The truth is, things don’t look all that great at the moment. Not trying to be a curmudgeon, just looking at the reality of situation.
We must admit, this is all just par for the course. Dallas has been doing this for most of two decades, just slapping run-of-the-mill teams around during the regular season and getting heaps of praise from everywhere. Same old song a dance, version 2023.
You can virtually count the really big wins on one hand. At Seattle, a couple of Pittsburgh games, at Indy against Peyton, a couple of Saints games, perhaps. But for the most part, it’s just handling business against rag-tag teams that don’t mean much of anything in the grand scheme. This Cowboys team has failed to win a big game against a contending team in a long time.
Yes, of course, you have to win these games against losing teams and rack up wins; otherwise, you never get your chance to in January. Fair enough, and it’s good to be on a roll of good play in this stretch. But really good teams don’t give these games much thought outside of a good time on Sunday in the fall. They’re just necessary steps to the real season later on. Ask Emmitt, Troy, Roger, and Drew about that.
Philly has all the tie-breakers because the Cowboys’ losses are against NFC teams. KC could provide some help tonight, but I think the Eagles win that game against the struggling Chiefs, who are lucky not to be .500. The Eagles have two tough games these next two weeks, but finish with a cakewalk at the end while we play our toughest stretch against Seattle, Philly, Miami, Buffalo, and Detroit.
Dallas likely has to win at least 6 of their last 8 to even have a chance to pass Philly, whose bad loss was to an AFC team unlike our loss to Arizona. Again, can’t just catch them; Dallas has to pass them. Injuries aside, of course, as is the caveat of any football season.
A wild card means a three-game road trip as the No. 5 seed against Detroit, San Francisco, and Philadelphia. Recent history doesn’t give great feels about that.
Go Chiefs and 49ers these next two weeks. We’ll see.