Moore: The Cowboys keep winning games this season - but can they win the right games?

Cotton

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The Cowboys keep winning games this season - but can they win the right games?

By David Moore , Staff Writer

FRISCO - Raise your hand if you proclaimed three months ago that the Cowboys would enter their annual Thanksgiving Day game with the NFL's best record.

Keep those hands aloft if you casually mentioned in the same conversation that the NFC East would be the league's toughest division.

Conventional wisdom has taken a serious hit in calendar year 2016. This goes for a number of topics that exist beyond the sports realm, but let's keep the focus on the Cowboys for the moment.

Every team in the NFL would trade spots with Dallas heading into Week 12. But if the Cowboys don't take care of business over the next three weeks, beginning Thursday afternoon against Washington, this team can go from having the league's best record to chasing a rival for the division lead.

It seems even a team with a 9-1 record and a two-game cushion over the closest competitor in the division can have a sense of urgency.

"You're aware of divisional rivalries, especially Washington, who's been hot here lately and playing good ball," rookie quarterback Dak Prescott said. "But it's still up to us. We control what we do."
Washington, Minnesota and the New York Giants are the next three teams on the Cowboys schedule. The Giants are currently second in the division at 7-3. Washington falls in line after them at 6-3-1.
The records of the Giants and Washington would be good enough to lead four other divisions in the NFL.

Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett concedes there are a "lot of good teams" in the NFC East. But he refutes the notion that having those teams breath down the Cowboys' necks helps keep his players focused.

"It really doesn't,'' Garrett said. "The focus needs to be on us and how we can coach our best and play our best and really focus on today.
"We know the challenges. We know the challenges in our division."

One potential challenge: Say the Cowboys lose Thursday and go into the game against the Giants on Dec. 11 with only a one-game lead in the division. Lose that game, and the Cowboys will have been swept by the Giants, leaving New York in control of the NFC East. It would also leave the Cowboys with three division losses.

So much for the NFC East being soft.

"A lot of people wanted to take shots at it last year and said, 'You know, it's not a very good division,'" Washington quarterback Kirk Cousins said. "I think this year proves that in the NFL everybody is good."

Well, everybody except Cleveland.

Sorry. Low-hanging fruit.

"Our division is certainly playing at a high level right now," Cousins said.

Washington coach Jay Gruden said earlier this week he doesn't think it's fair that his team has to play on Thanksgiving Day at AT&T Stadium after facing Green Bay on Sunday night. He jokes it doesn't help that Dallas is "the power poll No. 1 ranked team in the league.

"They are very good on offense right now," Gruden continued. "They are playing at a high level. And defensively they're flying around the football and getting the job done.

"You know, we had a three-point lead down there in the red zone (Week Two) with about nine minutes to go and threw the pick and they went down and scored and beat us here. For us to keep pace in the division and have a chance at a division title, we've got to play our best game Thursday."

Dallas has won a lot of games up to this point. Now it needs to win the right games to keep that edge.

That starts with Washington.

"It really comes down to focusing on what we're doing," center Travis Frederick said. "We know if we're able to do what we want to do, execute, come up with wins, if we continue to win, it doesn't matter what happens around us. We can put ourselves in the right position.

"Sometimes when you're playing from behind you have to focus on everybody else around you. You say, 'Well, we need this team to lose, we need this team to win to make this work.'

"Right now our job is to continue to do what we need to do and not worry about anyone else."
 

Cowboysrock55

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I've mentioned this when talking about the Giants game but the same holds true for the Redskins game. We are a different team this time around. Dak is a different Dak now. He is a more agressive passer down field. He has some clutch drives under his belt. Same goes for Zeke. He was still getting a feel for the running game back then. This is not the same Zeke. This one isn't afraid to be patient or bounce it outside and burn you with his speed.

So while I think the Redskins will play us tough, I expect our offense will perform much better against them the second time around.
 
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