Cowboys’ history prevented buzz heading into the season, but there’s no denying now that this team could be super – The Dallas Morning News

FRISCO — Jerry Jones sometimes likens the Cowboys fan base to a wooden floor that has been drenched in kerosene.

Interest is deep and pervasive. All it takes is a spark, then stand back and watch it ignite.

The match has been lit. The Cowboys have opened the season by scoring 30 or more points in back-to-back victories for only the third time in the last 33 years. One of those starts produced a 13-3 record. The other?

It came in 1995, the season that yielded the franchise’s last Super Bowl title.

There will be no Super Bowl talk around The Star. Head coach Jason Garrett is constantly talking about the harsh nature and grind of an NFL season. He can make it sound like a trip to the dentist chair for a root canal more than a wondrous, thrilling journey.

That may be standard operating procedure for the players as they prepare for a hapless Miami team, but it doesn’t play outside the building. Excitement has exploded with this high-scoring start and altered expectations among the fan base, raising it to a level that probably should have existed entering the season.

The Cowboys had the second-youngest roster in the league last season. After a slow start, the team swept the defending champion Philadelphia Eagles, beat New Orleans by holding the high-octane Saints to 10 points and handled Seattle in the Wild Card Round before losing on the road to a Los Angeles Rams team that would advance to the Super Bowl.

By any objective measure the Cowboys were a team on the rise, a team that transformed itself after the bold acquisition of Amari Cooper. Why didn’t it create more of a general buzz heading into this season?

Emotional scar tissue. A lot has been built up by fans over these last 24 years. They have seen multiple teams with regular season success fall flat once the post season got underway.

History outweighed hope. Skepticism made more sense than an emotional investment to open the season.

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Reservations are starting to evaporate after nine touchdowns in the first two games.

Players and coaches will tell you there’s no such thing as an easy win in the NFL. Quarterback Dak Prescott shot an incredulous glare Sunday afternoon to the person who suggested the Cowboys 31-21 win over Washington wasn’t all that hard.

That’s why Garrett will pound his “stack one good practice on top of another” message even harder. A coach with narrow focus will telescope his message even more with the Cowboys being a 20.5-point favorite against the Dolphins.

“Yeah, we’ve never talked about lines,” Garrett said at his Monday news conference. “The biggest thing we talk about is us and what we need to do.

“The players, when they watch this tape, they’re going to see some good things we can build on, and they’re going to see plenty of stuff that we’ve got to better at. So we’ll lock into that, trying to improve each and every day.

“We have great respect for any team we play. Any coaches we go against, they’re here for a reason. We have to be our best, prepare the right way and play our best on Sunday.”

Garrett walks a fine line. He wants the players to feel good about what they’ve accomplished to open the season, but not too good.

The Cowboys have won these first two games by a total of 28 points.

The team’s last six victories last season — a stretch that includes the playoff win over the Seahawks — came by 27 points.

The Cowboys have recorded double-digit wins in back-to-back games for only the third time since Prescott and Ezekiel Elliott burst onto the scene as rookies to start the ’16 season.

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Things are going so well at the moment, even a trade request by a former first round pick is more amusing than disruptive.

This isn’t Jalen Ramsey requesting a trade in Jacksonville or Minkah Fitzpatrick doing the same with the Dolphins. This isn’t Elliott holding out in Cabo two games deep into the season as he eats a sushi roll with Wagyu beef and eel sauce once he completes his workout.

This is Taco Charlton going on Twitter to declare “free me” after he’s been inactive the first two games. This is the defensive end taking to social media “so I can play football again.”

Would Garrett prefer his players to keep their frustrations off social media?

“Yeah, I don’t really spend much time on social media,” Garrett said.

No shock there. The way the Cowboys have started the season? Well, that’s a pleasant surprise.

Has that floor caught fire yet?

Catch David Moore and Robert Wilonsky as they co-host Intentional Grounding on The Ticket (KTCK-AM 1310 and 96.7 FM) every Wednesday from 7-8 p.m. through the Super Bowl.

Twitter: @DavidMooreDMN

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