Dallas Bent on Finishing Turnaround : Super Bowl: Young and colorful Cowboys improve from 1-15 three seasons ago to the brink of NFC’s ninth consecutive championship.

If it’s still a rhetorical question, at least now it’s a more interesting one.

At least now there’s a fresh new angle and some fresh new faces to greet the Buffalo Bills as they prepare to lose yet another Super Bowl--their third in a row and the AFC’s ninth straight in this pathetically long and historically unprecedented streak of conference futility.

At least now there are the Dallas Cowboys, one of the most interesting and colorful teams to come along in years. They’re young, they’re excitable, they’re capable of greatness--and best of all, they’re not the New York Giants, the Washington Redskins or the San Francisco 49ers, winners of nine of the last 11 Super Bowls.

And unless the Cowboys show a vulnerability unlike any other NFC team since the 1983 Redskins, they will stake their claim to Super Bowl XXVII and complete one of the most remarkable turnarounds in professional sports history. Faster than even they could have envisioned when they went through the 1-15 horror show of 1989, the first year of the Jerry Jones-Jimmy Johnson era.

“One-and-15 seems like so long ago,” wide receiver Michael Irvin was saying after the Cowboys’ 30-20 victory over the 49ers in Sunday’s NFC Championship Game. “I guess there were times back then when we didn’t think we’d ever get to this point.

“I don’t think we expected to get there so fast.”

Neither did Johnson, who endured incessant criticism during his inauspicious rookie season in 1989 yet emerged as one of the league’s most respected coaches.

“It started four years ago, when we started at rock bottom,” Johnson said. “Our organization has demanded a lot from our players, sometimes more than our guys could give.

“But there has been a tremendous amount of commitment. Now, we’re one game away from where we really want to be.”

Assuming Johnson can squeeze one more solid game out of his players (which at this point wouldn’t appear too difficult), then the Cowboys will be exactly where they want to be on the evening of Jan. 31 in Pasadena. They’ll be shaking hands with Commissioner Paul Tagliabue and kissing the Vince Lombardi Trophy and getting ready for a parade through the streets of Dallas.

They’ll be doing all of those things for one simple reason: They’re a better team than the Bills.

Not that the Bills’ moving playoff performances are without merit.

They displayed the heart of a champion--albeit an AFC champion--in becoming only the third wild-card team to reach the Super Bowl.

They gave us one of the best games in NFL history with their comeback from a 35-3 deficit in that 41-38 victory over the Houston Oilers two weeks ago.

They showed poise by beating the Steelers on the road a week later.

And Sunday, they won again on the road, this time against a Miami Dolphins team that looked as bad as any conference championship participant ever looked.

But now they face a Cowboys team that dominated the 49ers on the road and made the NFL’s No. 1 offense look weak and inconsistent. They made Steve Young, the league’s Most Valuable Player, look simply ordinary and even made people wonder if perhaps Joe Montana might have fared better.

Montana would have fared better--had this game been played three or four years ago. But the feeling here is that even Montana, whose last meaningful game was an NFC Championship Game loss to the Giants two years ago, would have been beaten by the Cowboys. That’s how good this defense is.

“We made a personal goal this season to get some respect,” said defensive tackle Tony Casillas, “and I think we’ve got it now.”

They’ve got it thanks to a well-conceived offense capable of adapting to virtually any type of game condition--grind it out with Emmitt Smith if they must, stretch the field with Irvin and fellow wideout Alvin Harper if they must.

But mostly, they have earned respect because of a superior defense, whose quickness and versatility is unmatched.

The Cowboys gave up what at first glance is an unseemly 415 yards to the 49ers. But forget about the number.

Look instead at their two fourth-quarter interceptions, and their two stops in the first half that forced the 49ers into field-goal attempts instead of touchdowns.

“Any time you trade three for seven, sooner or later, you’ll find yourself behind,” Young said. “I think that’s what happened.”

At the controls for the Dallas defense is Dave Wannstedt, the defensive coordinator who on Tuesday was named the Chicago Bears’ next head coach.

In the meantime, Wannstedt will draw up one more game plan to try and take down the Bills’ vaunted no-huddle offense, which has tried and failed in two previous Super Bowls against the superior defenses of the Giants and Redskins.

“I’m happy for our guys,” Wannstedt said. “We’ve got a young team and we’ve got a lot of talented players who have worked hard for what they’ve earned. We’ve got one more game to go now, and we’re going to do what we can to reach our ultimate goal.”

And if history has anything to say about it, Wannstedt can expect a Super Bowl ring before he goes off to undertake the task of rebuilding the Bears.

History says a good defense beats a good offense almost every time.

That was precisely the case on Sunday against the 49ers, and there’s no reason to believe it won’t be the case again Jan. 31 in Pasadena.