Cowboys are eliminated from playoffs but they have two more chances to play spoiler

Once again, winning back-to-back NFC East titles is an impossible task as of late. After three straight 12-5 campaigns, two of which resulted in division titles, the Dallas Cowboys will not only repeat as division champions, Mike McCarthy’s club has been mathematically eliminated from the playoffs. That happened on Sunday, when the Washington Commanders rallied to beat the first-place Philadelphia Eagles, 36-33.

Mick Sirianni’s club remains atop the NFC East with a 12-3 record, and the Commanders are on their heels with a 10-5 mark. For McCarthy’s squad, they can still make life miserable for one or both of these teams. The Cowboys play at Philadelphia on Sunday, and host Washington in Week 18.

The Cowboys have won four of their last five games

Sunday night’s 26-24 win over Tampa Bay cooled off a Buccaneers’ team that had won its previous four games. The Bucs are now 8-7 and tied with the Falcons atop the NFC South, but Atlanta swept Todd Bowles’s club this season. Did the Cowboys get an early jump on spoiling a team’s season?

It’s been a rollercoaster year for McCarthy’s squad. The Cowboys owned a 3-2 record after five weeks, then went on five-game skid that saw them outscored a combined 172-70. McCarthy’s club took a 3-7 record into Landover and that’s when the turnaround began. A wild 34-26 victory over the improved Commanders was the start of what is now a 4-1 stretch.

Yes, one of those losses during the five-game losing streak was a 34-6 defeat at the hands of the Eagles, and at AT&T Stadium no less. The Cowboys scored a season-low six points, and it was the second time in four games Dallas failed to score a touchdown. Then again, you have to go back to 2011 to find the last time the Birds swept Jerry Jones’s franchise.

For what it’s worth, Dallas is 6-1 in its last seven meetings with Washington. They’ve won the last three meetings at AT&T Stadium by a combined 126-34. Yes, Dak Prescott threw a combined eight touchdown passes in wins in 2021 and ’23. However, Cooper Rush was the starter in 2022, and he threw for 223 yards and two scores in a 25-10 victory.

It appears that the Cowboys may have a say in who wins the NFC East after all.