There’s no way around it. This has been a tough offseason for Dallas Cowboys fans. After another heartbreaking exit in the playoffs, followed by a false promise of going all in, Cowboys fans have justifiably been in pessimistic mode this offseason.
However, maybe many didn’t realize just how bad it got, and this latest finding paints a bleak picture of Cowboys fans’ thoughts heading into the new season.
Cowboys Fans Heading Into 2024 on the Pessimistic Side
With the NFL season set to kick off tonight, The Athletic decided to take a temperature check of the 32 fan bases before Week 1 action commenced. As you can imagine, Kansas City Chiefs fans and even San Francisco 49ers fans are optimistic and pumped up about the new season.
However, on the other side — like, completely on the opposite side — resides the Cowboys and some other far less eager fans.
The Athletic polled fans to see how optimistic they are going into the season. I charted that against each team's odds to win the Super Bowl.
Cowboys fans are really going through it, huh? pic.twitter.com/E0HIC01kZU
— Sam Hoppen (@SamHoppen) September 5, 2024
Sam Hoppen decided to take a wide view of the league’s fan bases, and he discovered that the Cowboys have one of the three most pessimistic fan bases in the NFL right now. In fact, only the New York Giants and New Orleans Saints feel worse about their teams’ chances this season than Cowboys Nation does.
Dallas’ fans are only 20% optimistic about making it to the Super Bowl compared to their 4% implied odds. For comparison’s sake, the Chiefs have an implied Super Bowl odd of over 12% and are teetering on the brink of 100% optimism this season.
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It’s a stark difference between the two franchises, but it probably perfectly illustrates the difference between a team in search of their third consecutive Super Bowl title with one just trying to get back to the game for the first time in nearly 30 years.
Perhaps some winning this season will change the tune of Dallas fans. But as they would probably remind you themselves, it’s less about what you do in the regular season now and more about what you do in the postseason.
It appears Cowboys fans are in a true “show me, don’t tell me” phase. As a result, the fans are less than enthused about the upcoming season.
Almost 3 Decades of Falling Short Has Taken Its Toll
Every year, there is a certain feeling of excitement across all 32 fan bases. Whether accurate or misguided, the feeling of hope permeates throughout the league and sets the tone for what should be an exciting NFL season.
However, while much of that remains in Dallas, it appears that the scars are too fresh right now to be fully bought in.
This current crop of Cowboys players doesn’t own the misfortune of the past 28 years, but they do own their recent failures over the last five or six seasons.
A team often described as too good to be falling so short, the fans have seemingly reached their breaking point for blind hope. It’s this team’s bed, and they’re going to have to lie in it.
Of course, many fans will eagerly await the new season, but the numbers don’t lie. The scorned feelings of another playoff failure have lingered on much longer than many had expected.
However, if you have been paying attention to the Cowboys, this shouldn’t surprise you at all. This has become their M.O., so to speak. It’s something other fan bases have clung to as a reason to ridicule their Cowboys fans’ friends.
Well, as the 2024 season is upon us, no one appears to be more down on Dallas than Cowboys fans themselves, and it’s hard not to understand why.
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