Last month, during a phone conversation with Jake Kemp after the Cowboys’ first, far-less-successful tilt against the Philadelphia Eagles, I brought up that we have reached Cowboys nihilism. With the division presumably out of reach and a run of mediocre opponents upcoming, absolutely nothing we’d see before mid-January would matter, because we knew where this was heading.
That conversation blossomed into this column by Jake, which became convenient shorthand for the malaise that figured to envelop this team until the playoffs began. Sure, there was a schematic overhaul worth paying attention to and individual leaps that merited documenting. But to know the Mike McCarthy-era Cowboys is to accept that reaching the postseason is now fait accompli, and that doing something of consequence upon arrival is anything but. There are far worse positions for an NFL franchise to be in—except, of course, that this is no ordinary franchise, and 27 years without so much as a conference title game appearance is no ordinary drought.
And so the trifecta of beatdowns over the Giants, Panthers, and Commanders did little to temper our collective apathy. The same mostly held true for that cyclone of a win over Seattle, which succeeded in buttressing Dak Prescott’s MVP case far better than inspiring confidence in the team at large. These are still the Cowboys, and those are the sorts of opponents a double-digit-win team is expected to handle.
Last night, however, was different.
I’ll leave it to Jake and Dan Morse to dissect exactly how Dallas roasted the Eagles by 20 in a game even less competitive than that margin suggests. I’m more taken with the feeling of it. This was a performance that felt big and important in a way too few Cowboys wins have felt in at least a half decade, and the timing of this triumph matters as much as the particulars.
It is one thing to parse the Cowboys roster and note its many superlatives. The MVP favorite, throwing to arguably the best receiver in the NFL and playing behind what is inarguably the best left side of any offensive line. The NFL’s best defensive player, not to be confused with its preeminent ballhawk. The rookie kicker compiling feats even more outrageous than his backstory.
But it is another things altogether to watch them demolish a top opponent by coalescing into more than the sum of their individual greatness, the way too many Cowboys teams—McCarthy-coached or otherwise—have not. The Cowboys coasted past last year’s Super Bowl runners-up, and they did so while leaving plenty on the table offensively, too. They got away with it because the defense vacuum-sealed one of the most terrifying attacks in football: crashing into reigning MVP Jalen Hurts, clamping down on A.J. Brown and Devonta Smith’s opportunities after the catch, and prying the ball loose whenever Philadelphia threatened to generate any momentum. It was the sort of win that transcends the date on the calendar, that eradicated any doubt that this team can—not always will, but at least can—maximize its potential on a big stage.
It is the sort of win that makes you believe in the Cowboys once more.
None of this is to suggest Dallas is suddenly inoculated against playoff disappointment. While noticeably more complete than most of their competition, the Cowboys, like every franchise in a league engineered to create parity, have holes. Tony Pollard, noticeably more elusive the further removed he gets from the ankle injury suffered in last year’s playoffs, has nevertheless failed to replicate the form that put Zeke Elliott out to pasture, instead lapsing into a committee with Rico Dowdle. First-round pick Mazi Smith, drafted to eat space in the run game, has been unable to push veteran Johnathan Hankins, the weak link in the starting defensive line. And they are one offensive line injury away from relying on perilously thin depth, which could have a significant knockdown effect on that passing attack that now hums so well.
Philadelphia controls its destiny in the division, which likely nudges the Cowboys into needing to win three consecutive road playoff games to return to the Super Bowl for the first time since 1996. And despite what Dallas did to them last night, the Eagles remain a very good football team. That’s especially true of the San Francisco 49ers, who embarrassed the Cowboys last postseason even more than they had the one prior.
It is not mutually exclusive, then, to say that the Cowboys have made genuine strides forward and that these strides will still leave them short of the summit in the NFC, let alone the NFL.
But those strides are real. The growth is obvious: in the balance on Dallas’ roster and how well this team has learned to leverage it. The perpetual paper tigers have become something far more akin to their self-styled lion on the defensive line, fierce and ferocious and chock full of qualities possessed by Super Bowl champions.
Maybe this team doesn’t get there in the end. Math suggests they won’t. But for the first time in a long time, it’s reasonable to expect the Cowboys could. It’s time to start caring again.
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