For over the last 50 years, I’ve been a Dallas Cowboys fan. But now I’m tired. Very tired of writing about an NFL team who no longer cares about winning, let alone its fans.

For years, I have written critical comments about the team and the person responsible for the Boys misfortunes: Jerry Jones. And with justified reason: I became a fan of the Cowboys because I saw players like Roger Staubach, an underrated Danny White, Tony Hill, Drew Pearson, Tony Dorsett, Randy White, “Too Tall” Jones and a very long etcetera — a team with personality led by the immortal Tom Landry.

I became a fan of them because they also represented something bigger than football, a team with personality and good principles. 

Later I lived through the last, bad Tom Landry years until Jimmy Johnson arrived, with his great coaching staff and players from my generation like Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith, Michael Irvin and a savage defense that could well have been called Doomsday III. 

While Staubach was a model of sportsmanship, good conduct, resilience, and never giving up (he wasn’t called “Captain Comeback” for nothing), Aikman was the leader of a team that ushered in a new era—the 1990s: tough, tenacious, and precise. He wasn’t known for putting up big numbers, but he was known for stepping up when it mattered most. Aikman was a killer in the big stage.

I watched the Dallas Cowboys win four of their five Super Bowls. Yes, I even applaud a lot what Barry Switzer did to give the team that fifth ring in 1995. 

But for me, the Cowboys were not just a football team, but an example of life in many other senses: teamwork, leadership, the embodiment of the American Way.

But I am tired now. I have watched the Chan Gaileys, Dave Campos, Jason Garretts go by and seen how generations were wasted with Bill Parcells, Wade Phillips and Mike McCarthy.

The Cowboys have had two quarterbacks who could have gone very far, but they’ve never had enough talent around them: Tony Romo and Dak Precott. Their playoff failures have always been due to the fact that the coach at the time wanted them to be the ones to decide the games.

The current head coach, Brian Schottenheimer, sold Jerry Jones a fantasy. He’s in the NFL because he’s the son of a legend like Marty Schottenheimer, but nothing more. He has no talent. Not for an NFL team. To lead the Cowboys, you need a General, not a coach who’s friends with the players. You need someone who commands respect. And Schotty isn’t that person.

And to say that after having had Jason Garrett for almost a decade is a bit much.

This year, they topped it off by hiring a Defensive Coordinator who comes from the worst enemy: the Eagles. Christian Parker is either a Trojan horse or simply like Schottenheimer: inept for the NFL. If last season the Dallas defense waas awful, this one is historically bad, maybe their worst defense ever.

The last performance by the Dallas Cowboys against Tampa Bay was the final nail in the coffin of a team that has been dead for 30 years, and nobody has told them. Poorly prepared, poorly coached, unable to adapt on the fly, and worst of all, soulless.

Thank you, Cowboys. You have been part of my life for half a century. But it no longer makes sense to keep writing about you or worrying about you while you continue to be run from the top by an extraordinary businessman but a terrible General Manager who, like the Ouroboros, has eaten himself.

The Dallas Cowboys are dead. They have been that way for years. They just need someone to tell them.