Steve Young: Cowboys can win the Super Bowl but lack ‘grit’
DALLAS (BVM) – The Dallas Cowboys enter the postseason with the ability to make it to the Super Bowl. They’re healthy, have talent on both sides of the ball and begin the playoffs against a Tampa Bay Buccaneers team that limped into the playoffs after winning the NFC South.
“I would not be shocked if they’re phenomenal and really ran the table in the NFC, wouldn’t shock me,” Steve Young said on BVM Sports’ Simple Question. “But it also wouldn’t shock me if they get beat this weekend by a Buc team that can’t run the football, can’t really protect, can’t get down and get open very much.”
Dallas enters the postseason after losing to a Sam Howell-led Washington Commanders team. The Cowboys still had a shot at winning the NFC East when they went to Washington but put together one of their worst outings of the season. Prescott went 14-for-37 for 128 yards, one touchdown and one interception, while Dallas was only able to get six points on the scoreboard.
Then there are games like the 40-3 thrashing the Cowboys gave to the Minnesota Vikings in Week 11. Tony Pollard led the team in rushing and receiving, Prescott only missed on three passes and Micah Parsons had two sacks.
“The Cowboys should win the Super Bowl, Jerry Jones told you all year, ‘I have a Super Bowl roster,’” Young said. “I feel like that’s a reasonable statement but it doesn’t come out in its actual usefulness. We get this up and down, this mercurial kind of flashes of brilliance and then wandering.”
Young believes it’s a lack of grit that has caused Dallas to play like a contender one week and then lose to the Commanders the next week.
“It has to be, like any team that doesn’t show the requisite grit to go and kind of reprove how great you are, they’re missing something in the locker room and most of the time it’s not talent,” Young said. “It’s somehow how the interaction of the group and the leadership doesn’t bring forward the grit that is necessary to go every week to prove we have a Super Bowl roster.”
The Cowboys have the roster but now there is no room for error. The grit needs to be there or they need to at least fake it until it shows up. The locker room has players that can bring that, and Parsons immediately comes to mind.
Man I’m in playoff mode fu** that list! Congrats to those that made it tho! They deserve it !
— Micah Parsons (@MicahhParsons11) January 11, 2023
Luckily, Tampa Bay has struggled all season but Tom Brady is still on the roster. Brady has shown all season what happens when you give him a chance to win late. If Dallas doesn’t put the game away early, another Brady moment could end its season.
“Tom’s there so game on,” Young said.