ClutchPoints
While Dallas Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer is confident in a George Pickens bounce-back, the team is still clinging to postseason hopes. And here is the Cowboys’ playoff picture with their updated DVOA, along with models from The Athletic and ESPN, before their Week 15 contest against the Vikings.
The Cowboys’ best shot to reach the playoffs is by winning the NFC East. They stand at 6-6-1 while the first-place Eagles are 8-5. Both teams have soft schedules down the stretch.
The Cowboys’ tie makes the head-to-head matchups with the Eagles and division record meaningless unless the Eagles tie a game before the end of the regular season. That’s because the winning percentage will decide things.
If the Eagles get to 11 wins, the Cowboys cannot win the division. The best they could do is 10-6-1, which is a winning percentage of .618. At 11-6, the Eagles’ winning percentage would be .647.
Conversely, if the Eagles finish 10-7, their winning percentage would be .588, and the Cowboys would win the division.
The problem for the Cowboys is the Eagles’ schedule. They play the Raiders once and the Commanders twice. That combined record of their opponents is 8-31. Philly also plays the Bills. But as long as they beat the Raiders and sweep the Commanders, the Cowboys have no shot.
Thus, they have just an 8.5% chance to win the NFC East, according to FTN Fantasy.
As for the Wild Card picture, there are opportunities. But the Cowboys’ chances there are currently listed at 1.6%.
Here’s a fun fact. The ESPN model lists the Cowboys as having a less than 1% chance of earning the No. 1 overall seed. It seems like it should be zero.
But if the Rams and Seahawks tie in their head-to-head meeting, the Packers lose out and finish at 9-7-1, and nobody else in the NFC gets to 11 wins, and the Cowboys win out, their 10–6-1 record would trump the Rams, Seahawks, Eagles, and 49ers for the top spot.
ESPN gives the Cowboys a 10% chance of reaching the playoffs.
Anybody who thinks the Cowboys truly have just a 10% chance of reaching the playoffs is living in the past. They are viewing the Eagles as the defending Super Bowl champions. That may have mattered earlier in the season. But it’s meaningless now.
The Eagles are a mess. They’re a physical mess with star offensive lineman Lane Johnson out of the mix. And they are a mental mess with a head coach who is out of answers and a quarterback who has fallen apart.
To assume the Eagles will beat the Raiders — as bad as the Raiders are this season — is a risky assumption. And to automatically give them a sweep of the Commanders is foolhardy.
In fact, there may be more of a chance that the Cowboys trip up against...
