«The Cowboys Are Mystery Every Year» – Drew Bledsoe On Dallas Chances To Turn Around The Season

The Cowboys are currently 3-5 at the midway point of the season. Although there are a lot of games to be played, things are starting to look bleak, with Dak Prescott now sidelined for the next several weeks due to a hamstring injury. A recent report from The Dallas Morning News' Calvin Watkins indicates that Prescott's injury may be worse than originally anticipated and that he may be out for the season if it requires surgery.

Bledsoe doesn't really have an answer for whether or not they can turn their season around, calling the Cowboys a "mystery" despite featuring so many talented star players.

"I don't know, man," says Bledsoe in a one-on-one interview with DJ Siddiqi. "The Cowboys are kind of a mystery every year, right? Because you look at them, there's so many pieces there, so many good things and good players and all this stuff. It just never seems to quite come together. Last few years they've been good and made the playoffs and then fall down quickly, devastatingly. Last year they just got absolutely smoked. They're kind of a mystery. It just seems like all the pieces are there and it just never seems to quite work the way people anticipate."

The Cowboys had the second-most Pro Bowlers of any team last season (seven), returning every one of those players this season. However, Dallas was still blown out in the first round by the youngest team in the NFL in the Green Bay Packers while hosting the game as the clear favorites.

Fast forward to now and the Cowboys are no longer even good in the regular season. They rank 31st in defense in points allowed and 20th in points scored on offense.

A lot of that has to do with the injury absence of Micah Parsons, who has been sidelined over the past four games. The Cowboys have gone 1-3 in his absence. With that being said, they still struggled when he was in the lineup, allowing an average of 26 points per game. That average would rank 26th for the season.

"I am a fan of Dak – I think he's an outstanding leader for that team and I hope he's not out for too long," says Bledsoe of Prescott. "I do think that the impact of missing Micah Parsons is very real. When you have a guy that's probably the defensive MVP of the league and suddenly you take him out of the equation, that's a significant impact particularly to the Cowboys defense where he was such an impact player."

The Cowboys' struggles, combined with the likely reality that they'll miss the playoffs, mean that head coach Mike McCarthy is probably looking at his final season in Dallas. That could pave the way for Bledsoe's former head coach, Bill Belichick, to return after a one-season hiatus. Belichick was previously linked to the Cowboys' head coaching job before team owner Jerry Jones ultimately decided to bring McCarthy back for a fifth season.

"That's the rumor – to go after Belichick if they make a change. It'll be interesting to see if Bill wants to coach. He seems like he's having a lot of fun, he's on TV all the time and all those people are discovering that he's got a little bit of a sense of humor. He must be doing something right; he's got a super young girlfriend and it's certainly not based on his looks," says Bledsoe while smiling. "It'll be interesting if he wants to coach and where he potentially lands."

Whether or not bringing in Belichick, an eight-time Super Bowl winner as a coach, would change the Cowboys' fortunes remains to be seen. After all, the Cowboys have historically been a very talented team, but they haven't advanced to a conference championship game since the 1995 season.

"I don't know what's next for the Cowboys," says Bledsoe. "Individually, they've got a lot of pieces, but they just have to be able to pull it together and win more games."

Drew Bledsoe on his Wineries and what piqued his interest in the business

Since Bledsoe's retirement following his final season with the Cowboys, the former four-time Pro Bowl quarterback has kept busy in the business of winery. The 52-year-old founded his first winery, Doubleback Winery, in 2007, and has since started two more wineries. Bledsoe actually has 75 total employees under the three umbrellas.

The Washington native recently participated in a roundtable discussion with former Seattle Seahawks and Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Sidney Rice — a fellow wine enthusiast who has also since gotten into the winery business — where he discussed why he's so passionate about winemaking after understanding all the nuances when it pertains to wine.

"We started collecting wines from around the world and then we made our first trip out to Napa and that was when the bug really bit, when we started to understand how many levels there were to this business. How involved the great wines that we loved, how involved the owners from the beginning until the end, from the land they bought and the aspect of the vineyards to the entire winemaking process and how long that took us. It was just a really intriguing process, in addition to being something that we really enjoyed."

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