I will start with the part that costs me. The 1990s Cowboys were a January machine, and twice that machine ran over my Bills on the sport’s biggest day. So when I tell you Dallas owns one of the great postseason histories, understand I learned it the hard way, watching them lift trophies that I wanted.

The glory, from Staubach to the dynasty

Dallas has been winning January games since Roger Staubach invented the term Hail Mary against the Vikings in December 1975. The 1970s teams were perennial contenders. The 1990s teams were better, three Super Bowls in four years behind Aikman, Smith and Irvin, a juggernaut that treated the postseason like a formality. For a long stretch the Cowboys were exactly what they claimed to be.

Thirty years in the wilderness of January

And then it stopped, harder than anyone expected. Dallas has not reached the NFC Championship Game since the 1995 season. Three decades of January letdowns have followed, a parade of early exits and one-and-done disappointments for a fanbase raised on parades. They keep getting good enough to matter and not good enough to break through.

Five trophies, a Hall of Fame’s worth of January glory, and thirty years of postseason frustration since. Cowboys fans, you have the dynasty and the drought in the same history, which is a strange weight to carry. I watched two of those trophies get won against my team. I am allowed to enjoy the thirty quiet years that followed, just a little.