Blogging The Boys
Sunday as a memorable day for the Dallas Cowboys to say the least.
The 26 points allowed by the Dallas Cowboys in their Week 12 visit to the Washington Commanders would have been enough to lose all but their season opening 33-17 win at the Browns. The final six of these 26 could have very well been seven to tie the game with 33 seconds left after Terry McLaurin’s 86-yard touchdown, but Austin Seibert missed his second PAT of the game to preserve a one-point Cowboys lead. With the Commanders down to a final onside kick attempt, the Cowboys special teams group came up with one more game-changing play as safety Juanyeh Thomas not only recovered the kick but returned it up the middle of the field for a touchdown. While this gave the Commanders the ball back still within striking distance down by eight, they had time for just two plays with the game ending on another down-the-roster safety Israel Mukuamu intercepting Jayden Daniels’ last heave of the game.
There hasn’t been much to smile about for the Cowboys this season, who came into this divisional matchup on a five-game losing streak, but playing their closest thing to a complete game in a while to earn their fourth win and hand former defensive coordinator Dan Quinn his third straight loss is one of them. They will continue NFC East play in just four days on Thanksgiving against the New York Giants after improving their division record to 2-1 with a wild 34-26 win over the Commanders. Still far outside of the NFC playoff picture, McCarthy’s team is looking for any signs of positivity over the final months of the season. They now have a resilient win sparked by plenty of depth players that gives them a real chance to improve to 3-1 against their closest rivals by the end of Week 13. In a division that is going to have a non-repeat winner for the 20th season in a row this year, the Cowboys can try to stake their claim that they’ll be the team to extend this streak to 21 next season.
The Cowboys won this game without Zack Martin, Trevon Diggs, and Tyler Smith who all played last week, as well as Brandin Cooks and DeMarcus Lawrence who continue to be key missing pieces on both sides of the ball. Dallas did so by scoring 31 points in the second half, which is more than they scored in all of the second halves combined over their previous three-game losing streak. Jalen Tolbert’s third quarter touchdown was the first third quarter offensive touchdown of the season for the Cowboys, and their first points of any kind in the second half of a game in three weeks.
The Cowboys may not be playing the complementary style that won them 12 games and the NFC East just a year ago, ignited heavily by now-Commanders head coach Dan Quinn’s opportunistic defense. Like it or not though, the 2024 Cowboys version of...
