Trip to Dallas carries slim, but alive, playoff hopes
The last weekend of the regular season usually is when teams on the playoff bubble guard against scoreboard watching.
Not so in the NFC East, where everyone is in the postseason hunt. The NFL flexed Washington-Carolina from 1 p.m. to 4:05 p.m. to add meaning to the Eagles-Dallas gettogether at 4:25 p.m.
Why? A Washington (6-8) victory would eliminate the Eagles (4-9-1) and the Cowboys (5-9) from contention. The New York Giants (5-9) could be out of the playoff hunt should they lose in their 1 p.m. kickoff in Baltimore. On an entertainment level, however, that beats the alternative.
The playoffs are a longshot for the Eagles (4-9-1). That’s better than no shot for a team seeking its fourth straight postseason trip.
To win the NFC East, the Birds must beat the Cowboys (5-9) while Washington (6-8) loses to Carolina this weekend and the Eagles bat
Washington next week at the Linc.
Pro Bowl defensive end Brandon Graham recalled the final weekend of the 2018 season, when the Eagles (9-7) needed two things to happen to secure a wild card berth: A win over Washington and a Chicago win over Minnesota. Both were 4:25 p.m. kickoffs.
“We ended up handling our business and everything happened the way it was supposed to,” Graham said Wednesday. “I’m hoping it’s a remake of that. But we’ve got to take care of the Cowboys this week in order to make that happen. The Giants have got to do something for us, and the Washington has got to do something for us but No. 1, we’ve got to take care of us and it’s the Cowboys this week.”
The Giants (5-9) will claim the division crown if they win out and Washington loses once. It’s going to be tough for the Giants to beat the Ravens, though.
Washington is the champ if it wins out. If the Cowboys win their final two games and Washington loses twice, the Cowboys win the pennant.
Cowboys head coach Mike Mc
Carthy was the quarterbacks coach in Green Bay when then-head coach Ray Rhodes and Brett Favre were trying to get into the postseason by the point-differential tiebreaker. That day, scoreboard watching benefitted the Packers.
“I can recall in the 1999 season, the Y2K game,” McCarthy said. “We played the Cardinals and we had to win the game but we had to win by more than 17 points to beat Carolina on a tiebreaker. And then Dallas was playing the Giants, and the Giants had to beat the Cowboys. And we got into the game and Carolina jumped up on somebody. We were running the ball and we were ahead, and all of the sudden we start throwing it and Arizona, they started throwing it more and they started coming back. That was one of the craziest games. We won the game by more than 17 and the Cowboys, I think Chan Gailey was the head coach there at that time, they beat the Giants, so we didn’t get in the playoffs.”
McCarthy said he’s also been the home team when out-of-town results purposely weren’t shown, although that seems unlikely with
fans at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
The Eagles are two-point favorites over the Cowboys, who with veteran quarterback Andy Dalton throwing two TD passes scored a 4133 win over San Francisco last week.
While Washington is favored by three points over Carolina (4-10), it is working through a controversy in which quarterback Dwayne Haskins was fined for violating NFL COVID protocols by appearing unmasked at an event with strippers. Head coach Ron Rivera angrily cut off all questions about the strip stuff early in his Wednesday presser.
Haskins was allowed to practice Wednesday. Alex Smith (calf)
participated in individual drills but likely is a week or two away. Haskins wasn’t on a win streak anyway, throwing two interceptions in a 20-15 loss to Seattle.
The Eagles have a shot. And that’s worth paying attention to.
“If guys want to use it, hopefully it just brings good energy and the Panthers are winning the whole time so the guys on our sideline are just fired up,” middle linebacker Alex Singleton said. “I know I’m going to ignore it. Everybody knows what this (Cowboys) offense has, what weapons they have. If we’re not 100 percent focused on what they’re going to bring to the table, it will be a tough night no matter what’s going on in the other game.”