It was over, officially, long before the Dallas Cowboys even took the field on Sunday night.
But it was nice to see this team, with nothing to play for, come out and play like it meant something in a 26-24 win over Tampa Bay on Sunday night.
Despite the win, however, there’s one hard, cold fact.
For the 29th consecutive season the Cowboys will not play for an NFL Championship. Most of Dallas’ fanbase has been hearing Don Meredith warming up in the background for weeks.
There’s your 1970s Monday Night Football reference for the year.
Since the Cowboys walked out of Sun Devil Stadium with their fifth Lombardi Trophy back in early 1996, seven coaches have tried to get them back to the Super Bowl.
All of them have failed. If Mike McCarthy is not retained, an eighth will be hired sometime in January.
Whoever it is in 2025, he’ll likely fail too.
Because while several coaches and hundreds of players have come and gone since that night, the one constant throughout it all will be back.
Jerry Jones has been the general manager that’s overseen these 29 years of futility. Unfortunately, he’s too stubborn to make the one change to end the drought.
Right now, all the Cowboys have left in 2024 are two games, against the Eagles, and the Commanders.
They’ll try to play spoiler, then get ready for next year. Just like they have for nearly three decades now.
How about them Cowboys.
Record Against Tampa Bay
The Cowboys win improved their record to 17-6 all-time against Tampa Bay and snapped a two-game regular season losing streak.
Dallas is now 13-2 against the Buccaneers at home.
The win improves the Cowboys’ all-time Week 16 record to 25-22 overall and 16-10 at home. They have beaten Tampa Bay both times they have met in the 16th week.
Scoragami, Predictions Update
Maybe I should start listening to preseason me when I go to pick the games.
In Sunday’s post, I went ahead and picked Tampa Bay to win the game. Well, that didn’t work out so good.
But in my preseason prediction post, I had Dallas winning this game to get to 7-8 on the season.
That’s exactly where Dallas is and my 8-9 overall prediction remains on track. Still waiting for apologies, folks.
A lot of you need to go back and check out your comments back then, especially those of you that had Dallas going 14-3.
I’ll be right here waiting.
Here’s an experiment for the last two games of the season. I’ll pick Dallas to lose and see if they win out.
Sunday’s final score was the fourth time the Cowboys ended a game with a 26-24 final score.
Dallas is 2-2 in those games, having won the last two games to end 26-24.
They Got It Right
With all of the wailing and gnashing of teeth over which 12 teams got into the college football playoffs, and a couple that didn’t, one thing is certain:
They got the seeding right.
All four of the higher-seeded home teams cruised to relatively easy wins over the weekend.
No. 10 Indiana played give-away until it was too late in a 27-17 loss to No. 7 Notre Dame on Friday. No. 12 Clemson also fell behind early in a 38-24 loss to No. 5 Texas.
No. 11 SMU had a quarterback that thought he was playing for No. 6 Penn State in a 38-10 loss and No. Ohio State rolled to a 42-17 win over No. 9 Tennessee.
After the dust settled, the top eight seeds are still alive for the second round. Those four games won’t happen until New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.
Here’s the early predictions that nobody asked for – look, the Cowboys are out of the playoffs.
I need a reason to keep watching football, okay?
- Boise State will shock the world by beating Penn State in the Fiesta Bowl on Dec. 31st.
- Texas will knock off Arizona State in the Peach Bowl on New Year’s Day.
- Oregon will cruise to an easy win over Ohio State in the Rose Bowl also on Jan. 1st.
- Georgia will cruise to an easy win over Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl on New Year’s Day as well.
Bison Head Back To Texas
Since 2011, the road to the FCS Championship usually involves North Dakota State.
The Bison (13-2) got past long-time rival South Dakota State, 28-21, on Saturday at the Fargo Dome to advance to this year’s title game. They will face Montana State (15-0) in Frisco, TX on Jan. 6th at 6 p.m.
It will be the 11th time in the last 14 championship games that North Dakota State has been a participant.
They come into this year’s title game with a 9-1 record in championship games.
These two teams met in Frisco three years ago for the FCS title and the Bison stampeded (sorry, couldn’t resist) the Bobcats 38-10.
Bear in mind, during this 14-year run, the program has had four different head coaches. The previous three won at least two championships.
Tim Polasek is in his first year at the helm at North Dakota State.
The smartest thing he did was to take an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach.
The Bobcats are going to be a tough out, but I’ll take the Bison, 28-27. You’ll know where I’ll be on that Monday night.