The Games That Don't Count - Until They Do

What a Saturday night in Seattle reminded us about the strange importance of Cowboys preseason football

There are few phrases in sports more dismissive than:

"It's only preseason."

And, technically, that's true.

Nobody hangs a banner for going undefeated in August.

There is no Lombardi Trophy presentation.

Jerry Jones isn't going to commission another Ring of Honor ceremony because the Cowboys won a preseason opener in Seattle.

The standings don't care.

By September, most fans won't remember the final score.

But try telling Camden Brown that Saturday night's game didn't count.

For a player fighting for an NFL career, sometimes the games that don't count are the ones that matter most.

And Cowboys history has a funny way of reminding us of that.

A Saturday Night Nobody Will Put in the Record Book

Dallas beat Seattle 17-7 Saturday night at Lumen Field.

It was the Cowboys' first preseason-opening victory since 2017.

Dak Prescott didn't need to throw a pass.

Many established players watched.

The game belonged largely to backups, rookies and players whose names are still being introduced to Cowboys fans.

In other words:

Preseason football.

Then Camden Brown happened.

The undrafted rookie wide receiver out of Georgia Southern caught three passes for more than 60 yards.

Two of them went for touchdowns.

One came from Sam Howell.

The other came from Joe Milton.

For a few hours in Seattle, the most productive touchdown combination in Cowboys football was apparently:

Quarterback TBD -> Camden Brown.

August is strange like that.

Brown entered training camp without the security of being a high draft pick.

There was no guaranteed place waiting for him on the roster.

Then the lights came on.

And suddenly people were paying attention.

That's what preseason football has always done.

It gives the overlooked a stage.

The Cowboys Have Seen This Movie Before

If you're a Cowboys fan of a certain age, Seattle and preseason football should cause a tiny historical alarm bell to go off.

August 25, 2016.

Dallas traveled to Seattle for its third preseason game.

Tony Romo was the quarterback.

Dak Prescott was the rookie.

The plan seemed fairly straightforward.

Then Romo scrambled, was tackled from behind by Cliff Avril and suffered a compression fracture in his back.

Suddenly, the meaningless game wasn't meaningless anymore.

Prescott had already been impressive that preseason.

Now the fourth-round rookie wasn't auditioning for a backup job.

He was preparing to become the starting quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys.

Prescott started Week 1.

Romo never regained the job.

A preseason game in Seattle had quietly helped turn the page on an era of Cowboys football.

Nobody knew it when the game began.

That's usually how history works.

Before Dak, There Were Others

Cowboys history is filled with players whose careers began somewhere far away from the spotlight.

Drew Pearson wasn't drafted.

Neither was Cliff Harris.

Everson Walls wasn't drafted either.

Tony Romo famously arrived in Dallas as an undrafted quarterback from Eastern Illinois.

None entered the NFL with a red carpet waiting.

They entered with an opportunity.

And somewhere along the way, coaches had to decide:

Can this guy actually play?

That's what August is really about.

The stars are preparing for September.

Everyone else is trying to make sure they're still employed when September arrives.

For those players, every special-teams rep matters.

Every third-down conversion matters.

Every missed assignment matters.

Every catch matters.

And if you happen to catch two touchdown passes in Seattle?

That matters quite a bit.

The Original Seattle Lesson

The Cowboys' history with Seattle actually stretches back to the Seahawks' very first season.

On October 3, 1976, Dallas visited the Kingdome for the first regular-season meeting between the franchises.

Seattle was an expansion team playing only the fourth game in its history.

Dallas was coming off a Super Bowl appearance.

This was supposed to be simple.

Apparently nobody told Seattle.

The Seahawks jumped ahead 13-0.

For a moment, one of the NFL's newest franchises had one of its most established contenders looking slightly confused.

Then Roger Staubach and the Cowboys remembered who they were.

Dallas scored 28 unanswered points.

Robert Newhouse ran for 120 yards.

The Cowboys won 28-13.

It's an amusing little piece of Cowboys history because the lesson isn't particularly complicated.

Football doesn't care what the matchup is supposed to look like.

Eventually somebody has to play it.

That applies in October.

It applies in January.

And for players fighting for jobs, it absolutely applies in August.

The Great August Illusion

Of course, preseason football comes with a warning label.

Every August produces somebody who looks destined for Canton.

Then September arrives and he disappears somewhere between the practice squad and your memory.

Cowboys fans have seen enough preseason heroes to understand the danger.

One great game doesn't make Camden Brown a star.

Two touchdown catches don't guarantee him a roster spot.

They don't guarantee he'll catch a regular-season pass.

That's what makes this part of the calendar so fascinating.

Everything matters.

And nothing is guaranteed.

Saturday wasn't a coronation.

It was an opportunity.

Brown took advantage of it.

Now he gets another one.

The Score Isn't Really the Score

Dallas won 17-7.

Nice.

Brian Schottenheimer found things he liked and plenty he wanted cleaned up.

There were penalties.

There were mistakes.

There were players who helped themselves.

There were probably players who spent Sunday wishing they could have one particular snap back.

That's preseason.

The scoreboard says Cowboys 17, Seahawks 7.

The real scoreboard looks something like this:

Roster spot gained.

Roster spot lost.

Another week earned.

Another opportunity coming.

Those results don't appear in the newspaper.

For the players involved, they're considerably more important.

Somewhere, History Is Usually Hiding

That's the part worth remembering.

When Tony Romo went down in Seattle in 2016, nobody watching could have known exactly what came next.

Nobody knew Dak Prescott would win 13 games as a rookie.

Nobody knew Romo had effectively taken his final meaningful snaps as the Cowboys' starting quarterback.

Nobody knew Dallas was watching one era end and another begin.

They were watching a preseason football game.

History hadn't announced itself yet.

It rarely does.

Sometimes it arrives wearing a fourth-round draft label.

Sometimes it arrives undrafted.

Sometimes it catches two touchdown passes on a Saturday night in Seattle.

And sometimes we don't understand what we saw until years later.

Back to Saturday Night

Maybe Camden Brown becomes the next great Cowboys undrafted success story.

Maybe he becomes a useful contributor.

Maybe Saturday night becomes the best game he ever plays in a Cowboys uniform.

Nobody knows.

That's the beauty - and cruelty - of August football.

The future hasn't been written yet.

All a player can do is make himself difficult to forget.

For one night, Camden Brown did exactly that.

And somewhere between a preseason victory nobody will remember and two touchdown catches one young receiver certainly will, the Cowboys gave us another reminder of something their history has taught us repeatedly:

The games may not count.

The opportunities always do.

And every once in a while, if you look closely enough, a meaningless preseason game isn't meaningless at all.

It's the first page of the next story.

By Addie Whitfield

Editorial Voice, The Doomsday Legacy