{"id":435777,"date":"2026-09-14T17:52:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T17:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/435777\/"},"modified":"2026-09-14T17:52:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T17:52:10","slug":"who-has-a-better-chance-to-make-the-playoffs-now-cowboys-or-rangers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/435777\/","title":{"rendered":"Who has a better chance to make the playoffs now: Cowboys or Rangers?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Dallas<\/p>\n

Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott (4) and New York Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart (6) greeted one another following their game at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, September 13, 2026.<\/p>\n

Tom Fox\/The Dallas Morning News<\/p>\n

The Rangers<\/a> are one game out of first place with 12 to play. The Cowboys<\/a> are one game out of first with 16 to play.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Who has the better playoff chances now?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s bizarre how things can get flipped in, say, 48 hours in the world of sports. On Friday night, The News<\/a>\u2019 forever beat writer Evan Grant, who has witnessed more Rangers games than most physicians consider to be safe, finally and understandably wrote a 72-76 team off following a 9-1 loss in Arizona. Naturally Texas won the next two games while Houston was getting whipped at Tampa Bay, and now the deficit is a single game.<\/p>\n

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Who has a better chance to make the playoffs now: Cowboys or Rangers?<\/p>\n

The playoff outlook for the Cowboys and Rangers shifted after a wild sports weekend. Let us know what you think.<\/p>\n

The Rangers get nine home games, and the moribund\u00a0Mets are included in the package. Houston plays six at home and six on the road although the final four are against the mostly minor league A\u2019s in their decidedly minor league park in Sacramento. The Astros\u2019 MVP candidate, Yordan Alvarez, has cooled considerably in the last two months\u00a0\u2014 just 12 RBIs since Aug. 2 \u2014 so consider this race a dead heat.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the race the Cowboys are facing that is so daunting, and I\u2019m not talking solely about the\u00a0NFC East. As we saw Sunday night in MetLife Stadium, the Cowboys are going to be chasing quarterbacks this season, and that\u2019s a scary proposition.<\/p>\n

After one week, the Giants\u2019\u00a0Jaxson Dart ranks second behind the Bears\u2019 Caleb Williams in rushing yards with 51. He play-faked the Cowboys defense all night long and, in fairness, he fooled me a few times although I believe technically my press box seat had a Weehawken address.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou got young players and young players close and\u00a0Jaxson Dart boots and gets outside,\u2019\u2019 Cowboys coach Brian Schottenheimer said.<\/p>\n

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He has now lined up against the Giants three times and is yet to secure a regulation win. It really shouldn\u2019t be that hard.<\/p>\n

But if running quarterbacks are going to be a problem for Christian Parker and his aggressive, young defense (which isn\u2019t necessarily that young at every position), it\u2019s going to be a long, hard ride to get back to the playoffs. Washington\u2019s\u00a0Jayden Daniels, who ran for 891 yards as a rookie in leading the Commanders to the NFC Championship Game, is up next, then the Cowboys get to chase Baltimore\u2019s Lamar Jackson all over Brazil<\/a>.<\/p>\n

How do you think that might go?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not saying everything that happened in Week 1 is a lock to still be in play in Week 14. But if the Giants\u2019 play-caller, Matt\u00a0Nagy, can expose the Dallas defense like this, there\u2019s a real problem here. On a weekend in which New York and the country memorialized the 25-year anniversary of 9\/11, the Giants managed to go precisely 9 for 11 on third downs and one of the two failures was a Dart kneel-down at the end of the game.<\/p>\n

Remove that final clock-eating drive from the script, and the Giants had six possessions that produced four touchdowns. Mr. Parker has his hands full.
There were nine quarterbacks that rushed for at least 30 yards on the opening weekend. The Cowboys have seven games remaining with this group (two with Daniels, two with Jalen Hurts, Dart, Jackson, Baker Mayfield) if we assume those quarterbacks remain healthy.<\/p>\n

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And the shift toward being strong in the middle (which is essentially how the Micah Parsons trade is justified internally) did not show itself Sunday night. Cam Skattebo (81 yards) was a handful and the Giants outgained Dallas on the ground by 96 yards. Speaking of people seeing too many of one particular team\u2019s games, how familiar does the can\u2019t stop the run refrain sound to Cowboys viewers?<\/p>\n

So for this particular Monday, anyway, the odds have shifted into the Rangers\u2019 favor. I\u2019m not forecasting any lengthy October run here. I\u2019m not even promising a .500 finish. This team isn\u2019t going to win 11 road games and a World Series in loving tribute to the \u201823 club. But the team sort of got the band back together, lineup-wise, and it\u2019s almost enough to make one forget Skip\u00a0Schumaker\u2019s yanking of a nearly perfect Jacob deGrom the other night in a costly bullpen blowup. Yes, I know deGrom said all the right things about a tight groin afterward. He is a good soldier. But he\u2019s a better pitcher, and the Rangers have to keep him on the mound beyond the first twinge of tightness next time if they want to benefit from playing in the most mediocre division in Major League history.<\/p>\n

One back. Doesn\u2019t sound like much for the Rangers. Meanwhile, the Cowboys need a win Sunday to avoid a lonesome cellar, and the return of\u00a0Daniels had Washington trying for a 2-point conversion tie in Philadelphia late Sunday afternoon. Nothing mediocre about the NFC East except, perhaps, one particular defense that is only starting the \u2018work in progress\u2019 routine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott (4) and New York Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart (6) greeted one another following…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":435778,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[732,2353,102,104,103,100868,88229],"class_list":["post-435777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-article","tag-commentary","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-sports-rangers","tag-tp-nfl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=435777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}