After dropping to 3-5-1 ahead of their Week 10 bye, the Dallas Cowboys made life a lot more interesting when they returned to action.
In Week 11, America's Team took an easy 33-16 win over the lowly Las Vegas Raiders on Monday Night Football. Six days later, the Cowboys overcame a 21-0 deficit en route to an improbable 24-21 victory over the Philadelphia Eagles. And just four days after that, they took down the Kansas City Chiefs on Thanksgiving Day by a score of 31-28, thus improving to 6-5-1. And things got even more interesting when the Eagles followed up their loss to Dallas with a 24-15 defeat to the Chicago Bears, thus dropping to 8-4.
Unfortunately for Dallas, the momentum was stopped with a 44-30 loss to the Detroit Lions in the Week 14 opener on Thursday Night Football, which became even more unfortunate when the Eagles dropped their third straight, closing out the week with a 22-19 defeat to the Los Angeles Chargers on Monday Night Football.
And with Philly getting back on track last Sunday by improving to 9-5 with a 31-0 win over the Raiders and Dallas falling to 6-7-1 with a 34-26 loss to the Minnesota Vikings, the Cowboys were put in the unenviable position of having to win their final three games and having the Eagles lose their final three to get back to the playoffs after missing out a season ago.
But that dream was crushed quickly, as Philadelphia wrapped up the NFC East for the second straight year and officially eliminated Dallas from postseason contention on Saturday night with an emphatic 29-18 victory over the Washington Commanders.
The Cowboys have officially been eliminated from playoff contention after the Eagles' big win over Washington
Nobody was really expecting the Commanders to beat the Eagles, who came in 7.5-point favorites. But Washington, which, like Dallas, has one of the worst overall defenses in the NFL, kept things competitive early on and actually took a 10-7 lead into halftime.
But it was all downhill from there for Dan Quinn & Co.
For starters, the Commanders' offense took a massive hit when quarterback Marcus Mariota was forced out of the game with what was ultimately deemed to be a hand injury. As such, veteran Josh Johnson was brought in and didn't do much of anything, completing five of nine passes for just 43 yards with an interception. Chris Rodriguez Jr. scored a late touchdown with just over a minute to play, and Jeremy McNichols tacked on a two-point conversion, but those were the only points the Commanders scored in the second half.
The Eagles, meanwhile, had a big second half, getting touchdowns from Dallas Goedert, Saquon Barkley, and Tank Bigsby in the runaway win. Barkley had a big night overall, ending his evening with 132 yards on just 21 carries. Jalen Hurts had an efficient outing as well, completing 73.3 percent of his throws for 185 yards and two touchdowns.
With the win, the Eagles are the first team to win back-to-back NFC East titles in more than two decades.
As for the Cowboys, they'll now simply finish out this season and start looking toward the 2026 campaign.