Let's take a brief break from the 2011 Cowboys, and enjoy some Cowboys history. We'll be back to the here-and-now shortly.

Today, we ascend into the heady atmosphere of the five best Cowboys regular season games of all time, stopping to adjust to the thinner air by recalling a couple of opening season games against the hated Redskins. The first of these was one of Danny White’s finest hours. The other offered a reminder of how fevered was the triplets’ will to win. Both offered huge comebacks (or, monumental collapses, if you will) from seemingly impossible deficits. That both happened in Washington, and left a stadium full of fans morose and silent, made the wins all that much sweeter.

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[This offseason, four BTB writers set out on a unique exercise: From a list of over 130 Cowboys players, each writer selected a team of all-time Cowboys greats through a fantasy-style draft. Starting today, each writer profiles his team and the rationale for picking the way he did. After that, the four teams - composed entirely of former and current Cowboys players - will face off in a round robin tournament in which the BTB community gets to vote on the winner. Finally, the two best teams face off in the Ultimate Dallas Cowboys Super Bowl.]

How do you go about drafting a team made up entirely of Cowboys greats? For me, the answer to that was fairly simple: you start with the numbers.

Looking at the number of players available from the storied history of the Dallas Cowboys, it quickly became clear to me that the offenses for every one of the four teams were going to be offensive juggernauts because the depth at the offensive skill positions is just incredible. Roger Staubach, Troy Aikman, Michael Irvin, Bullet Bob Hayes, Terrell Owens, Drew Pearson, Terry Glenn, Emmitt Smith, Tony Dorsett and many other players available meant that each team would be a threat, especially through the air.

So my strategy in building my team was clear, I had to make sure I was in a position to take away the other teams' passing game - or at least make it as difficult as possible. As a result, seven of my first eight picks were on defense, as I set out to assemble easily the most daunting defense in this all-Cowboys, all-time fantasy draft.

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We've reached the fifth stop along BTB's Best Of The Best tour, and it's time to divulge the defensive player pool that we'll be using in our All-Time Cowboys Fantasy competition. The Cowboys have enjoyed the blessings of some of the NFL's premiere defensive talent, at every level of the defense. For every Cowboys defensive star of the last 25 years, you can find his equal or superior in the annals of the previous quarter century. Tom Landry, the patriarch to all things Cowboys, came to the team as a former defensive coordinator and mastermind, so it should be no surprise how inventive he was in putting various talents in the position to succeed.

Subjectively ranking these all-time greats might be an exercise in futility. Fortunately, we won't have to do that as we will again turn to Pro Football Focus' Approximate Value metric to help move us along. As a recap, here's a brief explanation of the metric from it's creator, Doug Drinen.

"AV is not meant to be a be-all end-all metric. Football stat lines just do not come close to capturing all the contributions of a player the way they do in baseball and basketball. If one player is a 16 and another is a 14, we can't be very confident that the 16AV player actually had a better season than the 14AV player. But I am pretty confident that the collection of all players with 16AV played better, as an entire group, than the collection of all players with 14AV."

For the full explanation of AV, you can go here. We'll only be focusing on AV's accrued while in a Cowboys uniform.

The defensive player pool will be used in conjunction with the following selection pools for our exercise. Click on each header to revisit the cutdowns.

Offensive Schemes | Defensive Schemes | QB's and Offensive Players |

(reminder: Ernie Zampese won the poll, but for diversity the fourth offensive scheme will be Sean Payton)

Follow the jump for the defensive player pool, highlighted by the Top 20 Defenders in Cowboys history.

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This week’s edition of the top regular season games in Cowboys history takes us to week 12 in 2003, with the Cowboys hosting the Carolina Panthers. Both teams were enjoying an unexpected level of success that year. The previous season, Panthers coach John Fox had inherited a 1-15 team and led them to a 7-9 season. On the other sideline was Bill Parcells, who engineered a similarly impressive turnaround for a Dallas squad that had endured three consecutive 5-11 seasons.

Consequently, this matchup of recent patsies somehow ended up being the NFC’s game of the week. Coming into the game, the Panthers boasted the conference’s best record, at 8-2. The 7-3 Cowboys were in a first-place tie in the NFC East, thanks largely to their undefeated division record. Parcells and Fox were hard-nosed, defensive-minded coaches whose teams were gritty, old-school units that ran the ball and played stifling defense. 

In the offseason, Carolina had acquired running back Stephen Davis, who finished the season with more than 1,400 yards (in 14 games!); in the first year A.E. (after Emmitt), the Cowboys went with the bruising Troy Hambrick, who softened defenses for the likes of Richie Anderson and Aveion Cason. On the other side of the ball, Dallas’ had the league’s top defense; the Panthers were among the leaders all season, finishing eighth.

Catch the details of this thrilling contest after the jump...

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We are now three posts in, taking care of those that get credit for the wins and losses. The coaches and the quarterbacks are out of the way, now let's move along to the other position players. For a look at the quarterback pool, check here. Even excluding the signal callers, the Cowboys have been exceptionally blessed in being able to find championship level talent. The list is full of players with multiple championship rings, pro bowl nominations and some MVP honors.

We'll stray a little from out previous format, and for this post and probably the next, we will present the Top 20 non-quarterbacks. These rankings are per ProFootballReference.com's Approximate Value score. PFR has graded each player in NFL history on a season by season basis, in an attempt to rank players from different eras.

Here's a brief explanation of the metric from it's creator, Doug Drinen.

"AV is not meant to be a be-all end-all metric. Football stat lines just do not come close to capturing all the contributions of a player the way they do in baseball and basketball. If one player is a 16 and another is a 14, we can't be very confident that the 16AV player actually had a better season than the 14AV player. But I am pretty confident that the collection of all players with 16AV played better, as an entire group, than the collection of all players with 14AV."

For the full explanation of AV, you can go here. We'll only be focusing on AV's accrued while in a Cowboys uniform.

As with all advanced metrics, the results are up for debate. While the majority of PFR's rankings pass the initial eye test, most of us aren't able to recollect players from other generations because we've never had a chance to watch them in action. We do have some BTB members that have been watching the team for 40 to 50 years, and as usual we appreciate any insight they have on these historical lists.

Follow the jump for the lists.

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Now that we've locked down the offensive and defensive schemes for BTB's Best of the Best four team tourney, it's time to turn our focus to the players. Since quarterbacks often are equated to wins and losses just as coaches are, I thought it only fair to dedicate a post to them specifically. We'll handle the rest of the offensive player pool in the next post in the series.

Dallas Cowboys fans have been blessed with franchise quarterbacks. Manning the position puts a player in rarified air, with as much connotation as shortstop of the New York Yankees. There have been two Hall of Famers with seven Super Bowl starts between them, as well as another who started one for Dallas and one for another club. They have a quarterback that achieved a continued amount of regular season success, and are currently captained by a quarterback that is breaking most of the team's records. In between them, though, the void has been a great one. More than any other fanbase, the Cowboys know what it takes to lead a team from the quarterback position and what just won't cut it. Without further ado, here is the rundown of all players who have started a game for the Dallas Cowboys.

Follow the jump to see who made the cut for our BTB player pool.

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We continue our Best of the Best series leading up to our draft with the Cowboys defensive masterminds. For all the pomp and circumstance that surrounds the Cowboys offensive exploits, the core of this franchise has always been their remarkable, multifaceted defenses. The edict that a good defense beats a good offense might suffer some hits to its reputation in today's NFL, but it was time tested. The Doomsday Defense roamed the Sunday turf for almost two decades under Tom Landry. Jimmy Johnson's eight man defensive line rotation was legendary. The team has transitioned to the 3-4 defense in recent years, and although the team hasn't been championship caliber, the unit has turned in some stellar seasons. Without further ado, let's take a look at the men behind the nightmares of opposing offensive coordinators.

Tom Landry: Head Coach, 1960-1988

Ernie Stautner: Defensive Coordinator 1975-1988

Jimmy Johnson: Head Coach, 1989 - 1993

Dave Wannstedt. Defensive Coordinator, 1989 - 1992

Butch Davis: Defensive Coordinator, 1993-1994

Dave Campo: Defensive Coordinator, 1995 - 1999, Head Coach 2000 - 2002

Mike Zimmer, Defensive Coordinator, 2000 - 2006

Bill Parcells: Head Coach, 2003 - 2006

Wade Phillips: Head Coach, 2007 - 2010

Rob Ryan: Current

Follow the jump to see which systems will be available in our draft:

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