Cowboys Pregame Three Thoughts: Week 8
The Cowboys come off the bye and the challenge doesn't get easier.
Well, here we go.
When the schedule was released last spring, our eyes were always directed at the “showdown games” and the made-for-TV events where you know the networks are salivating at positioning their big numbers inside their ratings periods to make sure the entire business is secured with guaranteed audience scores.
It doesn’t take long to spot this fixture. Dallas at San Francisco gets the Sunday night slot in late October on an off-night during the World Series. This is not a shock to anyone who sees the patterns in how the NFL runs its business.
What might be considered a shock, on the other hand, would be to suggest to someone last spring that the two teams would be playing their final game in October with a combined record of 6-7. The 49ers and the Cowboys would win less than 50% of their games heading into a showdown with each other? What happened? And then you tell them the 49ers' record is actually worse than Dallas'? Really?
Sometimes, football happens. But this is also a test of “you are what your record says you are,” because the 3-3 team has a point differential that is 14th of the 16 NFC teams, while the 3-4 team is 7th and surrounded by teams with winning records. In other words, Dallas has been humiliated three different times this season, while the 49ers still look like a heavyweight that has lost due to a few fluky incidents and accidents.
That said, with both teams battered, bruised, and depleted, they meet yet again, where the matchups have not looked appealing for the Cowboys.
Dallas has lost three games in a row to their nemesis, and the prevailing theory in all three of those games—two in the playoffs—is that the offense has let them down. In particular, the one guy who has been paid to not let them down has let them down.
I remember the last time I was in San Francisco for this matchup, in the 2022 playoffs, I spent considerable time at my old writing gig talking about how Dak Prescott would need to outplay Brock Purdy to get to the NFC Championship Game and how that clearly did not happen:
Six days after beating and outplaying the most decorated playoff quarterback in the history of the game, we thought Prescott might be ready to adjust his career narrative forever if he could back it up with a win over one of the least decorated playoff QBs. At least Purdy was before this game. Now, Purdy will do something for his franchise that no QB has done for the Cowboys since Aikman was a young man — start an NFC Championship Game.
This game will weigh heavily on all discussions about Prescott’s spot among quarterbacks. And, frankly, it should.
Since that day, Brock Purdy has blown out his elbow, recovered, smoked Dallas again, gone on another run through the NFC Championship Game, started the Super Bowl last spring in Las Vegas, pushed that game to overtime against the dynasty Kansas City Chiefs, was one throw away from winning it all, and is now in line to use Prescott’s contract as the comparison for what he expects next spring.
And Prescott is still in a somewhat similar spot to where he has been for a while—needing a game like this badly to change his narrative.
More on that in a moment.
First, I would offer that you might be somewhat surprised to see that, despite the 49ers owning the McCarthy Cowboys, if you measure the sample starting after Dave Campo was fired, you would find that Dallas has won six of the last ten meetings between the two teams. For about 20 years straight, Dallas had no trouble beating the Niners, but of course, these games weren’t considered showdowns very often. The one time San Francisco won was the season opener in 2014, which was a false indicator of the season to come for Dallas, as they would go on to have the best year of the Tony Romo era.
But the last three games have all felt like one continuous nightmare. The Cowboys can never score and never feel like they are playing on even footing. The 49ers' defense has held Dallas to 13 points per game, dominating and humiliating them on every drive.
Dallas would run up the score on every defense in the league between 2021 and 2023—except this one. This San Francisco defense would just destroy any Dallas momentum early and often by bullying the Cowboys all over the field. While there are many pictures and memories of this humiliation, the one most referenced is Ezekiel Elliott playing center at the end of the playoff game in 2022. I won’t even dignify that memory with a full description. It’s the ultimate “if you know, you know” moment. And if you are reading this, how can you ever forget?
It has been a pretty rough scene throughout.