Arsenal’s Premier League title gives Cowboys hope that droughts do end
It is a drought, just in case Stephen Jones is reading this. The Drought™, the one that has encircled the Dallas Cowboys since before the turn of the century, officially turned 30 years old when this calendar year began. As you are likely aware, the Cowboys not only have a drought going for winning the Super Bowl overall, but it extends even a round further. It has been 30 years since Dallas last even played for a right to be in the Super Bowl.
About 15 years ago there was a popular YouTube video of a Cleveland Browns fan yelling at the team’s stadium. The video has since gone by “factory of sadness” given that this is what the fan referred to the stadium as. I’ve often thought about a line he says in the video, he’s using it to talk about the Browns, in a lot of ways relative to the Cowboys and other things.
You see the user is chastising the Browns for not being a successful NFL franchise. He says that it is actually statistically harder for the team to be as consistently bad as they are than it would be for them to “occasionally, accidentally be good.”
Many have offered similar opinions about the Cowboys. In a conference with 16 teams, the fact they have gone 30 years without playing in its title game (where a pair of teams appear annually) is truly defying the odds.
Arsenal provides hope that droughts do end
On Sunday the English Premier League wrapped its season. For those unaware the Premier League is viewed as the highest level of club soccer in the world (the World Cup will take place this summer, partly at AT&T Stadium incidentally, but that is a matter of international soccer). There are no playoffs as American sports know them to be. There is the season and the team who outlasts everyone gets to lift the trophy at the end. It is a testament to being the best all season long.
The math dictated that Arsenal would win the league before Sunday, but it was on Sunday that matters became official and they got to party the way that champions do. As a Manchester United supporter this made me sick, but the accomplishment is impressive nonetheless.
For those unaware, Arsenal have sort of been viewed as the Cowboys of the Premier League. They have developed a tendency to lose the most critical games in the most unbelievable fashion. They were experiencing a drought of their own, one that went back to even before the Factory of Sadness YouTube video being born.
Arsenal’s drought began almost a decade after the Cowboys’, by the way. Prior to Sunday the club last lifted the EPL trophy at the end of the 2003-2004 season. 22 years is a long, long time, but at this point that feels like forever ago for all of us.
Consider that just a few years ago, before or after 2020 depending on who you feel like arguing with, another marquee team within American sports was in a similar boat. The Los Angeles Dodgers are viewed as a powerhouse at the moment, rightfully so, as they have won the World Series in each of the last two years (their 2020 title is debated among people in some instances was the point).
Prior to 2020, though? They had experienced a 30-year drought themselves. The Dodgers won it in 1988 and then had to wait until 2020 to do it again.
Arsenal is the latest point of hope that maybe fate will finally smile upon us.
Will the Cowboys ever get to be next? Will it finally be their turn at some point?
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