Cowboys didn’t get help they need on Sunday, but momentum into December still feels different

The Dallas Cowboys are riding high after last Sunday’s win against the Philadelphia Eagles and more home cooking on Thanksgiving against the Kansas City Chiefs, They enter December above .500 for the first time all season at 6-5-1. The Cowboys even had a great Black Friday with the Chicago Bears handing the Eagles another loss. The post-holiday lull comes for us all though, and even America’s Team couldn’t avoid it this Sunday. The Cowboys got none of the help they needed to inch even closer towards a NFC Wild Card spot on Sunday, but can still put both a Wild Card berth and winning the NFC East outright on their Christmas wish list as things that remain possible going into the regular season’s final month.

A Cowboys season that seemed destined to feel like a long waste of time, with alternating wins and losses and a tie for good measure, through the first seven weeks has shifted in feeling dramatically. For a team that still ultimately has a lot of work left to do to reach the playoffs, they’ve been in must-win playoff mode since the Eagles game, and found a way to comeback and win against both the Eagles and Chiefs. Fans are on the edge of their seats watching a team that looks unrecognizable for all the right reasons on defense, and has a familiar-looking big-play offense with a new element of excitement in George Pickens.

The Cowboys playing de-facto playoff games from now until the end of the regular season under first-year head coach Brian Schottenheimer is a good thing, and suddenly the toughest game of this stretch on paper looks like their next one on Thursday night in Detroit. If the Cowboys can extend their win streak to four games, their first such streak since 2023, games against the Vikings, Chargers, Commanders, and Giants look much more manageable to end the season. The must-win nature of these games, even if the Cowboys do indeed win all of them, can still leave them short of the playoffs though, and for that reason alone can’t be mistaken for anything close to the actual playoff success this team is after – still facing a reality where missing out on the dance two years in a row is very real.

The best parts of what the Cowboys have going for them entering December runs deeper than the black-and-white of making the 2025 playoffs. Although with so many down teams around the league, and the Cowboys having the right mix of an explosive pass game, reliable run game, and stouter defense, still missing their chance at postseason glory would sting. Much of this season for the Cowboys has been about establishing a new culture under Schottenheimer, evidenced in their latest resilient wins, installing a new scheme on both sides of the ball, and finding better depth. Now playing their best ball of the season, the Cowboys have done well in all of these areas. Matt Eberflus’ defensive scheme was the one box on this checklist lagging the farthest behind, but has come up huge against both Jalen Hurts and Patrick Mahomes to help the Cowboys win twice in the past week.

Another thing the Cowboys are on the precipice of setting up nicely for Schottenheimer is continuity and the type of momentum that can carry over from season to season. Historically, this has been an area the Cowboys have struggled mightily in, primarily under Jason Garrett, but at times under Mike McCarthy as well. The Cowboys are still playing with very real hopes on maximizing this 2025 season, but each step along the way is helping them for 2026 as well. This is a huge deal, before even really considering the added draft capital that will come into play this spring.

Coach Schottenheimer may be poised to avoid the same fate as McCarthy transitioning from year one to two with an immediate defensive coordinator change, as McCarthy went from Mike Nolan to Dan Quinn. This ended up being one of the best things to happen to McCarthy’s teams that made them a consistent contender, but by the end the Quinn defense being “figured out” to an extent was also something holding the team back. The Cowboys’ current defense under Eberflus was actually performing worse statistically than Nolan’s in 2020 earlier in the year, but with the right personnel has now made a full 180 degree turn. Eberflus’ zone scheme with a heavy emphasis on linebackers dropping into coverage works best in support of a quick-strike offense that’s going to score points and allow this defense to play with the lead, which Schottenheimer’s offense has shown the ability to do.

Another trap the Cowboys have fallen into in past offseasons they are getting a good head start on down the stretch of this season is feeling like they are better off at certain positions than they actually are, once roster attrition takes effect. Maybe the Cowboys feel set at wide receiver and put all of their offseason attention into improving at cornerback, just as an example, only to be lacking at receiver at some point in the season over the lack of adding more talent. The Cowboys work in this area under Schottenheimer started way, way before November and December, sticking their neck out with trades and free agent signings to bolster the roster – even making trade deadline moves for Quinnen Williams and Logan Wilson that have also paid off massively. The Cowboys are now seeing this emphasis towards building better overall depth pay off with wins that young players have their fingerprints all over, a huge positive sign at the start of the Schottenheimer era.

Extending George Pickens should remain a priority still, and if the Cowboys do they’ll have the dynamic duo of CeeDee Lamb and Pickens under contract for 2026, but also Ryan Flournoy in his third year as a late round draft pick that’s developed well. Javontae Williams may also be a key free agent as the starting running back, but with Malik Davis showing flashes and scoring a long touchdown against the Chiefs, as well as the Cowboys adding Israel Abanikanda to the practice squad, will help them maintain their low-cost but high-efficiency approach to running the ball. Tyler Booker has come on strong as the starting right guard in his rookie season, and Nathan Thomas continues to fill in admirably when needed at left tackle for Tyler Guyton. On defense, preseason no-names like Trikweze Bridges, Alijah Clark, and Reddy Steward have joined the likes of Shavon Revel, DaRon Bland, Caelen Carson, and against the Lions likely Trevon Diggs, to help the Cowboys lock things down in the secondary. Donovan Ezeriuaku has looked like an edge player the Cowboys can retool their pass rushing unit around, one that will consistently benefit from the surplus Dallas has built at defensive tackle with Williams, Solomon Thomas, Kenny Clark, and Osa Odighizuwa.

The players that are helping the Cowboys win now across the board are players they will be able to continue putting trust into, in schemes that shouldn’t be going anywhere as they too have been a big reason for producing wins. As fans have unexpectedly been dragged back into a level of caring about this team’s play that comes with sitting on the edge of the couch cushion and living and dying with every fourth-quarter play of a tight game, for the first time in a long time it feels like the Cowboys have eggs in more baskets than just these stressful moments. An argument could even be made that missing the playoffs for the second year in a row, but still with all of the positives seen through Schottenheimer’s guidance so far, would be the ultimate catalyst for Dallas to remain aggressive in the offseason and improve the roster even more dramatically for 2026.

At this moment, nobody knows if the 2025 Cowboys have only five games remaining including Thursday at the Lions, or something much more special. Two wins against 2024 conference champions in five days has created a feeling of wanting something more lasting to hold onto from this season, but without more help elsewhere in the standings, five games is all that’s promised right now. The search for something special within these games must then go beyond this current season, and while getting too far ahead of predicting future success in this league is a fool’s errand, the Cowboys are already putting some of next season’s core players on the field in their efforts to also win now. They are keeping depth players as depth players and letting stars be stars, not the other way around.

In a year where nearly the entire league going into December can be asking themselves, “why not us?”, the Cowboys have done the work to be in this conversation, as well as any future conversations around, “who’s got next?”