My marriage has hit a rough patch.

	Emmitt Smith is still there, but the rest of the Cowboys' juggernaut from the 1990s is gone.

My Dallas Cowboys have grown distant, unresponsive. All they seem to want to do is tinker around in the (NFC East) basement. What they do down there, I can't tell you, but my head keeps telling my heart, "Dallas doesn't live here anymore."

From the start, ours was a mixed marriage, the kid from Giants country in suburban Connecticut and the NFL franchise from Texas. My mom strictly forbade me from seeing the Cowboys (unless I had done all my homework), but I was young and headstrong, and in love with their sparkly helmets.

I've lived and died with that team. There were the Super Bowls. There was also the Steve Pelluer era. For more than three decades, I've wept, roared, exulted, paced, crowed, muttered, genuflected, snickered, whinnied and self-aggrandized with the Cowboys. I brazenly showed my colors while living in Northern California at the height of the Cowboys-49ers rivalry and -- I don't mind telling you -- I was hissed at. Nowadays, because of the Cowboys' condition, I get to missing that frisson of hissing and dissing.

I hardly know them anymore. They cut coupons and wear high black socks at the beach. My 'Boys are no longer cool. Last year, the team was bumped off its perennial perch atop NFL merchandise sales by the Raiders, an alarming body blow to Western civilization.

America's team has become Amarillo's team.

	Cowboys fans hardly recognize their team -- or their owner.

The Cowboys have been rendered irrelevant. (Ever notice how you can never be rendered anything positive? You're either rendered irrelevant, rendered ineffective, or rendered chicken fat). In years past, you either loved the Cowboys or hated them, like *N Sync. Unfortunately the Boys haven't been, like, in sync, in quite some time.

Over the last two seasons, the Cardinals have as many wins as Dallas. THE CARDINALS! Arizona was once the doormat the Cowboys used to wipe their cleats on before stomping into the Cardinals' house, rifling through their attic and stealing all their fans.

(By the way, did you notice I dropped the whole marriage conceit? Yep, lost it like the other sock. Frankly, the strained metaphor of a pack of large hairy men as my "spouse" was making me a little queasy.)

I chalk up the Cowboys troubles to the Deion hangover. In the mid-'90s, we were drunk with success (actually if you check Dallas police records of that era, you'll find some players self-medicated with stronger stuff than "success"). Two titles in the bag, Jerry Jones stood up wild-eyed and ordered a round of Deion. The party lasted one more year, and then the Cowboy Nation woke up with a champagne hangover, the kind where you feel like you got hit in the back of the head with a brick. Since then, the Cowboys have been as quiet as Duane Thomas during the 1971 playoffs.

	Dallas has been changing coaches every three seasons -- and Dave Campo is entering this third season.

It was Jones who put together the machine that won three Super Bowls in four years. The guy is a shrewd businessman, he's energetic and optimistic (cripes, the man predicted 10 wins this season!). But, he's developed a touch of Steinbrenneritis. Since Jimmy Johnson excused himself after the '93 season, the Cowboys have averaged a head coach every three years. This, ominously, is Dave Campo's third year coming up.

Jones has also bivouacked in the Cowboys war room, where his draft philosophy is simple: Take the Best First Name Available. This strategy has yielded a bumper crop of exotic nomenclature -- Kavika, Shante, Ebenezer, Izell, Flozell, Alundis ("My Alundis flared up, so my doctor put me on Flozell"), Dat, Peppi, Daleroy, Char-ron, Stepfret, Orantes, Colston. Sadly, none of this collection has ever been named a Pro Bowler.

The ironic thing about all this is that Jones is a "football guy," the offensive guard and co-captain of the 1964 Arkansas national championship team. He's just not a very savvy "football guy." I know its difficult keeping up with the Joneses, but Jones, the owner, the "Good Jerry," needs to fire Jones, the general manager, "Bad Jerry." He, if anyone, should be able to let himself down easily.

	Ryan Leaf hasn't made anyone forget Troy Aikman.

There are positive signs. Dallas finished second in the NFC in defense. They swarm. Campo has them playing hard. They'll have the sixth pick in next month's draft. The salary cap pinch has finally eased up. Emmitt will break Walter Payton's record sometime during 2002.

Allow me to use a farming analogy. In the '90s, the Cowboys were planting tobacco every year. Every year, more tobacco. Deion was tobacco. Joey Galloway: tobacco. To keep your soil healthy, you've got to let the fields lie fallow. (I know from farming -- I weeded our front walk on a quasi-regular basis.) The Cowboys are in their fallow period. Yeah, you've got no smokes for a few years, but in a short time, you're flush with cigarettes, which in prison is a good thing.

In today's NFL, it is possible to take the express elevator from the basement directly to the penthouse. Twice in the last three years, the Super Bowl champs finished dead-last in their division the season before. The Cowboys finished dead-last in their division last season. I don't think I need to belabor the point.

Smoke 'em if you got 'em.

David Lloyd is an anchorman for ESPNEWS.