Cowboys falling short in every category during NFL Honors feels poetically and fittingly painful
No piece of hardware other than the Lombardi Trophy would lift up the spirit of a Dallas Cowboys team – and its fanbase – that got whooped in a home wild card playoff game so bad that it was over by halftime. That much is clear. And yet, Thursday night's NFL Honors put a poetically […]
No piece of hardware other than the Lombardi Trophy would lift up the spirit of a Dallas Cowboys team – and its fanbase – that got whooped in a home wild card playoff game so bad that it was over by halftime. That much is clear.
And yet, Thursday night's NFL Honors put a poetically painful end to the Cowboys 2023-2024 journey. In the one night they could've gotten a crappy but potentially enjoyable consolation prize, they were left waiting to hear their names called.
Despite having five finalists for major league awards, the Cowboys came away empty handed in every category.
Most notably, Dak Prescott's bid for MVP fell unsurprisingly yet convincingly short: Lamar Jackson got 49 first-place votes, the Cowboys quarterback none.
The one media member who didn't award Lamar a first-place MVP vote, analytics expert Aaron Schatz from FTN, gave it to the Buffalo Bills' Josh Allen, allotting Prescott at second and Jackson at third.
One day, maybe we'll happily remember that year Dak went bananas in the regular season and played better football that even Patrick Mahomes did. But for now, all we can think about is the fact that the latter is playing in the Super Bowl and Prescott's Cowboys failed to get a single playoff win.
Prescott also missed out on Offensive Player of the Year and so did his teammate CeeDee Lamb, who got one single first-place vote versus Christian McCaffrey's 39, Tyreek Hill's seven, and Lamar's three. Dak had no first-place votes in this category.
Not even Micah Parsons or DaRon Bland sniffed the Defensive Player of the Year. Parsons received seven first-place votes, less than half than T.J. Watt and Myles Garrett did.
In the grand scheme of things, none of it really matters. 2023 was about aiming for the Lombardi Trophy, not winning individual awards.
But the fact that CeeDee Lamb's 92-yard touchdown winning "Moment of the Year" is the biggest piece of hardware you brought home stings. It stings because falling short has gotten so easy to get used to with this Cowboys franchise.
On to 2024.
