It took a while for them to get untracked, but the Dallas Cowboys absolutely walloped the Washington Redskins in the 2019 regular season finale. Once Dallas quarterback Dak Prescott got his bad shoulder loose, the offense loosened up and the team poured gasoline on the flaming pile of misery for the team from DC. The final was a massacre-like score differential, 47-16 as Dallas had another blowout win on the season.
It was too little, too late however. Elsewhere in the division, the Philadelphia Eagles handled their own business, pulling away from the New York Giants in the fourth quarter to earn their ninth win of the season and lock up the NFC East race and a home date for the wild-card round next weekend. Dallas finished 8-8, after losing to the Eagles in Week 16 in a game they could have clinched the division and now they are going to be at home in a different capacity, and for the entire offseason.
The loss likely signifies the end of the Jason Garrett regime in one of the most disappointing campaigns of the Jerry Jones era. He’ll go out the same way he came in, starting his career with three straight 8-8 finishes in which the club had a chance to make the playoffs in Week 17 but failed to do so.
Time is a flat circle, apparently.
Dallas failed to become the first NFC East team to repeat as division champions since the 2003-2004 Philadelphia teams did so 15 years ago.
The Cowboys have dominated their opponents in their wins and looked lost in their defeats. Every one of their eight wins came in games when they scored over 31 points. Every one of their eight losses came in games when they scored 24 or fewer points.
The 31-point margin of victory moved them to a scoring differential of 113 on the season. They are the first team since 1989 to finish with a differential of 100 or more and finish with less than nine wins.
Now, the Cowboys will move on to the business season, with a coaching change likely to be announced in the near future and a search to be executed under the bright January lights that only Dallas can exist under for a team that did not accomplish their goals on the season whatsoever.
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