Rich Eisen Breaks Down the Dallas Cowboys’ Slim-but-Not-Impossible Playoff Chances

Rich Eisen Breaks Down the Dallas Cowboys’ Slim-but-Not-Impossible Playoff Chances

Here’s the issue. The 3,5 and one start in the same way that the Ravens started one and five. When you start like that, it’s normally an anchor that weighs you down in the back half of the season because the margin for error gets that much slimmer. Y okay, the Texans starting 0 and3 currently being seven and five. is the difference between them being in the wild card or in first place or sniffing it like they are entering week 14. And they in order to keep surging need to just go into Arrowhead and beat a desperate Chiefs team on a Sunday night. They got to go into a nationally televised night game in Arrowhead, which I’ll tell you what, since Mahomes has taken over, I don’t need uh research to tell me. Uh Chiefs usually win those games. So, when you start 0 and three, that’s a problem. When you start 35 and one and you’ve won three in a row and you look like you’re a top five team in the NFL, they almost cracked my top five on my power rankings this week and for good reason cuz they were playing complimentary football. They were playing defense like we hadn’t seen over the first two months of the season because Quinnon Williams is here. De Marvian Overshon is here. They got better rostering. They got guys back. They’re getting guys back healthier on the back end of the defense. And when you lose a game like last night and you’re now 66 and one, and you put up the NFC standings, the Dallas Cowboys are in trouble cuz they’re sitting there 10th, a half game behind the Panthers. And there’s the Lions at eight. The Lions are eight and five. That’s not good enough to have a wildcard position. And Dallas just lost to them. Now again, that one tie will be removing the Dallas Cowboys from any negative tie break situation cuz how are you going to tie anybody when you have a tie and only one other team does? And that’s Green Bay. And the problem for them is Green Bay. Even if Green Bay loses to the Bears, they’re two behind Green Bay with four to go. So, they need to win out and get a ton of hope that lands in reality. And Dallas’s remaining games, you take a look at them, are winnable cuz they’re Sunday night at home in week 15 against Minnesota. Okay, we’re all assuming that’s a win the way that Minnesota’s playing. And we’ll see how JJ McCarthy looks returning. And I hope he does, as you know, show up as the nine that he referred to himself as unfortunately a few weeks ago. Then they’ve got the Chargers at home. That’s going to be tough because Jim’s going to need that. And the Chargers are going to need that. And we’re going to need that. You’re going to need it, too. I know. Uh at Washington at the Giants to finish things up. You give him three wins. Let’s just say you win three of the four. That’s not going to be good enough. No. You got to win all four of them and then you got to hope for other results to land. I think winning the four is doable. Sure. Um, but to say we’re in trouble, we I mean, you are. We were already in trouble, though. I mean, we had a nice little streak. You were climbing out of it. You were climbing out of it. And rightfully so, you were climbing out of it. The fact is, had we even won yesterday, we’d still be in trouble. So, no, you’d you’d be in a better position. You’d be you’d be in that realm of a third of a chance of making the playoffs as opposed to a tenth. I mean, that’s where you are right now. They just got to handle business. Four games. No, I know you can’t I know you can’t scoreboard watch and and and cross fingers and you got to play games. Uh you know Dak after last night’s game in which he had a season high passing yards 376. CD Lamb goes out with a concussion and you saw his hands pop up. The minute you saw his hands pop up, you knew something was up. Yeah, that was it. uh he already had his 26th career 100yard passing game and Flenoi did what he did as well. Stepped up, right? And we’ll get to pickings in a minute. I mean, Javvante will listen, the offense is here’s what they ran into. Um a team that got hot cuz they have the ability to get hot and hungry in a spot in Detroit where when it gets rolling and like I said off the top of the show, Jir Gibbs is absurd. He’s amazing. He’s He’s generational. And he torched him. He torched him. And Goff did what he needed to do. And they just couldn’t put enough pressure on Goff. And these things happen in the NFL in December. You’re going to run into desperate opponents who are either just as good of you if is maybe not better. You need to play perfect football and you need to have a better, you know, significant weapon landing punches than a place kicker. And I don’t mean to just refer to Brandon Aubry as a place kicker. He’s a weapon. First ever game in the history of the NFL in which um a kicker had three field goals of 55 yards or longer. And the way he just swings his leg, it looks like, you know what? When Aubrey kicks a field goal, you know what it reminds me of? I swear. And I know I’m I might be crazy in saying it. Can I guess someone? No, you wouldn’t be able to guess it cuz it’s golf. I was about to say I was about to say someone a nice golf swing. He looks like Fred Cpples hitting a nine iron. I say Ernie, VJ, Freddy. Smooth swings. You know what I mean? Yeah. Tempo Town. He’s unbelievable. Yeah. I I didn’t mean to. Well, I mean, you know, my golf I know you’re not a golf guy, right? But that’s what he looks like. Freddy, you just hit you hit Freddy just hitting nine irons. Just flipping wedges. It looks like he’s flipping a wedge every time he swings his leg. And then he said he doesn’t even know how far he can kick the ball cuz he’s never really tried like Well, he’s going to have to at some point because I think the Cowboys at some point are are just going to say screw it. We, you know, every every torpedo must be damned. Yeah. And and again, you got to sometimes play better than the ref’s ref. I thought they did get a break on on a on a um uh safety being taken off the board. Looked like certainly when Terry McCaulay was very adamant about it being the wrong call. I do believe that rire of New York getting into the ear of the Prime Video truck saying, “You have the shot we used. Let’s come back from break with it, please.” And they did. And it did show you that the ball was out of the end zone. Yeah, it was so close. The offensive pass interference call on Ferguson at the end was absurd. That was absurd. But look, I that was ridiculous. I’ll take the high ground and go. A lot of Detroit fans are saying that our left tackle was off sides. And so on that same play, so you know, well, here’s like you always say, you got to play better than the refs. I mean, the the uh I know it’s not funny cuz they’ve lost, but uh the the that reaction by u Shottenheimer uh after the offensive pass interference call got called against him was laugh out loud funny because he took his headset off and every single Sharpie that he has different colors that were jammed into the brim of his cap came flying out. Looked like he had one of these pens. It did make me laugh. It’s just like, you know. But anyway, Dak, no laughing matter afterwards. I think guys are pissed off right now. I don’t think this is any deflated moment like, “Oh, hands are up. We’re done.” You know what I mean? Like, no. No. Like, absolutely not. Um, think you’re going to get a team that’s pissed. Um, especially as we talked about, right, a team that’s kind of changed since the by-week. This is the first time this group to an extent suffer this. So, I hope it pisses people off the right way. We use it as fuel. And um I know starting with myself, we’ll make sure we have a great week of prep um for next week. Listen, um I I don’t think the coaching is an issue. I don’t think the want to is an issue. Although I mean the um commentary after the game that Richard Sherman had in the direction of George Pickkins was like he he was on he was on cruise control. And again, when when a ball he might have lost it in the lights, there was a ball in the just before the two-minute warning that if Pickkins had caught that and ran it into the end zone, that’s exactly the setup that they Dallas could have used down two scores is boom, come out of that two-minute timeout, two timeouts left. Maybe you get it with like a minute to go. All you need is like one first down and Aubrey will kick it from 70 and tie the game and send it, you know, send it to where it needs to go. Mhm. Actually, they needed two touchdowns. So, long story short is when the ball hit the ground, it was just like, “What was that?” And Steelers fans were like pointing at the screen like Rick Rick. Like, there it is. That’s it. I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt like that. That’s it right there. All Steeler, all the Steeler front office like, “That’s it right there. That’s it right there.” You know, it’s amazing how the how quickly things change. Thank you. Thank you. It’s like you’re in my Oh, no. No. It’s amazing how quickly things change and how he’s one of the best receivers in the league if not the second best behind Jackson Smith and Jigba and he’s doing all sorts of things. Uh like two weeks ago we were joking that he’s turned CD Lammit to Alvin Harper earlier this week with him leaping over McDuffy. We’re saying he’s scraping George’s scraping his pickings on people and and now now it’s just like yeah was he trying hard enough? Right. It’s crazy. Difference between winning and losing in this league is is significant and here’s what has to happen. Dallas got to win out and get some results. I I don’t know off the top of my head what the results are right now, but they’re going to be a lot of them. A lot. And it’s got to start on a Sunday night on NBC. And then they got to go take care of business at home in their final home game against the Chargers and then show up on on Christmas on Netflix with Bugs Bunny or whoever else is going to be there at this point in time. And we’ll see what happens in the final game against the Giants, which they should they should clean up right there. Eagles need to collapse and need one of the NFC West teams to fall apart, too. And by the way, we need help. Last just let me just stick the landing on this one. Eagles fans, remember I told you to take a chill pill now. Now I’m seeing the m their magic numbers three. That’s it. Wins and losses combined wins and losses between them. The division is fine. It’s going to be fine. Everybody relax cuz Dallas has now got to win out and you’ve got to totally fall apart now. Okay, just win. And you got and then the Commanders have a chance to play spoiler here with Jaden Daniels coming back because they take on the Eagles twice and the Cowboys once. Well, you’re a Commander fan now, TJ. So, yeah. All right. Hey, you made it all the way to the end. Thanks for that. Check us out every single day streaming live on Disney Plus and the ESPN app 12 to 3 Eastern.

Rich Eisen recaps the Detroit Lions’ Thursday Night Football win over the visiting Cowboys and what it means for Dallas’ slim playoff hopes.

Tune in to the Emmy-nominated Rich Eisen Show live weekdays from Noon to 3PM ET on Disney+, ESPN+, ESPN Radio, and streaming on SiriusXM channel 80.

== WATCH LIVE HERE ==
https://www.disneyplus.com/browse/entity-96c14d82-11cd-470a-96d4-aa070f6e42b2

== SUBSCRIBE HERE ==
https://bit.ly/2VjWSBC

== FOLLOW US HERE ==
https://www.instagram.com/richeisenshow/
Tweets by RichEisenShow
https://www.facebook.com/RichEisenShow

@thericheisenshow

#richeisenshow #nfl #dallascowboys