So, you’re telling me there’s a chance? Yeah!
As farfetched as it may be to believe, the Dallas Cowboys are still in the playoff hunt with five weeks remaining in the regular season. And we’re not just talking about a wild-card berth here. We’re talking about America’s Team winning the NFC East.
Wait, what?
Yes, it would take an absolute miracle for this to happen. But from a technical standpoint, it is still possible.
With a win over the New York Giants on Thanksgiving Day, the Cowboys improved to 5-7 on the season, which kept them alive in the division race even with the Philadelphia Eagles running their record to 10-2 this past Sunday with a victory over the Baltimore Ravens.
Yeah, you see where we’re going here. For the Cowboys to win the NFC East for the second straight season and the third time in four years, they would need to win every single one of their five remaining games and have the Eagles lose all five of theirs.
It’s a tall task, for sure, but let’s not forget that Philly dropped five of its last six a season ago after a 10-1 start.
Now, we certainly can’t forget about the Washington Commanders in all this, as Dallas would need Dan Quinn’s 8-5 squad to drop at least two more games as well. But one of those can’t be their Week 16 matchup with the Eagles.
So, again, this is pretty much impossible. But for entertainment’s sake, let’s have some fun with it anyway.
The Cowboys can still win the NFC East even if the Commanders don’t lose out
First, let’s look at the remaining schedule for all three teams.
As mentioned, the only way this works in any way for the Cowboys is if they win all five of their games and the Eagles lose all five of theirs. These two play one another in Week 17, and a Dallas win means a season split, as Philly won the first matchup in Week 10. In this scenario, both teams finish at 10-7.
If the Commanders lose all three of their remaining games except for the Week 16 matchup with the Eagles, they’d finish at 9-8, taking them out of the tiebreaker scenario. Don’t worry; we’ll circle back to a three-way tie at the top.
If Dallas wins out and Philly loses out, the tiebreaker would go to the Cowboys. Head-to-head is a non-issue because of the aforementioned season split, but the second tiebreaker here would be record within the division, and that’s where Mike McCarthy & Co. would have the advantage.
With two wins over the Giants, two wins over the Commanders, and one win over the Eagles, the Cowboys would be 5-1, whereas the Eagles would be 3-3, having taken losses to Washington, Dallas, and New York over the final three weeks of the season. Thus, the Cowboys win the NFC East.
Now, let’s say Washington beats Philly and also wins one of their other non-division games against either New Orleans or Atlanta.
In this scenario, the Cowboys, Eagles, and Commanders would all finish with identical 10-7 records, which brings the three-way division tiebreakers into play.
We use the plural, but only one would be necessary, as the Cowboys would win it because the first tiebreaker used in a three-way tie atop a division is the best winning percentage in division games.
As we’ve shown, the Cowboys would be 5-1 in NFC East games, while the Eagles would be 3-3. But as the Commanders are already 2-2 in this regard, having already taken losses to Dallas and Philadelphia, they’d also only be 3-3.
As such, the NFC East would belong to the Cowboys. Easy enough, right?