The Dallas Cowboys knew it was a longshot, but that's not the headspace professional athletes operate in. Heading into their bye in Week 10, the club had lost an embarrassing home game to the lowly Arizona Cardinals, dropping their record to 3-5-1.
The team made a deadline trade that drew attention away from the malaise, and then they ran off three straight wins, including taking down both Super Bowl teams. The wins kept long offs of making the playoffs alive, setting up this Week 14 matchup with the sliding Detroit Lions in a matchup of teams trying to keep their seasons alive.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe Cowboys, unfortunately, weren't up to the task. Dallas found themselves under duress from the opening whistle, falling behind at the half and then unable to mount a comeback like they had a few weeks ago. The Lions won, 44-30, dropping Dallas back to .500 with a 6-6-1 record.
The Cowboys have had a multitude of issues in road contests this season, only beating some of the league's worst teams in the Las Vegas Raiders and New York Jets. They lost to the Bears in Chicago by 17 and to the Broncos in Denver by 20. Now the Lions have hung a 14-point defeat on them as well.
Dallas' defense had strung together a couple hopeful performances in recent weeks, but that optimism was nowhere to be found as RB Jahmyr Gibbs scored three touchdowns on 12 carries, and three different Lions pass catchers had over 75 receiving yards.
The Lions defense had QB Dak Prescott flustered for much of the game despite him finishing with 376 passing yards. Two interceptions, one to start the second half that turned an 11-point deficit to 18, and another at the end of the game, bookended a second half of excess, as he survived losing CeeDee Lamb to a concussion.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementLamb was unstoppable, with 122 yards before exiting early in the third quarter. After his departure, it was Ryan Flournoy, not George Pickens, who picked up the slack. Pickens had a rough outing with just 37 yards and several bouts of disinterest.
The likelihood that a team that looked as bad as Dallas did over the first nine games would turn things around and run the table was minute, but the Cowboys had the firepower to pull it off. They just couldn't make the number of mistakes they made on Thursday night against the best team on their remaining schedule.
Yet they did, and now their playoff chances have plummeted back down to 9% ahead of the weekend's games.
This article originally appeared on Cowboys Wire: Cowboys revert to roadkill, lose to Lions 44-30
AdvertisementAdvertisement
