From @ToddBrock24f7: With 11 straight wins at AT&T Stadium, the Cowboys look to keep riding their home-field advantage with 4 of their next 6 games there.
The first Cowboys game to be played inside what is now called AT&T Stadium ended with a Dallas loss and the opposing quarterback famously signing the locker room wall as a christening.
Oh, how times have changed.
The Cowboys now own the longest home win streak in the NFL at 11 games, thanks to Sunday’s 43-20 blasting of the Rams at the House that Jerry Built.
It took a while- the team went just 8-8 over their first two seasons playing there- but the Cowboys finally seem to have a legitimate advantage when on their home field.
“Winning at home is really one of the oldest formulas in pro football,” head coach Mike McCarthy said after the Week 8 win that was attended by 93,448 fans. “If you take care of your home turf, you win your home games, you’re going to probably be where you want to be at the end of the year.”
The team has drawn over 93,000 for each of its three home appearances this season, by far the largest average in the league. And in those games, the Cowboys have won all three contests by a combined score of 111-33.
Sunday’s halftime ceremony welcoming franchise icon DeMarcus Ware to the Ring of Honor certainly helped the gate numbers, but it also gave the players a big boost coming out of their bye week.
“I thought our home crowd was unbelievable at the kickoff,” said McCarthy. “There’s not too many noon games where you see the crowd, the towels, the whole 10 yards.”
As impressive as the Cowboys’ current league-best streak is, they’re still a long way from the all-time record. The Dolphins won 27 straight home games in the early-to-mid-1970s, a stretch that also encompassed their perfect 1972 season.
More recently, Green Bay had a 15-game win streak at Lambeau Field snapped just last year.
The team’s string of 11 consecutive home victories ties the franchise record, duplicating a feat the Cowboys accomplished from 1991 to 1992.
This Cowboys squad’s last loss in front of a home crowd came in the 2022 season opener versus Tampa Bay; the Cowboys will now look to keep their streak going in Week 10 when the Giants come to town Nov. 12.
That game will fall within a cluster of home dates over the next month and change, all golden opportunities for McCarthy’s Cowboys to gain some serious ground toward a more favorable NFC playoff seeding.
“To have four out of six at home,” he explained, “we’ve got to make sure we take care of these home games.”
It’s easier said than done. Just eight weeks into the 2023 season, only three teams still have an unblemished record at home. In the AFC, Miami stands alone. And with a win next Sunday on the road in Philadelphia, the Cowboys would spoil the Eagles’ so-far-perfect home cooking.
The Philly faithful will no doubt turn out in droves to see their team face the hated Cowboys, though Dallas has an 11-9 all-time edge at Lincoln Financial Field.
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That’s quite a stat, considering the Cowboys couldn’t even win in their own building in September 2009, when 105,121 squeezed in for the venue’s football grand opening.
Since then, they’ve racked up 72 home wins (including payoffs) in the building. And although their all-time winning percentage at AT&T is just a modest .595, it’s really the victorious results they’ve seen in the last 11 home games that this team is interested in building off of.
“We take major pride in it,” defensive end DeMarcus Lawrence said. “If you can control home field, you’re guaranteeing yourself a spot in the playoffs. So we just want to make sure anybody that comes in here already knows our mission. We’re going to protect our house. You line up, you get [expletive] up.”
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