As NFC East race tightens, the stakes are high for Cowboys-Washington Football Team

Now the fun begins.

The Dallas Cowboys and Washington Football Teams are only two games apart in NFC East, five in the regular season.

Dallas will face its fierce rival NFC East twice over the next three weeks, starting with a trip to DMV on Sunday.

The DMV for those unfamiliar is short for the Washington, DC, Maryland, and Virginia area. And since Dallas and Washington have been so mediocre / bad for years, this is likely the first time a game between these opponents this late in the season means so much.

You have to travel back to 2013 and 2012 when the late season games between Dallas and Washington meant something.

Do you remember 2013?

Dallas defeated Washington 24:23 to keep their feeble playoff hopes alive only to finish in the regular season finale. The Eagles, yes, the Eagles defeated the Cowboys, 24-22, in Week 17 to win the NFC East and give the Cowboys, yes, another 8-8 finish under Jason Garrett.

The previous year, Robert Griffin III gave Jerry Jones visions of what could be if Washington took the NFC East title with a 28:18 win in the regular season finale. It was the third time in the last five seasons that the Cowboys lost in a home game by a win or a go. Griffin stunned the cowboys, and Jones, the team owner, thought the former Baylor quarterback would have a bright future. And give the cowboys nightmares.

Further down the line, Washington is the hottest team in NFC, having won four games in a row. The DMV team won a 17-15 grind-it-out thriller over Las Vegas late Sunday afternoon to get closer to Dallas in the overall standings.

Washington emerged from a dismal 2-6 start after eight weeks and is level with San Francisco for the last two NFC wildcard places.

Dallas?

Well, the Cowboys were 6-1 after eight weeks until it all collapsed. The Cowboys lost quarterback Dak Prescott to one game with a calf injury, head coach Mike McCarthy missed a game and wide receiver Amari Cooper was gone for two games due to positive COVID-19 tests.

Dallas lost three of four games and a 31/2 game lead that seemed far away for their opponents in the NFC East is now just two games.

But on Thursday night, while McCarthy was sitting in a hotel room and watching, the Cowboys beat New Orleans 27:17 and suffered a streak of two games.

McCarthy said you learn about a team in adversity.

“The fact that you take it and go through it is exactly what our team did and did,” he said. “I think it will definitely give us the opportunity to be stronger and more experienced when we go down this track in December.”

The cowboys had a COVID-19 outbreak / breakthrough that forced the organization to hold virtual meetings, require players and team officials to wear masks indoors, and conduct rigorous testing within the last week.

Players and coaches are expected back at The Star on Monday if the COVID-19 tests aren’t causing any problems.

“I think as long as we survive the tests hopefully the goal is to get back to normal,” said McCarthy. “We will take additional steps ourselves, regardless of how the league turns out. I think the league does a great job of communicating.

“We are very fortunate to have these facilities here and the resources Jerry gives us. We want to maximize that. It’s like any adversity you go through. This is a lesson that we have learned and the number of people we have had here with COVID in the past few weeks simply have to do everything possible to meet this challenge. “

The return of some injured players to the field, like DeMarcus Lawrence, is an added boost for a Cowboys team heading into the latter part of their season starting Sunday in Landover, Maryland.

“We could make the top five in this league,” said Lawrence of the defense. “It’s all about our efforts and about performing and working every day. I don’t want to overtake us. I know we have great players in this locker room, but the point is to fine-tune our details and come here and get a full game. “

More cowboys coverage from The Dallas Morning News can be found here.

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