Blogging The Boys
The Dallas Cowboys are riding high after last Sunday’s win against the Philadelphia Eagles and more home cooking on Thanksgiving against the Kansas City Chiefs, They enter December above .500 for the first time all season at 6-5-1. The Cowboys even had a great Black Friday with the Chicago Bears handing the Eagles another loss. The post-holiday lull comes for us all though, and even America’s Team couldn’t avoid it this Sunday. The Cowboys got none of the help they needed to inch even closer towards a NFC Wild Card spot on Sunday, but can still put both a Wild Card berth and winning the NFC East outright on their Christmas wish list as things that remain possible going into the regular season’s final month.
A Cowboys season that seemed destined to feel like a long waste of time, with alternating wins and losses and a tie for good measure, through the first seven weeks has shifted in feeling dramatically. For a team that still ultimately has a lot of work left to do to reach the playoffs, they’ve been in must-win playoff mode since the Eagles game, and found a way to comeback and win against both the Eagles and Chiefs. Fans are on the edge of their seats watching a team that looks unrecognizable for all the right reasons on defense, and has a familiar-looking big-play offense with a new element of excitement in George Pickens.
The Cowboys playing de-facto playoff games from now until the end of the regular season under first-year head coach Brian Schottenheimer is a good thing, and suddenly the toughest game of this stretch on paper looks like their next one on Thursday night in Detroit. If the Cowboys can extend their win streak to four games, their first such streak since 2023, games against the Vikings, Chargers, Commanders, and Giants look much more manageable to end the season. The must-win nature of these games, even if the Cowboys do indeed win all of them, can still leave them short of the playoffs though, and for that reason alone can’t be mistaken for anything close to the actual playoff success this team is after – still facing a reality where missing out on the dance two years in a row is very real.
The best parts of what the Cowboys have going for them entering December runs deeper than the black-and-white of making the 2025 playoffs. Although with so many down teams around the league, and the Cowboys having the right mix of an explosive pass game, reliable run game, and stouter defense, still missing their chance at postseason glory would sting. Much of this season for the Cowboys has been about establishing a new culture under Schottenheimer, evidenced in their latest resilient wins, installing a new scheme on both sides of the ball, and finding better depth. Now playing their best ball of the season, the Cowboys have done well in all of these areas. Matt Eberflus’ defensive scheme was the one...
