Minnesota Vikings Crush Dallas Cowboys: Dallas Overrated?

After a 34-3 shellacking at the hands of the Minnesota Vikings, the truth was painfully clear about this season's Dallas Cowboys. Once again, as in many seasons past, the Cowboys were overrated.

For the entire week leading up to Sunday's game, we were bombarded by media experts proclaiming the Dallas Cowboys as the Super Bowl favorites. Somehow, the Cowboys find a way to become the media darlings year after year.

Matt Mosely of ESPN.com wrote a blog entry titled "The Beast Prediction: Cowboys Own Vikes." He wrote another called "Cowboys Own Favre in Postseason," where he pointed to statistics in the mid 1990s. Mosely claimed that Favre had some type of mental block with Cowboys which prevented him from playing well against them.

Pete Prisco of CBSSports.com wrote an article with the title "Cowboys Most Likely to Represent NFC in Super Bowl." The article's most telling statement was "they might be the third seed in the NFC playoffs, but there isn't a better team in the conference right now. And that includes the top two seeds, New Orleans and Minnesota."

Adam Schein of Foxsports.com, in his "Boom or Bust" column, pointed to the Vikings passing game as a bust against the Cowboys. In addition, he said that Brad Childress was a bust as the best coach in the game.

The list of media personalities who were hyping the Dallas Cowboys goes on and on. Not many were giving Minnesota a chance in the game, and most were saying the Cowboys would steamroll their way to the Super Bowl.

Now, after being decimated by the Vikings, most of the media seems shocked at how the Cowboys were put down. They must have forgotten how this same story plays out almost every year. The media hypes the Cowboys, the Cowboys become overrated, and then the Cowboys come up short in the big game.

Lost in the middle of all of this is how little credit a team like the Minnesota Vikings were getting. They were almost forgotten before this game, almost like they were only a stepping stone on the Cowboys' path to Super Bowl glory.

How do so many in the media continue to be blinded by the truth about the Cowboys? Objectivity in their reporting seems to go out the window as far as Dallas is concerned.

Maybe they have learned a valuable lesson this year about jumping on the Dallas bandwagon. On second thought, that's not likely. In 2010, even before the next season starts, I'm sure we'll be hearing about how the Cowboys are the favorites to win the Super Bowl.

Word to the wise: don't buy into the hype.