they were eliminated<\/a> from the postseason race before the kickoff. Minnesota was a 14-win playoff qualifier a year ago.<\/p>\nThe Cowboys (6-7-1) have to win their three remaining games and hope defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia goes 0-3 in order for Dallas to overtake the Eagles in the NFC East.<\/p>\n
Both of McCarthy’s TD tosses were to Jalen Nailor, and Ham’s 1-yard plunge put Minnesota ahead 24-23 late in the third quarter.<\/p>\n
Brandon Aubrey kicked four field goals and had a 6-yard run for a first down on a fake to keep alive the drive to Dallas’ first touchdown, but he missed multiple field goals at home for the first time in his three seasons.<\/p>\n
Aubrey was wide right from 51 and 59 yards, the latter setting up a short field for a drive that ended in Nailor’s 4-yard catch for a 31-23 lead early in the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n
The Vikings forced a turnover on downs when Malik Davis’ catch was originally ruled a first down on fourth-and-7, but replay assist quickly reversed the call.<\/p>\n
Aaron Jones ran 4 yards on fourth-and-1, and Will Reichard kicked a clinching 53-yard field goal with 1:08 remaining after Dallas’ unsuccessful challenge that Jones was down before the ball came out on a 16-yard run for another first down.<\/p>\n
Aubrey’s fourth field goal got Dallas within eight with 19 seconds remaining, but Josh Oliver recovered the onside kick.<\/p>\n
McCarthy was 15 of 24 for 250 yards with an interception, a tipped ball that ended up in the arms of defensive tackle Quinnen Williams on his first pass of the game. Williams was later ruled out with a concussion.<\/p>\n
McCarthy’s touchdown was a nifty fourth-and-1 bootleg when he walked into the end zone all alone.<\/p>\n
Dak Prescott, the NFL leader in yards passing coming in, was 23 of 38 for 294 yards but was held without a touchdown pass for just the third time this season. Javonte Williams and Malik Davis each had a 1-yard TD run for Dallas.<\/p>\n
Injuries<\/p>\n
Vikings: DL Javon Hargrave exited with a groin injury and was ruled out. … T Brian O’Neill injured an ankle.<\/p>\n
Cowboys: Williams missed most of the first half with a shoulder injury but returned after halftime. … LT Nate Thomas, the backup filling in for the inactive Tyler Guyton (ankle), injured a shoulder. … FB Hunter Luepke was ruled out with a concussion after getting injured covering a kickoff to finish the first half. … DE Jadeveon Clowney was active after missing one game with a hamstring injury.<\/p>\n
Up next<\/p>\n
Vikings: Road finale at the New York Giants next Sunday.<\/p>\n
Cowboys: Regular-season home finale against the Los Angeles Chargers next Sunday.<\/p>\n
AP NFL: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/NFL<\/a><\/p>\nCopyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) \u2014 J.J. McCarthy threw for two touchdowns and ran for a score, C.J. Ham had…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":88256,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[150,152,151,9121,41933,300,16379,154],"class_list":["post-88255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arlington","tag-arlington","tag-arlington-headlines","tag-arlington-news","tag-athlete-injuries","tag-cowboys-vikings-score","tag-football","tag-nfl-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88255","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=88255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}