Cowboys’ playoff hopes dwindling

When the Dallas Cowboys started their preparation for the 2016 draft, Jerry Jones expected to take a defensive player with their first pick, the fourth overall.

As the Dallas decisionmakers studied available players, they found no pass rushers or defensive backs worthy of the pick. They kept coming back to Ezekiel Elliott, a running back out of Ohio State, and came to a realization: The player who could most help their defence wasn’t a defensive player. It was Elliott, who could help keep their defence fresh and make life easier for their quarterback.

“We f elt l i ke t he best player that would really help keep the ball, help us maintain possession, we felt like Zeke could do that,” Jones said last year. “We all agreed.”

From the moment the Cowboys added Elliott, they designed not only their offence, but their entire team, around Elliott’s excellence. It helps explain why they have unravelled without him, and why their season is now hanging from a cliff.

The Cowboys lost at home Sunday to the 9-1 Philadelphia Eagles, 37- 9, in a game that unfolded for the first half as a competition and morphed, in the second half, into a showcase for the Eagles’ Super Bowl credentials.

In the first two games of Elliott’s six- game suspension, the Cowboys have been outscored, 64-16.

One week after the Falcons earned a potentially crucial victory over Dallas, the Eagles effectively clinched the NFC East four days before Thanksgiving.

A year after going 13- 3, Dallas is suddenly almost certain to miss the playoffs.

The Cowboys dropped to 5- 5, four games behind the first-place Eagles. Their outlook for a wild- card spot in the stacked NFC is not much rosier. They sit behind the Panthers, Lions, Seahawks and Falcons in the NFC race, with a 4- 4 record in conference games.