IconWhether it's to the same extent Boston was remains to be seen. Still, the seeds have been sown for a sports famine in Big D.
 
Nearly every Dallas-area team has spent the last seven years raising expectations only to come up short, wallow in mediocrity, or, in the Rangers' case, get beat like they stole something.
 
I'll begin with the Cowboys, who after reeling off three Lombardi Trophies in four years have been plagued by lame-duck-QBitis.
 
Yeah, we had Troy Aikman and Michael Irvin for four years after those Super Bowl triumphs, but Troy had so many concussions and Mike did so much blow that the team was never a threat in the NFC.
 
Since their departures, we've trotted out a laundry list of no-name QBs, including baseball veterans Quincy "Not the Hurricane" Carter, Chad "See I told you I was a pro football player" Hutchinson, and Drew "practice squad" Henson.
 
Under Bill Parcells, we turned to over-the-hill veterans like Vinny Testaverde and Drew Bledsoe...who looked more like statues than athletes when they dropped back to pass. Last year, Tony Romo offered a glimmer of hope by winning five of his first six starts before he went into a nosedive that ended with the fumbled snap against the Seahawks in the playoffs.
 
I'd been a Romo advocate from Week One, but I nearly jumped off the bandwagon after The Bobble. A couple weeks ago one of my friends asked if I was still sucking Romo's nuts. I replied, "I spit one of them out after the playoffs".
 
In fairness, the immediate future does look somewhat bright for the Cowboys with Romo at the helm—but only if Tony can prove himself over a whole season.
 
And the picture isn't any rosier for any of the other local teams.
 
The Mavericks, for example, are coming off one of the best regular seasons in NBA history...and two of the biggest chokes in playoff history.
 
Before Mark Cuban bought the team, the Mavs were the Tampa Bay Devil Rays of the NBA. We had some modest success in the 80s, but missed huge draft opportunities (Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, and Shaquille O'Neal) thanks to a few ping pong balls, and turned out some atrocious squads in the the 90s.
 
The Mavs made some noise in the mid-90s with Jason Kidd, Jamal Mashburn, and Jim Jackson...and then promptly shipped them all out of town. Dirk Nowtizki, Steve Nash, and Co. blossomed after that, but it was coach Avery Johnson who finally turned the Mavs into title contenders.

We played some of the best basketball in team history under Johnson, but also choked in the playoffs against the Suns, Heat, and Warriors. With the Spurs again making a deal with the devil to win the Finals, the Mavs' window may have already closed.

(Unless of course Mark Cuban can complete his scheme to destroy Tim Duncan's foot because we all know Cuban s henchmen are behind that case of "plantar fasciitis.")

The Stars, meanwhile, are perhaps the poster boys of choking. Since raising the Stanley Cup in 1999, the Stars have dimmed to the point where they're expected to blow it in the playoffs.

And the Rangers are so awful I won't even acknowledge their futility with a paragraph.

(If words hurt as much as our first-grade teacher told us, though, I'd have administered the sort of beating usually reserved for a redheaded stepchild.)

Even our friggin' Arena team choked in Dallas: The Desperados put together a near-perfect season before their offense collapsed for 20 minutes in a sport even Ryan Leaf could excel at.

So that's my breakdown of the Dallas curse. The only question that remains:

Why?

My guess is that Dallas mayor Laura Miller has something to do with it. It was Miller who made plans for a championship parade after the Mavs beat the Heat in Game Two of the 2006 Finals—which is about as unlucky as guaranteeing victory while sitting with 13 black cats and breaking a mirror at Dan Marino's house.

But who knows, though. Maybe I'm wrong—maybe  there is no curse, and maybe Dallas will win five championships next year. After all, I've been raised on high expectations.

My first sports memory is of Mike Bibby and Miles Simon leading my Wildcats to an NCAA title. Shortly after that, I watched John Elway lead my Broncos to back-to-back Super Bowls. And in 2004, I got to see the Red Sox win a World Series without suffering anywhere near as much as most of compatriots.

All I know for sure is that I'm tired of seeing good teams lose when it matters. If next year comes and goes and the Dallas trophy case remains empty...

Just remember I warned you about The Curse of Laura Miller.