The Dallas Cowboys: America's Team.
For more than 30 years, football fans have lived with that heady label applied to Big D's franchise, win or lose.
Defensive end Justin Tuck -- whose Giants prepare for Sunday's NFC East title fight with the Cowboys -- believes the moniker is an awkward fit for a team that hasn't appeared in a Super Bowl in nearly 16 years (New York has starred in two in that span).
"I don't know if they ever deserved to be America's Team," Tuck told the New York Daily News on Thursday. "I don't have a vote on that. The only people that it rubs the wrong way are the people who don't root for them."
While legions of Cowboys fans bathe in it -- draw energy from it -- detractors claim the title (a 1978 NFL Films creation) is about as relevant today as including "homecoming queen" on your resume.
Besides, if you buy into public polling, the Cowboys already have been passed over, recently replaced by the Packers as America's Team in a national survey.
Whether those results declare the people's attraction to a charming, small-market team winning against all odds -- or our simple tendency to crowd the bandwagon -- this much is clear: Not everyone's buying what the Cowboys are selling.
