The old adage is that history books are written by the winners, and if this is the case, the Dallas Cowboys haven't put pen to paper in a rather long time. With a wild-card round loss to the San Francisco 49ers that ended on a last-second, controversial playcall, Dallas' championship drought extended to a discouraging 27 years.
When the Cowboys last appeared in a Super Bowl, their leading rusher was Hall of Fame superstar Emmitt Smith, who scored two touchdowns in a win over the Pittsburgh Steelers. Since then, the franchise has made 11 playoff appearances, won only four games, and failed to reach one NFC title game. Dallas has assembled some Super Bowl-caliber rosters and underachieved, and the perpetual losing in January has irritated Smith.
"They're very inconsistent, that's the problem. They haven't figured out their own daggum problem. The players haven't figured out their problem, either," Smith explained to The Zach Gelb Show on Friday. "It requires a different level of focus, commitment, and determination. I can use 'determination,' but focus is even more important. Discipline is even more important than determination. You can be determined but not have discipline, and never achieve anything.
"But you can be focused, disciplined, and achieve a lot... The inconsistency, the dropped passes, the lack of focus in certain games. Too many excuses... There's no excuse for not playing well, because you should be prepared to go out every week to perform at your ultimate, highest level. And that's how you develop the consistency. You can't just turn it on. It's something you have to continue to build upon, week in and week out, and alleviate the issues..."
The entire football conversation between Smith and Gelb can be accessed in the audio player above.
You can follow The Zach Gelb Show on Twitter @ZachGelb and Tom Hanslin @TomHanslin.