Cowboys not having won a playoff game in more than a decade.

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IRVING, Texas - The other day, talking with Brian Stewart, there was something the defensive coordinator said that caught my attention. 

  We had been talking about Adam Jones, how the suspended cornerback seemed to be slowly but surely knocking off some rust. We had marveled how the Pacman scooted across the field, resembling that roadrunner flitting across the backyard the other day on that punt return in Denver. Then somehow we got around to the entire defense. Might as well have been the entire team. 

  Stewart said something like, "Just like we were talking about the other day," meaning to his players in a meeting, "we're good, got to be great." 

  That, for some reason stuck in my mind, causing me to circle what he said afterward in my notebook. And then there it was Wednesday night while watching Hard Knocks following the Cowboys night practice before 25,000 people at Texas Stadium thanks to the miracle of DVR in High Def, Stewart saying the exact same thing in front of his defense, assumingly during a meeting in Denver, and likely after one of the lackluster practices on Wednesday against the Broncos. 

  "We're good, but now we got to be great." 

  Good last year was good enough to match the club record for most wins in a season. Good last year was good enough to win the NFC East and earn the top playoff seed in the NFC, along with the accompanying first-round bye and a home game in the playoffs. 

  But in the end, good was not good enough. 

  Thus the challenge this year, the hammer this coaching staff must, and evidently has, thrown down to the Dallas Cowboys. They know if the Cowboys merely settle for good this year they will not improve, and if this team does not improve from last year, then that will be a shame. A crime, really, because guarantee you, settling for the same will end up being worse than last year. 

  Thus a very enlightening battle cry for 2008: We're good, we got to be great, words to keep a team loaded with 13 Pro Bowlers from growing complacent, if a team which hasn't won a playoff game since 1996 - albeit not all these players - would dare grow complacent. But of the guys still on this 80-man roster, only eight have been a part of the past three of six straight playoff losses. 

  That's not many, and most certainly don't feel responsible for the Cowboys not having won a playoff game in more than a decade. In fact, 47 of the 80 on this current roster arrived no sooner than last season. So while most everyone wants to point out the Cowboys haven't won a playoff game in the past 11 seasons, the majority of the guys on this roster, 51 to be exact, were no more than 13 years old when the Cowboys lost the first of those six straight playoff games back in 1996. 

  So no sense playing the guilt-trip card on them, that's not going to motivate. Come on, some of the guys on this current roster still were in grade school back then. They can't relate to a loss pinned on Aikman and Irvin and Lett and Sanders. 

  And while taking responsibility for last year's playoff loss is noble, guarantee these proud athletes are qualifying in the back of their minds that loss to the Giants after beating them by 10 and 11 the first two meetings as no more than just one of those days. So while the memory stings, the motivation is not everlasting. 

  But with the exception of the six draft choices and 20 free agents, along with Zach Thomas and Adam Jones, who have their own personal motivating factors for this season, the rest who somehow had contact with this club last year certainly do know what it's like to be good in the NFL. 

  Great is a different matter, indeed a worthy goal they can drag the rest along with them if they are willing to shoulder this burden. 

  Now we saw a little bit of this last Saturday night on the sideline in Denver, and all was reinforced during the third episode of Hard Knocks when we actually got to hear what veteran Greg Ellis, one of only two players having been around for five of these past six playoff losses (Flozell Adams the other), actually said when he gathered up