ARLINGTON — Until Thursday afternoon, there was the distinct chance that the Cowboys’ signature 24-21 victory over the defending Super Bowl champs Sunday had as much to do with the weird malaise that always hovers over the Eagles offense, even in the best of times, as it did any sort of resurgence by Dallas.
That chance was buried Thursday — and the Kansas City Chiefs’ season might have gone with it — as Dallas won 31-28 and completed the rare four-days-apart sweep of Super Bowl participants.
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The Chiefs, of course, have been more than a participant for most of the last few years, winning three Super Bowls and losing two in the Patrick Mahomes Era. So coming here with a 6-5 record, after defeating the front-running Indianapolis Colts on Sunday, it stood to reason the Chiefs would keep rolling toward the AFC playoffs and Dallas would get chopped up in their wake.
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Instead, the Cowboys climbed above .500 for the first time this season. If that sounds like a hollow victory, just getting to 6-5-1, consider this. I have never seen a Cowboys team complete a more dramatic turnabout — from absolute pretender to reasonable contender — in a two-game span.
“You’re talking about two organizations that know how to win,” quarterback Dak Prescott said after throwing for 320 yards and matching Mahomes in improvisation. “You beat ’em both in four days, just showing the resilience of this unit and of this brotherhood, on top of everything we’ve been through. I don’t know if there’s been two more impressive wins. All this really does is give us more confidence moving forward.”
It’s not just that Dallas hit the bye week with a dismal 3-5-1 record. They had been called out by former Cowboy Rico Dowdle and then offered no response in allowing him to rush for 183 yards at Carolina. They allowed Chicago’s Caleb Williams to play his first sack-free, interception-free NFL game in a blowout loss at Soldier Field. They let Russell Wilson throw for 450 yards two weeks before the Giants benched him for a rookie. They slid into the bye with a home loss to Arizona, one that inspired the Cardinals to hand the reins to Jacoby Brissett while placing Kyler Murray, who had been expected to play just two days before the game, on injured reserve.
Without Dallas back on the schedule, the Cardinals have not won a game since.
The Cowboys were a joke until they made the trade with the Jets for defensive tackle Quinnen Williams and elevated DeMarvion Overshown from the injured list and then — sadly — gained whatever emotional boost the death of a teammate provided, head coach Brian Schottenheimer saying how the tragedy and response has galvanized the team in its fight to honor him.
As a result, the Cowboys have a three-game winning streak, remain on the outside looking in at the wild-card picture, but no longer have to fear a trip to Detroit as a recipe for disaster. The Lions may have defeated last year’s Cowboys by 38 points in AT&T Stadium, but they lost to Green Bay on Thursday and will slip behind Dallas in the wild-card chase if the Cowboys can scare up a win next Thursday night.
At that point, it gets serious.
If you think maybe the Amari Cooper trade during the bye week of 2018 redirected the Cowboys in similar fashion, I would say this just seems like so much greater an identity shift. Those Cowboys, 3-4 before the deal, weren’t bad, but they had no wide receiver threat after cutting Dez Bryant. Cooper restored hope, the team even won a playoff game before losing in LA, and then went right back to being 8-8 the following season.
These Cowboys had the worst defense in the league and were one of the 10 worst teams overall by most means of measurement. Now they win games with defense. On Sunday, they held the Eagles scoreless the last 41 minutes. Their Thanksgiving gift to fans was to redirect the game from a scorefest after one quarter — Dallas trailed 14-7 — into a game where points would be hard-earned for at least 30 minutes. They forced four straight Chiefs punts in the second and third quarters. Kansas City had the ball at midfield to both finish the first half and start the second half. The Chiefs did not manage even a long-field goal attempt on either possession.
A week ago the Cowboys outgained the Eagles 473-339. On Thursday, they picked up 451 yards to the Chiefs’ 362. Kansas City was flagged for 119 yards on penalties, and on key plays as Dallas was making sure it ran out the clock to avoid giving Mahomes another scoring chance, CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens each drew interference calls from overmatched corners. And one of those is Trent McDuffie, one of the finer defensive backs in the league.
“We’ll play anybody anywhere,” Schottenheimer said. “This is a tough business. If you don’t celebrate these amazing times, then why are we working so hard?”
It was the Cowboys who had the Chiefs shaking their heads at the end, not the other way around. If that’s not a major transformation from losing to the Cardinals here four weeks ago, I don’t know what one is.
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