After turkey, it gets tougher
Low on quality wins, Cowboys likely facing harsh playoff math.
ARLINGTON — Dallas’ playoff chances took a big hit.
Bigger than any the ones taken on Turkey Day by gimpy Tony Romo, who was outplayed by the guy who made the “butt fumble” a cult classic.
On the biggest football Thursday of the season, the Cowboys were basted, stuffed, sliced and eaten up by Mark Sanchez, LeSean McCoy and the more explosive Philadelphia Eagles. Romo looked old, the offensive line failed to protect, and Dez Bryant was held to three catches for 35 yards over the last three quarters.
“There are no excuses,” said Romo. “They made things a little tougher and I missed some throws I should have made. They just played better and took it to us.”
And guess what? It’s not too early to start talking wild card, or worse yet, how tough it will be to earn one of those two coveted playoff spots when the dealing’s done.
A matchup of 8-3 teams
atop the NFC East appeared more like an 8-3 versus a 3-8. The 33-10 loss did little to make the glass-half-full types believe that Dallas can make a deep run in the postseason — or even make the postseason — reason being the Cowboys just haven’t performed very well overall against the elite teams on their schedule.
Remember when a ruggedly handsome Statesman columnist wrote that the Cowboys were basically gifted the East because they have the best quarterback in the division? Yeah, about that... Getting back to more pressing matters, Philadelphia did a great job of following the script that has revealed itself over the course of the 2014 season: Dallas has been below average against good teams for the most part. When expectations are attached — and the first place in the East was on the line Thursday — the Cowboys haven’t gotten it done.
Philadelphia rang up 464 yards on Rod Marinelli’s defense and improved to 9-3. Now the road to the division title all of sudden gets easier than Dallas’ with a home game against Seattle (which is mortal away from the Pacific Northwest), a rematch at home against Dallas, and road games against the Redskins and Giants.
Closer examination of Dallas’ road to this point reveals the Pokes have beaten only one team (Seattle) with a winning record, while the Eagles have beaten three. Entering play on Thursday, the teams with losses to Dallas had had a combined record of 29-59 for a winning percentage of .322. On the other side of the ledger, the teams with wins over Dallas are a combined 28-17 (.622).
It gets worse. In their losses, the Cowboys are averaging 15.2 points per game while the opposition is averaging 27.2.
The case can be made that Cowboys Nation was lulled into a false sense of superiority after that 6-2 start. And who can blame the fans for being excited after the product they were forced to stomach over the last four seasons? This team certainly presented a nice case for being a Super Bowl contender with its beastly offensive line, MVP candidate DeMarco Murray at running back, and a defense that was miles better than expected.
It won’t get any easier. Dallas will be favored to win in frigid Chicago on Thursday night but will be tested in a dreaded December visit to Philly and the home finale against Indianapolis, which brings in the league’s top offense at 433.8 yards per game. Dallas is at Washington to finish the regular season.
Now about that wildcard thing. The NFC is awash with teams that are in the playoff chase and three of them — Philadelphia, Arizona and San Francisco — own the head-to-head tiebreaker advantage over the Cowboys. It’s actually conceivable that Dallas can reach double-digit wins for the first time in five seasons and still not make the playoffs. The Cardinals went 10-6 last season and watched the playoffs on the flat screen with the rest of us.
If this season-long pattern continues, you can expect Dallas to beat Chicago, lose to Philly and Indy, and beat the Redskins. That would put them 10-6, but probably not enough to get in.
The only answer now is to flip that script.
Translation: Beat another good team or grab the remote come playoff time.