For the final time this season, the Dallas Cowboys play in primetime on Sunday Night Football in Week 15 against the Minnesota Vikings. Remarkably, the Cowboys second straight primetime game and third big stage in a row when considering Thanksgiving versus the Chiefs still carries a lot of meaning towards making a playoff push despite last Thursday’s loss at the Lions. The Cowboys have the Eagles’ third straight loss on Monday night at the Chargers to thank for this.
We say all the time that the NFL is a week-to-week league. This has never been more true than a 2025 season that now finds the 6-6-1 Cowboys a game and a half behind the 8-5 Eagles. It’s been evident in the span of just over the last two calendar weeks, where the Eagles went from 8-2 with a 21-0 lead in Arlington against the Cowboys to now 8-5. The Cowboys going 2-1 over this 0-3 stretch by the Eagles is good enough to have them back in the NFC East race, even though the loss has many in the fanbase down on the team despite the two home wins on Thanksgiving week that had spirits high.
The reality of the Cowboys staying in NFC North play for this Sunday night’s return home versus the Vikings is that if the team wasn’t already in must-win mode against the Lions, they are beyond any shadow of a doubt now. Both teams will be experiencing the full force of how feelings change from week to week in this league. The Cowboys are off an emotional loss at the Lions with letdowns and blame to go around in all three phases, while the Vikings will be looking for a second straight win against the NFC East. Minnesota snapped a four-game losing streak with a 31-0 win against the Washington Commanders in Week 14. It was only the Vikings’ second win in an eight-week window, where their only other win was at the Lions in Week 9.
The Vikings are playing their first road game at the Cowboys since 2019, which was also a Sunday night game they won 28-24. Since then, the Cowboys have won three straight, all at the Vikings between 2020-22. The Cowboys will be looking to prolong their Hail Mary odds at the playoffs with some more home cooking down the stretch of this season, and know a thing or two about beating the Vikings with a Hail Mary.
One of the stories to watch in this game will be how the Cowboys defense bounces back in their last “crossover game” for defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus. Coming over after coaching 12 games with the Chicago Bears last season, including back-to-back-to-back losses to the Packers, Vikings, and Lions that led to his firing, the Cowboys have not fared well against two of these same teams defensively this season. They also had one of their worst defensive games of the season in Chicago against the Bears.
When the Cowboys brought in Quinnen Williams and Logan Wilson around the same time they were able to put first-year draft pick Shavon Revel and DeMarvion Overshown on the field, the defense saw immediate results. It genuinely felt like Dallas would be able to avoid making a fourth defensive coordinator change in four years despite the disastrous early season results from Eberflus’ side of the ball. Conceding 44 points to the Lions put a damper on this, but to keep from overreacting to just one loss against a playoff-caliber opponent, the truth is much more likely that Eberflus needs all of the remaining games on the Cowboys schedule to stake his claim to the job moving forward. This includes Sunday night versus the Vikings, the following week against Justin Herbert and the Chargers, possibly playing against Jayden Daniels in his return game in Week 17, and then Jaxson Dart and the Giants to end the regular season after beating Russell Wilson in the first game versus the Giants.
To go through the rest of this stretch with the games continuing to matter, the Cowboys defense needs to make J.J. McCarthy look like the quarterback that’s struggled mightily this season, not the one that just completed nearly 70% of his passes with three touchdowns against Dan Quinn’s defense. The Cowboys special teams will be a factor again here after struggling bigtime in Detroit. Three of the Vikings’ four touchdown drives started at their own 34-yard line or better, and they added a field goal after starting in Commanders territory off an interception. The opportunity for the Cowboys to play complementary football in all phases will be there for the Cowboys actually, as McCarthy’s splits when passing while his team is trailing compared to ahead favor the Dallas defense.
The Cowboys held a Kirk Cousins led Vikings team to three points in the last meeting between these teams in Week 11 of 2022. They put on a masterclass in playing ball control that Brian Schottenheimer’s current team hasn’t quite been able to replicate consistently, winning time of possession by nearly 15 minutes, taking an early lead on an Ezekiel Elliott rushing touchdown, and extending the lead with two Tony Pollard receiving touchdowns.
Schottenheimer’s offense may look at this current matchup similarly to the Chiefs game where they beat an aggressive defensive play caller in Steve Spagnuolo, now going against the aggressive Brian Flores. The chess match between Dak Prescott’s command at the line of scrimmage against the multiplicity of Flores defense, and their own ability to change looks from pre to post snap will be an intriguing game within the game. More than anything though, this defense will be a test up front for the Cowboys offensive line.
Dallas will know by the end of Sunday night if their remaining games are more about the future or an ongoing push to get the most out of 2025, but seeing improved offensive line play is a good place to look for positives in both areas no matter what direction it ends up trending. Although the Vikings are trending from being a playoff team out of the brutal NFC North a year ago to out of the dance this season, this is still a meeting of two teams with head coaches and quarterbacks in place they believe can take them far in the near future.
Last time the Cowboys hosted the Vikings on SNF, it ended up being in the final season for head coach Jason Garrett. The end of that 2019 season brought changes at head coach with Mike McCarthy and defensive coordinator with Mike Nolan replacing Rod Marinelli. This time around, the Cowboys get the Vikings in primetime at the start of a new coaching staff, and just how much they keep it in tact or not can depend heavily on the outcome of this game.
The Cowboys turned the ball over on downs and were stopped to end the game on their final two possessions in that 2019 loss, a low point for a team that had a game they needed there for the taking and couldn’t capitalize. If the offense carries over some of their big-play momentum from not only the Lions game but previous wins as well, the Cowboys won’t have this same concern, and could find themselves inching even closer to the top of the division in an effort to not allow a repeat winner in the East for the 21st straight year.
The mantra that Cowboys fans have been “waiting all day for Sunday night” for this game should actually be “waited a week plus three days” after the team’s last game was all the way back on December 4th, but the energy level should be there come kickoff to decide the direction the rest of this month will go.
See More:
