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By Jon Machota Dec 31, 2020
The Cowboys have been here before. Four times in the last 10 years, they have headed into the final two weeks of the season needing to beat an NFC East opponent to win a division title. All four times, Dallas has lost.
The Cowboys face a similar scenario this Sunday as they travel north to play their regular-season finale against the New York Giants. To win the division, Dallas needs to defeat the Giants and then have Philadelphia beat Washington Sunday night.
If both happen, the Cowboys will win the NFC East at 7-9 and host a wild-card playoff game the following week at AT&T Stadium.
“Everything we do in this game is about how you finish. Whether it’s a play, a practice, it’s no different,” Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy said. “Every NFL team’s guaranteed 16 opportunities when you start this journey. The fact that we have the opportunity to finish the right way, finish playing the best football we’ve played all year: four (consecutive) wins would give us that.
“That’s really where my mindset is, that we want to finish this regular season and hopefully we have the opportunity to continue. But this is all about finishing the guaranteed opportunities, especially against a division opponent. These games are usually the hardest in my view, the division games. Gives us a chance to finish with some momentum.”
Standing on the opposing sideline on Sunday will be Jason Garrett. The current Giants offensive coordinator was Dallas’ head coach the previous nine and a half years. Garrett’s Cowboys teams went into Week 17 three consecutive seasons from 2011 to 2013 with an 8-7 record, having the chance to go to the playoffs with a win over a division rival. All three games resulted in Dallas losses.
The Cowboys fell 31-14 at the Giants in 2011. They lost 28-18 at Washington in 2012. The Eagles won 24-22 at AT&T Stadium in 2013.
In a similar situation last year in Week 16, Dallas had a chance to win the NFC East for the fourth time in six seasons with a win at Philadelphia. The Cowboys lost 17-9. They won their season finale against Washington to again finish 8-8, but it didn’t matter because the Eagles won the division by defeating the Giants in Week 17.
Even if Dallas had won in Philadelphia and reached the playoffs last season, there’s no guarantee that Garrett would have been given a new contract. The franchise’s goal was to take the next step, meaning to get beyond the divisional round of the playoffs, something the Cowboys haven’t done since the 1995 season.
Jerry Jones ultimately decided it was time to go in a different direction, hiring a coach with proven postseason success. McCarthy led the Green Bay Packers to a Super Bowl win, four conference title games and nine playoff appearances in 12 and a half seasons.
But the more important part of McCarthy’s resume for the Cowboys entering the final week of the regular season is a proven track record of winning this time of year.
Dallas’ current three-game winning streak has improved McCarthy’s record to 42-19 in regular-season games played in December and January. He’s been even better in Week 17. The Packers went 9-3 under McCarthy in the final week of the season, including a 3-1 mark with the division on the line and a 1-0 record when needing a win to make the playoffs as a wild card team. The most recent example occurred in 2016 when the Packers traveled to Detroit and won 31-24 over the Lions to win the NFC North, something McCarthy did six times while in Green Bay.
McCarthy has spoken several times this year about structuring the Cowboys’ program so that they’re playing their best at the end of the season. That’s especially the focus with rookies making the transition through their first NFL season. Wide receiver CeeDee Lamb, cornerback Trevon Diggs, defensive tackle Neville Gallimore, right tackle Terence Steele and center Tyler Biadasz have all had starting roles during their first year.
“It’s a mindset,” McCarthy said. “It’s something that’s talked about as far as how we train, scheduling. I think scheduling and how you train your football team is obviously very important, probably more important than maybe some others think. We spend a lot of time on that. I believe in trend lines and the opportunity to try to hit certain targets.”
The Cowboys have played some of their best football over the last three weeks, averaging 36 points per game and winning the turnover differential 10-1. During that stretch, they certainly have not faced the caliber of opponents that they could see in the playoffs. But after starting 3-9, a three-game winning streak is impressive even if it is against the Bengals, 49ers and Eagles.
Green Bay finished an 8-8 season on a four-game winning streak during McCarthy’s first season as head coach. The Packers went 13-3 the following year. They won a Super Bowl in his fifth campaign.
Now McCarthy hopes to guide the Cowboys to a finish that hasn’t been seen in Dallas since 1999, when Chan Gailey coached the team to a wild card berth with a 26-18 Week 17 win over the Giants. The 1993 Cowboys, coached by Jimmy Johnson, were the last team to win the division in Week 17, defeating the Giants in overtime, 16-13.
Neither needed help from another team in the way Dallas will need it from the Eagles Sunday night, but defeating the Giants earlier in the day is the first step.
“At the end of the day, we’ve all seen it happen,” McCarthy said. “You get hot in December, it’s the way you want to enter the playoffs because anything can happen in the playoffs. It’s something I’ve always focused on and always talked about it with the team and paid close attention to how we train our football team, particularly coming out of October into November and then into December.”
