By JOHN JAMES MARSHALL/Designated Writers

If you don’t believe that the NFL is a week-to-week existence, then you haven’t been watching the Dallas Cowboys.

Ever.

But particularly this year, where it’s almost gotten comical. No, actually, it is comical.

The baseball season is a marathon and no one lives or dies with each win or loss. Basketball has a regular season that nobody cares about — obviously the load-managing players don’t — but by its very nature, football lends itself to three hours of action and six days of reaction.

And the Dallas Cowboys always seem to be reacting to something.

They win, and it might as well be the mid-1990s all over again. Super Bowl, here we come. Dak Prescott is an elite quarterback. Ezekiel Elliott should start writing the Hall of Fame speech. Could this offense and/or defense be the best in the league?

They lose, and how long will it be until the coach gets fired? What’s wrong with (fill in the blank)? How many ways did the officials screw us? They’ll be lucky to make the playoffs.

Part of it is just the very nature of being the Dallas Cowboys. A bigger part of it is Jerry Jones. Lord knows, the man has been a fantastic owner of the franchise. But the poor guy can’t help himself when it comes to staying away from a camera lens. Have you ever seen the Tampa Bay owner getting interviewed after the game? Do you even know who the Tampa Bay owner is? (It’s some member of the Glazer family.) Have you ever listened to the radio show of the Cincinnati owner? There isn’t one. (There’s an owner, just not a radio show)

The talking point this week is about the quote Jones had after the loss to New England, which was a thinly veiled reference to the shaky job status of Dallas coach Jason Garrett. Which seems a little strange, because the Cowboys battled to the final horn and against the six-time Super Bowl champions. Losing a close game in miserable conditions on the road to the Patriots may not be a moral victory, but it seems like it deserves more than a verbal pink slip.

Then again, this is the Cowboys.

Some things are plain stupid. There’s no gray area.

3-D Dumb.

.Some people I know where robbed recently, but in his haste the robber dropped a piece of paper that was, unfortunately for him, a personal reminder of his upcoming court appearance. It included his name and address.

Oops.

And then there was the story out of Opelousas this week of the gentleman who stuck a handgun in his waistband. The gun was loaded, a live round in the chamber. It went off. Now, the man from Opelousas – and I use the term “man” loosely here — is not as loaded as he once was – although the story did contain the phrase “underwent reattachment surgery” and “Police had not determined why (stupid man’s name) was walking around with a pistol in his pants.”

Easy. No brain in his head.

Stupid move.

There are lots of ways to say that a guy’s parents don’t have to worry about the Yale Admissions Department clogging up the family doorway to offer their kid a scholarship. For no other reason than they make me laugh, I’ll offer my Top 10.

He’s a few crumbs short of a biscuit.

Somewhere, a village is missing its idiot.

It’s almost like he has a small piece of brain lodged in his head.

Dumb as a bag of hammers/sharp as a bowling ball.

He has a room temperature (or shoe-sized) IQ.

He’s a regular Elbert Einstein.

He’s lost all contact with the mothership.

He doesn’t have both oars in the water.

He fell out of the Stupid Tree and hit every branch on the way down. (That’s a bit long for me but it’s funny.)

My favorite: The wheel is turning but the hamster’s dead.

We all swallow a Stupid Pill from time to time.

But then there are things more along the lines of bad ideas. We call them mental muscle spasms. Brain cramps.

A boss buddy of mine found out the hard way this week that the letters T and G are very close to each other on the keyboard. For this reason, he will never be ending a work email with the phrase “Regards” again.

Muscle spasm.

I was told of a funeral in which the preacher, who kept candy in his desk, said that each Sunday morning the deceased would come into his office and, with a “Good morning!” and a smile, “go through my drawers.”

Brain cramp.

Finally, the worst idea I’ve heard of in a long time happened last week in Detroit, where Hall of Fame voice of the Detroit Tigers Ernie Harwell passed away at 92. A public viewing was held at Comerica Park, where the Tigers play. I am not a big “lying in state” guy to start with, but a casket on the warning track is off base on several levels. I didn’t like the picture of Ernie lying there, flowers all around, his statue by him, velvet ropes marking “foul ground,” for lack of a better term.

“Hey dad, remember when you took me to the park and we saw Mr. Ernie dead?”

“Those were great times son!”

At least there was no danger of him being hit by a foul ball. At least the ballclub didn’t lay their humble, summer-sweet play-by-play guy out during a game. Thankfully, the Tigers were on the road.

As was, I guess, Ernie.

-30-