The Dallas Cowboys enter Week 17 as underdogs who have already been mathematically eliminated from the playoffs. Their best players are out for the year. Their hopes and dreams have been moved to next season. Their coaching staff is in limbo and after hints that free agency would again be disappointing, the only visible path to turning things around come from the draft next April. They don’t have much to play for, and given the way the NFL seeds draft order, they have clear incentives to lose.

“You play to win the game,” was a statement once made by then New York Jets head coach, Herm Edwards. The six words were simultaneously simple and nuanced. It spoke to the underlying objective in sports in the face of strategy and lost motivation. His Jets had started 2-5 and the New York media were busy pushing all of Edwards’ buttons when the famous sentence was first uttered.

“Hello?” Edwards poignantly said in a way Lionel Richie himself would applaud. “You play to win the game. You don’t just play it to play it. That’s the great thing about sports. You play to win. And I don’t care if you don’t have any wins. You go play to win.”

Edwards’ statement and overall mindset as a coach seemed to make an impact on his team. The Jets went on a winning streak following that infamous presser, even making the playoffs.

The Cowboys aren’t so fortunate in their timing since they find themselves in a situation at the end of the season with the playoffs completely out of the picture. They’ve gone 4-1 in recent weeks but their horrific start to the year was ultimately too much to overcome. Should they just “play to win the game?”

Obviously, the players playing and coaches coaching are playing to win. They aren’t focused on next year because, to most of them, there might not be a next year. But fans are torn. Beating the Eagles would be hilarious given the roster Dallas is going to field so it would be impossible for Cowboys fans not to cheer for that turn of events. Yet the ramifications could be significant.

Based on forecasts, the Cowboys have much to lose with a win this week. As convoluted as that sounds Dallas fans have to weigh the costs and benefits of a Cowboys win. Beating the Eagles would drop Dallas as many as three spots down the draft order. In this relatively weak draft class, that could mean the difference between a cornerstone player and a rotational piece. It’s a high price to pay for a simple smirk today.

There’s also the matter of Jalen Hurts’ uncertain status. The Eagles quarterback has yet to clear concussion protocol meaning he probably won’t play on Sunday. Beating Philadelphia sans Hurts just isn’t going to feel the same.

All of this implies fans have some sort of power over the results. Chances are, random Cowboys fan living in fill-in-the-blank, USA isn’t going impact the result more or less based on his level of fervor in cheering. Regardless, it’s important to know the situation and mentally prepare for the ramifications heading into this second-to-last game of the season.

A win against the Eagles in Philadelphia would feel nice but would it be worth the price of dropping three draft slots?

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