ARLINGTON, Texas — When the Dallas Cowboys walked out of AT&T Stadium on Thanksgiving night after their win against the Kansas City Chiefs, everything seemed possible.
But after consecutive losses to the Detroit Lions and Minnesota Vikings, a 34-26 defeat Sunday at AT&T Stadium, the cold reality is the Cowboys’ season will end without a playoff appearance for the second straight year — barring a miracle.
At 6-7-1 with three games to play, the Cowboys have a 1% chance of making the playoffs and the only path to the postseason is by winning the NFC East. To do so, the Cowboys would have to win their final three games while the Philadelphia Eagles lose their final three games.
“I don’t know how to describe a miracle,” owner and general manager Jerry Jones said. “I know that it would take very tight circumstances to get us in, and we expected that. We thought we’d have to win out to have a little room, but not a lot. Now, of course, I know how to count.”
When the Cowboys diagnose what happened against the Vikings, they can point to recurring problems on offense — converting only 2-of-5 red zone opportunities — and a new issue: They were just 2-of-12 on third down, a season-worst performance.
On defense, they failed to sack quarterback J.J. McCarthy and after a first-quarter interception were unable to force him into another mistake. On the Vikings’ go-ahead drive in the third quarter, McCarthy completed a 29-yard pass, converted a fourth down with a 23-yard completion and set up a goal-to-go situation with a 10-yard pass.
“We never got to the point where I felt like we were able to really just kind of seize momentum,” coach Brian Schottenheimer said.
For only the third time this season, Dak Prescott was held without a touchdown pass. The Cowboys have lost all three of those games. The Vikings pressured Prescott on 48% of his dropbacks, the most in his career.
“We didn’t have good enough answers,” Prescott said. “And when you don’t have good enough answers for that, especially against [Vikings defensive coordinator Brian] Flores, you’re going to see it again and again and again.”
Things were so bad that Pro Bowl kicker Brandon Aubrey missed two field goal attempts (51 and 59 yards) in a game for only the second time in his career.
And now the Cowboys find themselves essentially playing out the string.
“Yeah, definitely surprised, especially after the bye week and the trades got rolling like we did for those few weeks, and then watch the confidence just skyrocket,” Prescott said. “Stopped teams, scoring, scoring at will, coming back from 21 points. Just a lot of good wins there to be in this position. Just reminds you that every play matters. It’s a hard game. Those guys get paid too. They practice throughout the week and prepare no different than we do. It’s tough. I’m definitely surprised, hurt, pissed off, frustrated, but all I can do is get better tomorrow.”
After trades for Pro Bowl defensive tackle Quinnen Williams and linebacker Logan Wilson, the returns from injury of linebacker DeMarvion Overshown, cornerback Shavon Revel and safeties Malik Hooker and Donovan Wilson, the outlook was bright with the Cowboys winning three straight games.
Now they are close to having to think about next season.
“You drop two games in a row and you dust yourself off and you get back to work,” Schottenheimer said. “We play a really good football team in here next week (Los Angeles Chargers), so we’ll get back to work and make some of the adjustments we got to make.”
