Tyler Krenzin
Lantern Staff
Seeing that I was, for the most part, right about where the Raiders and the Titans were heading, I’m going to throw another hat into this ring: This one is for you, Austin. The Dallas Cowboys will barely miss the playoffs this season. Only six teams from the NFC can make the playoffs with only two spots for teams that don’t win in their division.
As it stands right now, the Eagles win the division and the Cowboys finish 12th in their conference well out of the playoffs. However, it’s only been five weeks, and they still have 10 more games, but those 10 games are not going to be easy. Well, they get one easy game, next week against the 49ers, but after that nothing will be a walk-through. The Cowboys can score with the likes of anyone–look at the game against Green Bay in week five.
Thirty-one freaking points!!! Are you kidding me? In the NFL if a team scores 31 points, they should win every time. Keep in mind in week five, seven teams scored 30 or more points, and of those teams only two of them lost–the Houston Texans and the Dallas Cowboys. I barely count the Texans since they scored a meaningless touchdown with five seconds left to put them over the 30-point mark.
The fact of the matter is that Dallas should have won the game, but the Green Bay Packers have the Cowboys Kryptonite, Aaron Rodgers. Well to be fair Aaron Rodgers is every team’s Kryptonite, but from what he has done to the Cowboys lately, he should be labeled as such. There was one minute and 13 seconds (73 seconds) left on the clock when Dak Prescott scored, which looked like the winning touchdown. But as it turns out, Rodgers only needed 62 seconds to pick and pull apart the Dallas defense. This is where the problem lies for the Cowboys, while they won’t face a quarterback with the same pedigree as Rodgers, every week the defense of the Cowboys frankly just looked lost.
This was the same problem that I had for Oakland and Tennessee. The offense is good, as it should be, but that defense is lucky that Rodgers only hung 35 on them. They have the NFL leading sacker in DeMarcus Lawrence, but after that, their defense is awful. This season the Cowboys defense has allowed 11 total touchdowns, which puts them tied for second worst in the league. Dallas also has given up the fifth most first downs in the league, putting them on par with Tennessee.
Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if they made the playoffs somehow, but the games that they needed to win, they lost, and as tough as their division looks right now, I wouldn’t be surprised if they split some season series. As of now, I can only put them at 8-8. That will never be enough to make the playoff, and it would take that defense to massively over perform for them to really get anywhere.
Quick note: As of 10-12-2017 will serve his six game suspension.
