Must win along treacherous stretch

FRISCO, Texas – Needless to say, this has been a bumpy road for the Cowboys.

The explosive injuries that remove Pro Bowl players from them, at different times eight of them, the latest cornerback Travon Diggs and Zack Martin for the rest of the season.

There was the five-game losing streak, three of them to teams currently leading their divisions and another to a team in second place.

There was the unforgivable loss to the Saints in Week 2. The six-point loss to Atlanta when quarterback Dak Prescot was lost for the season during the game.

There was the failure to stop QB Lamar Jackson on a third-and-6 with 2:36 left to play, which would have given the Cowboys the ball back around the two-minute warning with one last gasp available in a 28-25 -loss to Baltimore.

Add in the heck of a — as strong as it’s allowed to describe — blocked punt leading to the Cowboys, then muffed the crazy long ball that led to the Bengals winning touchdown in the 27-20 loss to Cincinnati in the last two minutes.

But here are the Cowboys, three games to play with a 6-8 record and as one of these analytics sites points out with only a 1% chance to clinch the seemingly final NFC wildcard playoff spot and knowing it 1% to stay alive they MUST at least win their last three matches.

And after everything they’ve been through this season, the injuries, the heartbreaks, the crushing losses to the likes of New Orleans, Detroit, Philadelphia and Houston, now comes their football equivalent of Burma Road. Look it up, a treacherous WWII route during the China theater.

This three-game stretch is a tricky one.

First, the 8-6 Tampa Bay Buccaneers, first place in the NFC South, Sunday night at AT&T.

Then at 12-2 the Philadelphia Eagles, in first place in the NFC East and on their own late-season march to capture the top seed in the NFC, currently tied for the best NFC record with Detroit and Minnesota, barring any relevant tiebreakers.

Finally, the 9-5 Washington Commanders back at AT&T, second in the NFC East but leading the pack for the third wild card spot at this stage of the game. A team the Cowboys have already beaten, but all the Commanders have to do is win a game, get to 10 wins and eliminate the Cowboys no matter what they do going forward as they can’t finish better than 9-8.

But like I said, you can’t win three straight unless you win the first straight, and that mission starts at 7:20 p.m. Sunday on AT&T with the Buccaneers, a big game for former Cowboys assistant Todd Bowles’ crew, as the Bucs just might have to to win to claim the South crown over Atlanta, which has already beaten the Bucs twice to clinch the head-to-head tiebreaker.

So not only a team with a winning record and has won the last four in a row, a highly motivated team that has only given up an average of 15 points per game. game during this four-game winning streak.

As Cowboys main man Mike McCarthy says, “This is a big challenge.”

Sure as hell. Meet that challenge and the challenge swells next week at Philadelphia, another highly motivated team.

And consider this next week, facing a Washington team potentially entering a two-game losing streak, with potentially second place in the East and the third wild-card spot on the line, since the Commanders first play Philly and Atlanta before arriving at Arlington.

Now, all of this could be a problem before the Cowboys even face the Bucs on Sunday night. This perilous predicament for the Cowboys could be decided before they even dress for Game 15, since the Philadelphia-Washington game starts at 6 p.m. Around 3 p.m. Sunday, the Cowboys will know that either Washington has extinguished their playoff hopes by beating the Eagles to get the 10^th win that the Cowboys can’t achieve or re-fuel slim playoff hopes by losing to the Eagles, who with a win clinches the NFC East title, which in turn means the defending NFC East champions (Cowboys) won’t repeat for the 20.^th consecutive season, although we already knew that part, just not who.

Ah, but after all the setbacks the Cowboys have endured, what if there’s still bait on the hook?

As Cowboys owner Jerry Jones says of motivation when facing adversity, “Well, I’ve never met a competitor that doesn’t carry it inside and out, the disappointment. You have to wear it and it has to eat you up, frankly .It has to eat you and eat you enough so that when you get ready to go again, you have to remember how much it hurts when you don’t win it’s there.

“You say, ‘Well, you can’t win every time.’ Well, you don’t know that when you get ready to play that game or put in that effort.

Then it is conceivable that Washington, a team lucky to defeat the New Orleans Saints the last game, 20-19, in which the Saints went for two points and the victory after scoring a touchdown with no time left in the fourth quarter, to then fail, could lose the next two? Who knows. Remember, after the Philly game, Atlanta comes for the Commanders, now 7-7, with the hope of winning the South still alive and motivated.

Then comes the Cowboys, assuming they can somehow beat the Bucs and win on the road in Philly, where they haven’t won since the 2021 season, and remember the Cowboys have yet to beat teams with back-to-back winning records- matches. If they do, they would need a third against the commanders.

And on top of all that, the Cowboys, if hope still lives, would need either the 8-6 Rams or Seahawks to win no more than one of their three remaining games, and the 7-7 Cardinals to win no more than two of their last three games. A 9-8 Cowboys team would win 9-8 tiebreakers with all three of those teams based on a better NFC record, but lose any 9-8 tiebreaker with Atlanta since the Falcons own the head-to-head advantage.

That’s why all the Cowboys have to do is worry about Tampa Bay, especially if the Eagles beat the Commanders earlier in the day, which adds further meaning to this upcoming game.

Crazier things in the NFL have happened, in the Cowboys’ favor and against the Cowboys down these unpredictable stretches. Why numerous times in the last game of the season in their 65-year history have the Cowboys played win-or-go-home games. They would love to meet another meaningful one on January 4/5.

Get it too. As odds go, 1% is 1%. But a lot better than 0 percent. Just watch out for the pitfalls along this tenuous path.