The Dallas Cowboys haven’t made the NFC Championship Game in almost three decades, and their fans — including Kelly Clarkson — have had just about enough.
Clarkson, 42, a Texas native and lifelong Cowboys fan, did not mince words when she discussed Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and his constant effusing that next season will be the one to finally take his storied franchise to the promised land once again.
“I just read something with my sister and I guess Jerry Jones had said, ‘Well, now is the time,” Clarkson said on the Thursday, March 27 episode of the “Not Gonna Lie with Kylie Kelce” podcast. “And I was like, ‘Oh, Ok. It was different from the last ‘now’s the time.’ Very different from last year’s time, which was also the time.”
Still, Clarkson couldn’t help but exude some of that same blind optimism — while acknowledging the rest of the league’s disdain for the franchise known as “America’s Team.”
“Our team is probably one of the most hated,” Clarkson told Kelce, 33. “Because I also think, too, we’re always so hopeful. I don’t think there’s been more dreamers since the ‘90s. Every year is our year.”
While Clarkson and Kelce — who is married to former Philadelphia Eagles star, Jason Kelce — struggled to find much common ground fandom-wise, Kylie did admit to having a soft spot for a surprising group of NFL diehards.
“I will tell you that I have a bond with Giants fans for some reason,” Kylie said. “It’s often Giants fans [who] meet my husband and they immediately have truth serum and say, ‘I have to be honest, I’m a Giants fan.’ And I’m like, ‘Well, everyone has their flaws, but we can agree, ‘F*** the Cowboys.’”
Kelly jokingly responded, “But you know what, why is your name in your mouth like that?”
After missing the playoffs last season, the Cowboys will attempt to right the ship under the guidance of new head coach, Brian Schottenheimer, who takes over for the ousted Mike McCarthy.
In an exclusive interview with Us Weekly in January, legendary Cowboys running back Emmitt Smith expressed some skepticism about Schottenheimer’s hiring.
“I’m gonna start off by saying this: you gotta give everybody a chance to prove that they’re great head coaches and capable of leading the team to where it needs to go,” Smith, 55, said of Schottenheimer. “However, I have to wait and see the direction that he’s going to take the organization and if he has the ability to take the organization in the direction that I think it should go.”
Smith added, “We have gotten so far away from the character of who we are. We need to go back to the fundamentals of who we are as an organization. That’s how we’re going to get back to our winning ways. If that doesn’t happen, we’re going to be sorry for a long time.”
