FRISCO — Jerry Jones knows the deal.
The Cowboys owner and general manager made a trade at the deadline to acquire defensive tackle Quinnen Williams and linebacker Logan Wilson. Jones admits the move wasn’t intended to give the Cowboys a playoff push.
It was a deal for the future.
But after ending a two-game losing streak with a 33-16 trashing of the Raiders on Monday night, could the Cowboys make a playoff push?
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If they do, a lot … we mean a lot has to happen.
“What we want to do is be a better team,” Jones told The Dallas Morning News on Monday night. “Play better and we’ll see if we get to these playoffs, now. But if not, we’ll have been a better team. Really, I had to reconcile that I’m not doing this [trade], just to get into the playoffs, this year. I’m doing it to have a better team and that we can sustain.”
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As it stands, the Cowboys are 4-5-1, 10th in the NFC standings. With seven teams making the postseason, the Cowboys’ chances of qualifying are slim.
The Athletic projects the Cowboys’ odds of making it at 10%. If the Cowboys beat the Eagles on Sunday, it would jump to 18%.
ESPN’s Football Power Index gives the Cowboys a 7% chance of a postseason appearance.
To make the postseason, the Cowboys must start with three games over a 12-day stretch, which consists of the two teams that made the Super Bowl last year and a 2025 title-contending team.
The records of those teams are a combined 19-11.
Sunday is the first game in that stretch against the defending champion Eagles, a team in the midst of a four-game win streak, a club that’s won their past three games over the Cowboys.
On Thanksgiving Day, Kansas City, the AFC rep in the Super Bowl last season, visits AT&T Stadium.
Then the Cowboys go to Detroit for a Thursday night game. The Lions knocked off the Cowboys last year in a blowout 47-9.
Coach Brian Schottenheimer was asked if this stretch will tell him a lot about his team and if they can achieve their goals.
“Yeah, I think so. Yeah, starting with this one,” he said. “We’re playing a really good football team in Philly, one of the teams I really respect and respect the way they play. Very talented, they’re well-coached, and so we look forward to this matchup. And then, play that one and then play another team that was matched up against them, last year in February. We’ll find out a lot about something, but I’m like, I’m the guy that wants to play good teams. I want to play the good teams and find out where we truly are.”
Of the Cowboys’ four wins, none have come against teams with winning records. The two best wins were against the Jets and Raiders, two teams that are projected to get a top 10 pick in the NFL draft next year.
Over the next seven weeks, the Cowboys will play five teams with winning records.
“I don’t get caught up in records just because, again, you can’t predict how things are gonna play,” Schottenheimer said. “And if you have told me, Kansas City (5-5) was sitting with a record that they have, does that mean they’re not a good football team? No. Does that mean that Vegas (2-8) isn’t a good football team? No. It means they haven’t found a way to win. We found a way to win yesterday, which is great, and that’s what we have to continue to do, and the only way to do that is to win.”
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Compounding playoff aspirations are early-season losses to Carolina (6-5) and Chicago (7-3). If the Cowboys were tied with either team for a wild card berth, they would lose the head-to-head tiebreakers. And another thing, the Cowboys haven’t won consecutive games all season.
They’ve lost consecutive games, breaking that two-game spell Monday night in Las Vegas.
So much has to go right. Maybe too much to get into the postseason.
The Cowboys do have hope because that’s all there is.
“Sure, I understand that they’re struggling, right?” Dak Prescott said of the Raiders. “But if we play that way, I don’t care who it is, the score might not be that big. Margin might not be that way, but there’s no reason that we can’t be confident and feel like we’re going to come out on top if we can play with that same intensity and effort and complement.”
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