America’s Team: The Gambler and His Cowboys premiered on August 19, 2025, on Netflix.
By Elazar Abrahams
As we approach the end of the year, I find myself with a large backlog of articles that still need to be written. See, I got married this September, and while 2025 has been incredible because of that, it also meant that TV and City took a backseat. That’s valid, but there’s so much great entertainment out there that deserves to be shared with our readers. On top of that, I also accepted screeners and press tickets for a number of projects. Those perks come with the expectation that this site will be covering them, and I feel quite bad about that. Many of the shows and movies have long since premiered, and the theatrical productions closed as scheduled. Still, it feels only right to sit down, put pen to paper (or keyboard to screen, rather) and get these pieces out into the world. May 2026 bring more great times and excuses, and more good art into all our lives.
One of the first television reviews I fell behind on was that of a really great sports binge.
Netflix’s America’s Team: The Gambler and His Cowboys is an eight-episode binge that relives the Dallas Cowboys’ 1990s dynasty, from the Super Bowl highs to the controversies and internal blowups that made the franchise feel like a year-round soap opera. I found it really compelling and a well-done watch.
I’m also not the target audience in the most obvious way. I’m a casual sports fan, and I wasn’t alive for the Cowboys’ peak dynasty years. My Cowboys memories are mostly the much less exciting 21st-century version. That distance actually helped the series work for me, because it plays less like nostalgia bait and more like a crash course in how a sports team becomes a cultural brand.
The show’s secret weapon is owner Jerry Jones. There is so much to unpack with him that the series almost becomes two docs in one. On one level, it’s a sports story about building a championship roster and turning it into a machine. On another level, it’s a story about power, ego, money, and an owner who didn’t just want to win, but wanted to own the narrative of winning.
The doc does a strong job balancing that. The football stuff is genuinely satisfying, even if you’re not someone who rewatches old games for fun. It has the energy and spunk, with all the major figures from that era appearing throughout to offer their insights.
But what kept me clicking “next episode” was the human drama: the scandals, the disagreements, the internal fractures, and the kind of organizational tension that makes you realize a team can be successful and dysfunctional at the same time.
The coaching fallout is especially gripping, because it hits on a timeless sports question: who gets the credit when something great happens, and who is to blame when something goes wrong? The series understands that championships do not end conflict. They often intensify it.
What also makes the show feel bigger is the way it connects the franchise’s football dominance to the broader myth of “America’s Team.” It’s not subtle about the idea that Dallas became a marketing juggernaut as much as it became a sports powerhouse. Much has written about how Jones helped turn the Cowboys into a modern sports brand that has lasted decades, and that brand-first storyline is one of the most interesting parts of this series too.
If there’s a downside, it’s the familiar tension you get with big modern sports docs: access versus edge. Some critics have noted that the series can feel like it’s operating in the shadow of the “authorized” model, where the storytelling is the sanitized version approved by those involved in the history. I felt that at points, but overall, these episodes are a lot less in your face about that than other similar projects.
Ultimately, America’s Team: The Gambler and His Cowboys succeeds because it’s not just about football. It’s about personality and control. Even as someone who didn’t grow up on this era of NFL, I found it absorbing.
I give America’s Team: The Gambler and His Cowboys an A-.
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