Colts rout a reminder that the time is now
It was the magnitude of the contrast that hit me — the Cowboys just obliterating the visiting Colts with a teamrecord 33-point fourth quarter while Matt Ryan looked like he belonged down the highway at Fossil Rim among the other dinosaur artifacts.
There’s no better time than the present for Dallas to do its thing and end all the misery and all the discussion about 26 years without an NFC Championship Game appearance.
You may not instantly recognize how Ryan and the Cowboys’ fate are entwined, but think back to the night before the last Super Bowl played in Houston following the end of the 2016 season. Dak Prescott and Zeke Elliott were the toast of the town at the league’s awards ceremony, splitting all the votes for Rookie of the Year that Dak won (and said should be cut in half ) and then both rookies being among the six players to get MVP votes (Zeke, the NFL’S leading rusher, actually getting more than Dak).
The winner of that MVP award was Ryan. He was in his prime and the Falcons, of course, would lead New England by 25 points in the third quarter the next evening and, well, Cowboys defensive coordinator Dan Quinn knows how the rest of that game played out. Ryan was 31 but he
had only one more quality season, and now he is proving that even Carson Wentz was more talented and less vulnerable in the Colts’ pocket a year ago than he is.
The point: This thing goes by awfully fast. Grab the brass ring when you can.
At 29, Prescott isn’t quite the same age Ryan was when he captured that MVP award. But Dak and Zeke moved into their seventh December together Sunday night with the 54-19 win over the Colts, and it won’t get any tougher when Houston comes to town. It may only be marginally more difficult for this team when it visits Jacksonville on Dec. 18 in what amounts — in a really awkward bit of AFC South scheduling — as the final tuneup before the Christmas Eve clash with the Eagles.
At 9-3, the Cowboys are tied with the AFC’S Kansas City and Buffalo for the third best record in the entire league. And no one in his or her right mind would rank one of the teams with a better record — the 10-2 Vikings — as superior to the Cowboys based on what transpired in Minneapolis last month.
It really looks more and more like it’s coming down to the Cowboys and Eagles in the NFC. That can change quickly, we know, but the 49ers losing quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo Sunday can’t be a good thing for San Francisco’s hopes of making another run.
The Cowboys beat an embarrassment of a franchise Sunday night, one that fired Frank Reich, who had a 40-33-1 record at Indy, to hire Jeff Saturday out of ESPN’S studios in order to light a fire under a struggling team. It was as silly as it sounds, and it eventually played out that way Sunday with the Colts doing some terrible late-first-half play-calling to give Dallas one final chance to score a touchdown (the Cowboys obliged) before the game went haywire in the fourth quarter.
While the Eagles played their best game in a month Sunday, just trashing Tennessee — the only respectable opponent the AFC South has to offer the NFC East this season — Dallas is showing itself to have a complement of weapons equal to the Eagles’ assortment.
Ceedee Lamb scored his fourth touchdown in five games and added to the rushing attack with 23 yards. Zeke got one touchdown and Tony Pollard supplied two more. In the six games Dallas has played since the loss in Philadelphia, Pollard has rushed for 560 yards with more than 6 yards per attempt and six touchdowns. This despite the fact he remains on a time share with Zeke, who has shown renewed signs of life in recent weeks.
Then there’s the defense producing five takeaways to remind folks of some of the things Quinn’s unit did in 2021 when it led the NFL in those gamechanging plays.
All in all, it’s a team that may not catch the Eagles in the NFC East even with a victory on Dec. 24 but is having a hell of a lot of fun giving chase.
The Cowboys had never scored 30 points in a quarter before Sunday night, but they did score 29 against the Falcons last year, and, yes, Ryan was part of that ugliness, too. His Sunday night ended with three interceptions, three sacks, a lost fumble and a lost cause as a starting quarterback — about as far removed from his MVP time as one could sink.
It does not seem like that long ago that he was soaring and Dak and Zeke were rookies with all the promise in the world. It feels like time to deliver on all of that promise.