It is always fun to watch the Dallas Cowboys on Thanksgiving Day.
It’s that time again. Time to wake up Thursday morning and start prepping all the Thanksgiving dishes early in the day, with the parade on the TV in the background while you cook. Then sit down at the table and enjoy all the delicious food, but also keep an eye on the clock to make sure you finish in time for the real focal point of the day: Dallas Cowboys football.
It’s hard to believe it’s already here, but the Cowboys’ annual Thanksgiving game is right around the corner. Soon, millions of people will be forced to tune in and watch a 4-7 team led by Cooper Rush square off against a 2-9 team led by maybe Tommy DeVito? If the Cowboys manage to win, it’ll be the first time this calendar year they’ve won a game in their home stadium.
To say that this matchup has lost its appeal would be an understatement. Odds weren’t great coming into the season that this would be a game with major playoff implications, but duels between Dak Prescott and Daniel Jones have generally been somewhat competitive. But Prescott is out for the year with an injury, while the Giants benched Jones for financial reasons before outright cutting him last week.
New York turned to Tommy DeVito, last year’s undrafted rookie whose flashy play and stereotypical Italian demeanor made him an Internet sensation. The Giants went 3-3 with DeVito as the starter, though the quarterback had been up and down in his performances in those games.
In his first start of the year, DeVito was unable to recapture any of the magic from last year’s run. He completed 67.7% of his passes for just 189 yards against a tough Buccaneers defense and, outside of a rushing touchdown down big in the fourth quarter, the Giants were held scoreless in a 30-7 loss. Sensational rookie receiver Malik Nabers made some eyebrow-raising comments afterwards, too:
“It ain’t the quarterback,” said rookie wide receiver Malik Nabers, who led the Giants with six catches for 64 yards. “Same outcome when we had DJ at quarterback.
“I don’t know what it is,” Nabers added when asked to identify the team’s problem. “Everybody know better than me. … I know I’m tired of losing.”
The Cowboys can relate to that, as they had their own controversy not too long ago when Micah Parsons made a comment about Mike McCarthy, which he later apologized for. Both these teams seem to be on the verge of a new coaching staff after a lost season, which makes this matchup interesting for all the wrong reasons.
DeVito has popped up on the injury report so it is actually unclear if he will play. Drew Lock would be the next quarterback up.
At this point, Giants fans are doing daily mock drafts and arguing about which quarterback they’ll take with their top five draft pick. Cowboys fans have started to adopt that trend, though they know Dallas won’t be drafting a quarterback wherever they end up picking in the first round this year. Still, it seemed as if the fan base was just starting to make peace with the fruits that bear from a terrible season.
Naturally, the Cowboys chose that moment to pull off a chaotic win over the Commanders on the road, with Rush putting up perhaps his best game of his career and the Dallas defense showing real promise. Now they enter this game as four-point favorites, and would probably be more favored if they had proven capable of winning at home this year.
It brings up a fascinating question though. If the Cowboys win this one, they’ll have won two straight – both of them division games – and will sit at 5-7. As it currently stands, the Commanders team they just beat – who have now lost three in a row – would be the seventh and final playoff team if the season ended today. Only one other NFC team behind Washington has a winning record right now.
Considering that the Cowboys’ next four opponents after the post-Thanksgiving mini-bye all sit with losing records at the moment, suddenly the door is open for the Cowboys to go on a run. Assuming that happens, they would be looking at an 8-7 record as they go to Philadelphia for a rematch against the Eagles, which is just one week prior to their rematch with the Commanders.
Obviously, this is a pie-in-the-sky scenario right now, but a win on Thanksgiving would legitimately open the door for a playoff run given the current state of the NFC playoff picture. All they have to do is something they used to always do but haven’t been able to all year long: win at home.
