The Cowboys have to handle their own business plus get some help from other teams. Here’s who is in their corner.
The Dallas Cowboys are in playoff mode. They aren’t quite yet in single-elimination territory, but it’s more of a double-elimination situation. With a 4-5-1 record through 10 games, Brian Schottenheimer’s club likely can’t withstand two more losses and still make the postseason, so delaying that first loss is an imperative for his young club.
The Cowboys have wasted opportunities against upstart teams like the Chicago Bears and Carolina Panthers, who shockingly are competing for their division, and Dallas completed butchered their gimme-game against the Arizona Cardinals. That means they simply have to escape the three-game-in-12-day gauntlet of the Eagles, Chiefs and Lions that begins in a few hours. Even if they escape 2-1, or a miraculous 3-0, the Cowboys will need plenty of other teams to falter, leading to Cowboys Wire’s weekly rooting guide.
Here are the results the Cowboys need to see this weekend.
Week 12 Rooting Interests
- Pittsburgh Steelers (6-4) @ Chicago Bears (7-3): Root for Chicago
- One might think the Cowboys want Chicago to lose, but the best thing for Dallas if for the Bears to win their division and not be involved in any wild-card tiebreakers.
- New York GIants (2-9) @ Detroit Lions (6-4): Root for the Giants
- The Cowboys are just 1.5 games behind the Lions with a head-to-head matchup to come.
- Minnesota Vikings (4-6) @ Green Bay Packers (6-3-1): Root for the Vikings
- The Cowboys tied Green Bay in Week 4, which makes for an interesting tie-breaker scenario, but this is a straight forward scenario of hoping the worst team wins.
- Tampa Bay Buccaneers (6-4) @ Los Angeles Rams (8-2): Root for the Rams
- This one is more of a projection. If the Bucs continue to falter and the Panthers can somehow win the NFC South, that eliminates them as a wild-card threat due to Dallas’ head-to-head loss. It also doesn’t matter who wins the NFC West because the Cardinals aren’t a contender and Dallas doesn’t play the other three. So whomever wins the hope is the other wild-card contenders lose a lot. Since the Rams are already up, hope the trends continue.
- Carolina Panthers (6-5) @ San Francisco 49ers (7-4): Root for the Panthers
- It certainly can backfire, rooting for a team that already has the H2H tiebreaker, but again, if Carolina can move into first in the NFC South, that’s a help for Dallas, and the 49ers losing tightens up the wild-card race.
