How Soon Before the Cowboys Crush This Fan's (Delusional??) Optimism?

The people's mailman called in from Texas, almost done with his route, somebody still waiting on a check, and he wanted to play the win loss game for the Dallas Cowboys. Rich knew exactly where this was headed.

"I don't know why we keep letting him pick the Cowboys," Rich said, and the table gave him grief before a single game got called. That did not stop them. The music came on. The mailman went to work.

He delivered, all right. Rich compared him to Shams, the reporter who can brunch and break news at the same time. The mailman could deliver mail and deliver Cowboys predictions in one shift. Rain, sleet, or snow.

The opener against the Giants on Sunday night? Win. Commanders in week two? Win. The Ravens in Brazil, all the way down in Rio? Win. At the Texans, "a definite win." Four and oh before the table could catch its breath.

It kept going. Buccaneers on Thursday night, win. At the Packers, win. Monday night at Philadelphia, win. Cardinals, win. At the Colts, win, with a "take that, Daniel Jones" thrown in for flavor. Nine and oh.

The first crack came against the Niners. Loss. Nine and one, the rare blemish on an otherwise spotless ballot.

From there the schedule got generous again. Titans, win. The Eagles on Thanksgiving, win, which prompted a line about having Eagles for Thanksgiving instead of turducken. Eleven and one.

Reality intruded twice more. Cowboys at the Seahawks on Monday night, loss. At the Rams, where Del Tufo and TJ promised to be in the building, another loss. Eleven and three.

Then the mailman closed strong. Jaguars, win. Giants again, win. Washington still to come. When the show tallied it up, the mailman's Cowboys landed at fourteen and three.

Rich saw the future immediately. "What's going to happen is now Smith is going to put this on YouTube," he said, "and then all of these comments are going to be how delusional and stupid Cowboys fans are. It's marvelous."

Fourteen and three, for the record, is not a small number. Rich asked if that wins the East. The answer from the table went bigger: that wins the Super Bowl. And the mailman is not alone. Darren in Atlanta landed on the exact same fourteen and three a few days earlier.

The show let it stand, with one quiet asterisk that says everything about Cowboys optimism in May. They'll do very well, someone noted, if they don't play the really good teams.