In the world of an NFL football fan, is there anything worse than the weekend immediately following the week your team gets eliminated from postseason play? Saturday and Sunday roll around, and for the past 4 months you’ve been trained to look forward to the next game, the next opportunity for your team to show what it can do. But the Weekend After is a whole other experience.

Teams are playing, but the squad you’ve lived and died with for the entire fall is nowhere on the schedule. Instead, you’re treated to a game featuring a team that sent your team packing. And inevitably, you’re left conflicted – do you root for the triumphant team from last week so that you can claim that at least your team was eliminated by a champion? Or do you hold a grudge and root for this team to get unceremoniously dumped by its opponent as your team was? Worse yet, you feel frustrated even having to be in this situation and even a little betrayed by your team putting you through it.

This past weekend was, of course, the Weekend After for Cowboys fans. And as America watched a great football game between two talented teams, a whole different set of emotions were likely being felt by the Cowboys faithful.

Damn the Weekend After.