The "I'm OK, You're OK" Cowboys aren't so unique.

They're infringing on history, whether anonymous sources have bothered to inform them or not.

The first Cowboys team to be 11 full seasons removed from a playoff victory can now become the Charlie Finley A's or the Billy Martin Bronx Zoo Yankees of the '70s, take your pick.

Or they can start to be the Kobe-Shaq Lakers of recent three-peat NBA championship glory.

At the very worst, the Bickering 'Boys have a chance to conjure up comparisons to the Bickering Bills.

In other words, the Cowboys have 120 regular-season minutes left — starting Saturday night against Baltimore in the Farewell to Texas Stadium Game — to prove they can get to a place where they can show they belong with some of the great dysfunctional teams of the past.

It's quite a challenge.

Here's the blueprint off which they have to work:

The Bickering Bills: Buffalo went to four straight Super Bowls in the early '90s — and lost them all. By a combined score of 139-73.

Including twice to the Cowboys.

Just prior to their second Super Bowl trip (vs. the Redskins in Minneapolis), the Bills got an early jump on deconstruction.

Star running back Thurman Thomas apparently was offended by one of the Buffalo coaches referring to Bills QB Jim Kelly as "our Michael Jordan," or as Tony Kornheiser wrote in the "Washington Post": "(Thurman) stacked up all the newspaper stories written about him, and found they didn't reach the moon."

Sound like anybody you know? Just asking.

Rowdy Buddy Ryan: Not enough physical confrontation for you, Cowboys fans? Try this one.

In the last season of a seven-year run of making the playoffs, the '93 Houston Oilers would close out the regular-season with a 24-0 win over the New York Jets at the Astrodome.

But that didn't keep the Oilers' two coordinators from acting on their dislike for one another, right there on the sideline, in front of a national television audience.

Buddy Ryan (defense) later explained that he landed a punch to the jaw of Kevin Gilbride (offense) over "a difference in coaching philosophy in the heat of battle."

Ryan, in truth, hated Gilbride's Run-n-Shoot offense, which historically took no time off the clock to help the Oilers' defense. (Ryan liked to call it the "Chuck-and-Duck.")

The Oilers, 11-5, won the division, drew a bye . . . but were then promptly bounced from the playoffs, at home, by 35-year-old Joe Montana and the Kansas City Chiefs.

Charlie Finley A's: Not enough player-on-player violence for you? Try this one.

The Oakland A's won three consecutive World Series from '72 through '74, and with high-profile guys like Reggie Jackson, Catfish Hunter, Vida Blue, Rollie Fingers and Blue Moon Odom on the team, there always was as much drama off the field as on.

On the eve of Game 1 of the '74 World Series (vs. the LA Dodgers), Fingers and Odom got into a clubhouse fistfight.

So much for chemistry, right?

No big thang. The A's went out and beat the Dodgers in five games, including a 3-2 Game 1 victory. That was barely enough time to get the furniture back in place.

Bronx Zoo Yanks: Billy Martin never saw a fight he didn't like, so managing Reggie Jackson and working for George Steinbrenner was always Billy's calling.

And as a five-time Yankees manager, Martin had plenty of chances to keep the dream alive.

But nothing was more contentious than the relationship between Martin and Jackson. It erupted in a dugout fight — caught by the NBC cameras — during the sixth inning of a June 18, 1977, loss to the rival Red Sox at Fenway Park.

During a Yankees pitching change, Martin yanked Jackson from his right-field post thinking Jackson had dogged it on the previous play.

Reggie was indignant. Billy was livid.

Jackson came to the dugout and waved his arms. Martin had to be restrained, and the fight broken up.

The '77 Yankees went on to win the World Series. They beat the Dodgers in six games.

Sphinx vs. Plastic Man: Duane Thomas' snide remarks about Tom Landry didn't divide the Cowboys locker room at the beginning of the '70s any more than Clint Longley's infamous sucker-punch of Roger Staubach several years later did.

But Thomas vs. Landry is notable for one reason: It was internal, and it was very personal.

But guess what? Thomas spent two seasons in Dallas. The Cowboys went to the Super Bowl both times, including a SB VI win over the Dolphins.

That week in New Orleans, Thomas wasn't talking. He had said all he wanted to say the summer before: "Tom Landry is a plastic man ..."

On Jan. 16, 1972, Thomas rushed for 95 yards and Landry hoisted the Lombardi Trophy by Tiffany & Co.

Nothing plastic about that.

Kobe vs. Shaq I, II and III: Some places you don't know where to start. That's sort of the way it was with Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant during high-drama discord for parts of three NBA championship runs together.

Did this divide the team? Sure, so much so that the Lakers three-peated for the first time since the Jordan-Pippen Chicago Bulls, and those two guys weren't exactly crazy about each other, either.

Coach Phil Jackson — an expert on NBA in-fighting — wrote a book on his Kobe-Shaq Lakers experience. It was titled "The Last Season: A Team in Search of Its Soul".

Dysfunctional teams really can win out.

These are just a few examples. (We're waiting to hear back from anonymous sources for more.)

Wait. One just came in ...Tonya Harding vs. Nancy Kerrigan, U.S. figure skating team, '94 Lillehammer Olympics. Kerrigan medals (silver) despite being clubbed on the knee nine weeks earlier by convicted conspiracists associated with Harding.

Isn't it nice to know that so much history is on the Cowboys' side?