Dak Prescott and the Dallas Cowboys outscored the Seattle Seahawks, 41-35, last night to improve to 9-3 on the year and keep their hopes alive for a late charge to the NFC East title. They obviously did not play the perfect game as evidenced by the five touchdowns Geno Smith was able to find out there but a win is a win and people have been clamoring for them to beat a winning team. Talent is slowly trickling into the public square but you can bet the house that when they do, the prevailing narrative will be heavy on knit-picking.

The Cowboys are America's Team and the smartest people in the industry have realized that they either need to be a superfan or a mega-hater when it comes to all things financed by Jerry Jones. There's precious little space to say the sane thing, which is that Dallas is clearly one of the top three teams in the NFC and has all the talent needed to make and win the Super Bowl.

So I very much agree with Evan Cohen, who bravely admitted this morning on Unsportsmanlike with Evan, Canty, and Michelle that he feels bad for them.

"I'm going to say something that I don't know if anyone in the history of the world has ever said: I feel badly for the Dallas Cowboys. No matter what they do, we're always going to have a critique of them. They can't beat a good team, they can't beat a team with a winning record ... here's what I'm saying ... I just believe that all the critique is well they can't beat a team with a winning record. Last night they beat a team with a winning record. Well, if they beat the Eagles next week, well, let's see them do it in the playoffs. I actually feel badly for the Dallas Cowboys. No matter what they do they have critiques of them. And I get it. Jerry Jones brings it upon them, I totally understand that and I'm not fighting that off. Let's just acknowledge that this is a really good team with a really good quarterback with a really good good head coach. And maybe the best defensive player in football in Micah Parsons. That's it. I'm going to leave it there."

I get it. There's a visceral discomfort that comes when standing up for the Cowboys and there probably should be. Nothing they do will matter until the playoffs because that's where the problems have manifested so often over the past 25 years. People are understandably reluctant to believe in them after being lured into being burned so many times before.

Yet it feels like everyone who continues to diminish Prescott is doing so because they are trapped in a bit they can't escape. Numbers and eyes don't lie. He's been fantastic this year. So too has the team outside of those two high-profile tests against San Francisco and Philadelphia. Which can't be totally forgotten or discounted. But man, it's a tough crowd and stern graders emerging as the loudest voices whenever this team does something good or bad. Enough to make a person do the unthinkable and plead for someone to please think of the poor Cowboys.

This article was originally published on thebiglead as Won't Someone Think of the Poor Dallas Cowboys?.