.

After the Seattle game, I went around saying, “The Cowboys are only as good as Tony Romo’s back and DeMarco Murray’s hamstrings.” It looked as if that were true after the Washington game, when the heralded offensive line allowed a Redskins blitzer to put his knee in Romo’s back. It definitely looked as though that were true after the Arizona game, when Brandon Weeden did his impression of Ryan Leaf. But Romo recovered, fought through the pain, and led the Cowboys back to respectability.

And I figured it would end there. I thought before the Thanksgiving game that the Cowboys would finish the year 1-4 by losing all their games in December. It seemed as though that they would, after cratering badly in the Thanksgiving game. But Romo and company pulled up their socks, thrashed the Bears in Chicago, gave the Eagles some much-needed payback in Philadelphia, and beat the holy hell out of the Colts in Dallas before (for once) an adoring home crowd.

And now the Cowboys are NFC East champions.

I was wrong. Period. I was wrong to be pessimistic, wrong to put the sins of Cowboys squads of years past on this team, wrong to think that a Jason Garrett team could be competitive.

Having said that, I think there’s every chance that the Cowboys hork it up in the playoffs. I will be pleased to be wrong about that, too.