For most of the past 20 years, if you used the words "Cowboys" and "Super Bowl" in the same sentence, people automatically thought you were crazy, and that's because it's been over two decades since Dallas last appeared in the big game -- if you're scoring at home that was Super Bowl XXX, which was played in January 1996.

So could this year finally be the season where the Cowboys end the drought?

Maybe, but maybe not.

For most teams, getting off to a 9-1 start is one of the best things that can happen. However, that hasn't been the case for the Dallas Cowboys.

Before this year, the Cowboys had started 9-1 three times in franchise history and none of those teams went on to make it to the Super Bowl -- or even win a playoff game. That's right, 9-1 has almost been a curse for the Cowboys.

In 1976, 1983 and 2007, the Cowboys started 9-1 and in each of those years, they didn't make it past their first playoff game.

In 1976, the 11-3 Cowboys ended up losing in the divisional round of the playoffs, 14-12, to the Rams. In 1983, the 12-4 Cowboys lost 42-17 in a wild-card game to, yup, you guessed it, the Rams again. Finally, in 2007, the 13-3 Cowboys lost 21-17 to the Giants in the divisional round.

That's three 9-1 starts that were all wasted with a loss in the Cowboys' first playoff game. The irony is that losing your first playoff game after starting 9-1 has been almost impossible to do throughout NFL history.

Before this season, there had been a total of 66 teams in NFL history that started the season 9-1 since the Super Bowl-era started in 1966. Of those 66 teams that finished 9-1, 48 of them went on to win a playoff game. That means 72.7 percent of the time, a 9-1 team has won a playoff game.

Let me put that another way: If you don't include the Cowboys, 9-1 teams have gone 48-15 in their first playoff game (.762 winning percentage), while the Cowboys have gone 0-3 (.000 winning percentage).

Fortunately, there is some good news for the Cowboys. Of the 66 teams that started 9-1, all 66 made it to the playoffs. That's a 100 percent success rate, which means Cowboys fans can probably go ahead and safely put down a Jerry-World sized deposit on playoff tickets.

If the Cowboys can get past that first playoff game, they could be in for a run to the Super Bowl.

Of the 66 teams that started 9-1, exactly half of them (33) went on to play in the Super Bowl, which means the Cowboys have given themselves some seriously good odds to make it to the big game.

Of those 33 teams that made it to the Super Bowl, 17 of them went on to win it. That means that 25.8 percent of the time (17 out of 66), a team that started 9-1 has gone on to win the Super Bowl.

If 25 percent of the teams that start 9-1 eventually win a Super Bowl and this is the fourth time the Cowboys have started 9-1, the odds say it's time for them to win a Super Bowl. At least I think that's what they say.