The bad news is that the help Dallas needed to clinch their first playoff berth since 2018 didn’t happen. Following their 21-6 victory over the New York Giants for their third win in a row, the Cowboys needed a bit of help in order to secure their ticket to the dance. That didn’t happen, but the good news, and really the only news that matters, is that the Cowboys moved up two rungs on the NFC seeding ladder with just three weeks to go.
Dallas needed either the Atlanta Falcons or the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to win their matchups in order to lock the Cowboys into a playoff spot. Neither happened as in the late afternoon game, the San Francisco 49ers bludgeoned Atlanta 31-13 to improve to 8-6 on the season. In the Sunday Night matchup, the New Orleans Saints shut out Tom Brady and the Bucs to improve to 7-7 on the season. That’s where the good news comes in to overshadow the bad, as the Bucs loss drops them to 10-4 and into a three-way tie with the Dallas Cowboys and Arizona Cardinals who were upset early on Sunday by the Detroit Lions.
Those results put the Cowboys in as the current NFC No. 2 seed by virtue of the tiebreaker rules.
While Dallas lost in Week 1 to Tampa Bay and would lose a head-to-head tiebreaker with the defending champs, because the Bucs and Arizona don’t play this year, head-to-head isn’t applicable when three or more teams are tied. The first tiebreaker then becomes conference record.
Dallas is a league-best 8-1 against the NFC. The Bucs and Cards are both now just 6-4 in the conference, with all of their losses coming against NFC foes.
Seeing how teams have to go through the conference to make the Super Bowl, a pristine conference record is more than just a tiebreaker; it could be a sign of things to come.
Even if the Los Angeles Rams win their game on Tuesday against the Seattle Seahawks, they lose the division tiebreaker to Arizona with both teams having a 10-4 record. Dallas still has the conference record tiebreaker over the Rams anyway.
All four of these teams are chasing the Green Bay Packers, which were a failed two-point conversion away from falling to the Lamar Jackson-less Baltimore Ravens on Sunday. Backup Tyler Huntley missed a wide open Hollywood Brown in the back of the end zone and instead threw errantly to tight end Mark Andrews with less than 50 seconds remaining in the game to fall by one point. Here’s a look at next week’s schedule to see how the contenders
Weel 16 Matchups
Cleveland Browns (7-6, game to play) @ Green Bay Packers (11-3)
Indianapolis Colts (8-6) @ Arizona Cardinals (10-4)
Tampa Bay Bucs (10-4) @ Carolina Panthers (5-9)
Washington Football Team (6-7, game to play) @ Dallas Cowboys (10-4)
Los Angeles Rams (9-4) @ Minnesota Vikings (6-7, game to play)
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