What Dallas needs to do to push their winning streak to four games.
The Dallas Cowboys enter Week 14 with momentum and an identity that has sharpened over the past month. Winners of three straight, they now face a Detroit Lions team built on physicality, heavy man coverage, and a YAC-driven offense that punishes poor tackling.
For Dallas, the path to victory will come down to whether they can impose their strengths against a Lions team that is looking to keep its sudden stumbling post season hopes alive.
Here are the three defining factors that will shape Thursday night in Detroit.
The following numbers were obtained through Next Gen Stats.
Winning perimeter matchups vs. Detroit’s Man Coverage
The Lions play man coverage at the highest rate in the NFL (44.6%), crowding receivers at the line and forcing quarterbacks to make precise, contested throws. It’s an aggressive approach, and it’s one the Cowboys are uniquely equipped to beat.
Dak Prescott leads the league in tight window throw rate, targeting receivers with less than a yard of separation on 19% of his attempts. Not only does he take those shots, but he also completes them at a top five rate.
George Pickens has been his most lethal weapon in these moments, leading the NFL in both tight window receiving yards (294) and yards versus man coverage (504). Against press specifically, Pickens has been elite, generating 432 yards and two touchdowns while averaging 3.2 yards per route, second-best in the league.
The Cowboys also unlock explosive plays by keeping Pickens and CeeDee Lamb isolated on opposite sides of the formation. When deployed that way, they average 7.8 yards per play, compared to 5.3 when aligned together. Add in Dak’s 78% completion rate on play-action and his elite efficiency versus the blitz, important against a Detroit defense that blitzes at a top 10 rate, and Dallas holds a clear schematic advantage.
Also worth noting, that Lamb leads all WR’s in DPI calls with 10, while Pickens is tied for fourth with five.
If the Cowboys consistently win on the outside, Detroit’s identity begins to crack.
Dallas Cowboys rule out Trevon Diggs, Tyler Guyton vs. Detroit Lions – Dallas Morning News
Trevon Diggs won’t play after positive signs, and Tyler Guyton will miss his third game of the season.
The return of Trevon Diggs will have to wait for the Dallas Cowboys.
Despite anticipation the the former All-Pro cornerback would return to the field Thursday against the Detroit Lions, he was ruled out by the Cowboys on the team’s final injury report Wednesday afternoon.
Diggs has missed the last six games with knee soreness/swelling and a concussion. He’s still on injured reserve but is in the early stages of a 21-day practice window.
Diggs will now have a full 10 days to continue his rehab before a potential return against Minnesota on Sunday Night Football on Dec. 14.
Can the Cowboys do it? Confidence is high, but little room for error in playoff push – Jon Machota, The Athletic
Dallas needs to keep tunnel vision as they push for the playoffs.
Dak Prescott isn’t one to regularly look at the latest NFL standings. But while the Dallas Cowboys quarterback was watching TV over the weekend, he stopped on a show that happened to be showing the AFC standings.
That’s when he decided it was time to see where the Cowboys stacked up in the NFC. With five games remaining, Dallas (6-5-1) is chasing the San Francisco 49ers (9-4) for the final wild-card spot. But the Cowboys are only a game and a half back of the Philadelphia Eagles (8-4) in the NFC East division race.
“Nothing really different than what I’ve said,” Prescott said this week. “It’s about us really just controlling what we control, winning the games in front of us. Right now, I don’t think we’re in a position where we can truly count wins and losses from other teams. I think we just win, and handle our business, and we’ll put ourselves in a great spot.”
After opening the season 3-5-1, Prescott said a few weeks ago that the playoffs had already started for the Cowboys.
“Nothing’s changed,” he said Monday. “We just got to do our absolute best every day and take advantage of it and be good with the results we go out there and put (on display).”
The biggest positive for the Cowboys is how well they’ve played over their last three games. Momentum is on their side. In his 10 seasons as Dallas’ franchise quarterback, Prescott has been on a team that has won 13 regular-season games and three others that have won 12.
Yet, he’s not sure if he has ever felt more confident going into December.
“Just on the simple fact that we didn’t play good ball early,” he said. “Now we’re starting to catch our stride, starting to figure out who we are, not just on offense but defense and as a team. It’s fun, I can tell you that.
“I’ve been on other teams where you started off hot, and at this time of the year, you’re trying to figure out what you have to do to get back on the horse. To have the momentum we do right now, the confidence, and not just that, the right guys in the locker room who understand where we are, who understand that this is the most important time of the year, and showing that in their daily prep and throughout the week, it’s fun.”
According to The Athletic’s NFL Playoff Simulator, the Cowboys enter Thursday night’s game against the Detroit Lions with a 23 percent chance of making the playoffs. Win Thursday night, and that number goes up to 41 percent. Lose, and it drops to only 10 percent.
Cowboys-Chiefs Thanksgiving game sets NFL viewership record – ESPN
The Cowboys continue to show that they are America’s Team.
The Dallas Cowboys’ 31-28 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs on Thanksgiving Day averaged 57.23 million viewers on CBS, making it the most watched regular-season game in NFL history.
The Green Bay Packers’ early-in-the-day 31-24 victory over the Detroit Lions averaged 47.7 million, making it the second-most-watched in league history. It was the most watched regular-season game since Fox began carrying the NFL in 1994.
The Cowboys-Chiefs game shattered by 36% the previous league record, which was 42.06 million for the New York Giants-Cowboys game on Fox in 2022. It was also a 47% increase over last year’s late afternoon Thanksgiving game between the Giants and Cowboys (38.84 million).
The audience peaked at 61.36 million for the game’s conclusion. The audience for the Green Bay-Detroit game peaked at 57.96 million.
The previous regular-season mark on CBS was 41.76 million for the 2023 Thanksgiving game between the Washington Commanders and the Cowboys.
Cowboys boast best DL in NFL over last month, face bottom-5 QB when pressured – Reid D Hanson, Cowboys Wire
The addition of Qunnien Williams is paying off tremendously.
No one could have seen this coming. After the Dallas Cowboys unceremoniously shipped Micah Parsons off to the Northwoods of Wisconsin, doom and gloom engulfed the defense’s 2025 prospects. Not only were fans deflated from losing their best defensive player and a likely future Hall of Famer, but the entire unit collapsed to a degree almost unimaginable. Week after week the Cowboys defense found new ways to disappoint. They routinely ranked as the NFL’s worst, while playfully dabbling in historically bad territory just to keep things interesting.
So, when the Cowboys pulled the trigger on the Quinnen Williams trade at the deadline, it seemed like it was too little, too late for 2025. But Williams proved to be every bit and more than advertised. While the linebacker group and secondary showed they still have things to work out, the Dallas defensive line showed they’re better than they’ve ever been.
Since Week 9 the Cowboys defensive line ranks No. 1 in the entire NFL.
I’ll say that again. Since Week 9 the Cowboys have the NFL’s top graded defensive line per PFF. Nearly nine points ahead of the second-place Browns. While that technically dates back just before the Williams trade, Williams is a clear reason for the sustainability and legitimacy, so he gets the bulk of the credit.
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