Here is what the Dallas Cowboys looked like last time Phil Mickelson won a major championship

This past weekend was a remarkable one across the sports world. Both the NBA and NHL are in the middle of the playoffs, the Premier League wrapped up its season, and the PGA Championship was going on at Kiawah in South Carolina.

Sports have started to look a bit more like what we are normally used to as more fans have been allowed to attend events across the world. The world of golf specifically was given quite the treat as legendary lefty Phil Mickelson won his sixth major tournament at the PGA Championship amid a crowd of supporters.

Mickelson became the oldest player to win a major championship in the history of golf at the young age of 50. He was in the middle of a nine-year drought as far as majors are concerned and hadn’t won this specific event in 16 years.

Like we did when Tiger Woods won The Masters in 2019, we figured it would be fun to look back at the state of the Dallas Cowboys the last time that Mickelson won the PGA Championship which happened in August of 2005, but incidentally that was the same year that Tiger had last won at Augusta. Oops.

In the spirit of mixing things up, we will look at the Cowboys team from the last time that Mickelson won a major championship in general (prior to Sunday obviously) which was The Open Championship in 2013.

Here is what the Dallas Cowboys looked like last time Phil Mickelson won a major championship

The 2013 Open Championship took place in July a few weeks before the Dallas Cowboys got training camp started in Oxnard, California. They were entering their third full season with Jason Garrett as their head coach, and were coming off of their second win-and-in game in the previous season’s Week 17 loss, as we all know they would go on to add one more to that unfortunate collection.

The Cowboys traded back in the first round of this year’s draft and it was the first time that they had done so since this particular year. In 2013 Dallas moved back near the end of the first round and took a center out of Wisconsin. Here is their whole draft class.

2013 Dallas Cowboys Draft Class

• 1: Travis Frederick
• 2: Gavin Escobar
• 3: Terrance Williams
• 3: J.J. Wilcox
• 4: B.W. Webb
• 5: Joseph Randle
• 6: DeVonte Holloman

Interestingly this group would make their professional debut for the first time in the first game of the preseason, the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game. The Cowboys will also play in the Hall of Fame Game this year.

2013 was also the last time that the Cowboys played the AFC West where they had road games against the Los Angeles Chargers (operating out of San Diego then) and the Kansas City Chiefs. They hosted the then-Oakland Raiders on Thanksgiving just like they will again this year, so the similarities are a bit funny in that regard.

Offensively Tyron Smith was just establishing himself at left tackle while Doug Free was still roaming the right side. Dez Bryant and DeMarco Murray were featured at the skill positions, as were Miles Austin and Jason Witten, and of course Tony Romo was the team’s quarterback.

Where things really feel like a throwback are on defense for the Cowboys. Take a look at their starting group for their Week 1 game against the New York Giants (a 36-31 victory).

2013 Dallas Cowboys Week 1 starters

• DE: George Selvie
• DT: Jason Hatcher
• DT: Nick Hayden
• DE: DeMarcus Ware
• LB: Justin Durant
• LB: Sean Lee
• LB: Bruce Carter
• CB: Brandon Carr
• CB: Morris Claiborne
• SS: Will Allen
• FS: Barry Church

This was actually the final season that DeMarcus Ware would play for the Cowboys and as you can see he wasn’t exactly surrounded by a bevy of defensive talent. Consider that this is the same defensive group who would allow Peyton Manning to light them up (and have the slowest bootleg touchdown of all time) early in the season as they struggled all the way to the end, a Week 17 loss on Sunday Night Football to Chip Kelly’s Philadelphia Eagles.

Hopefully the similarities between Mickelson’s last major championship don’t bear any similarities for the Cowboys in terms of the 2021 season now that Lefty is back in the winner’s circle. That is one thing we can all agree on.