Cowboys ready for chance to earn wins vs. above-.500 teams, take opponents’ ‘best shots’ as schedule stiffens

FRISCO, Texas — The 2023 Dallas Cowboys are looking similar to the Penn State Nittany Lions of the last two seasons through the first 12 weeks of the current NFL season. In 2022 and 2023, Penn State completed 10-2 regular seasons, beating every less talented Big Ten team it faced. However, in each of those years, PSU couldn’t get past its conference’s summit of Ohio State and Michigan, losing both of its matchups to those two College Football Playoff contenders. 

This NFL season, the Cowboys’ 8-3 start has been built on taking care of the teams they are supposed to — teams with losing records — while currently lacking a victory against a team with a winning record. They lost on the final play of a 28-23 defeat at the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 9 and in a 42-10 blowout loss at the San Francisco 49ers in Week 5. Those two teams are the NFC Championship game participants from the 2022 season and the only teams the Cowboys have played in 2023 with a winning record. 

This unique distinction makes Dallas only the fifth team in NFL history with eight or more wins overall and no wins against teams with a record of .500 or better through Week 12. They had the second-easiest strength of schedule, a .384 opponent winning percentage, through Week 12 by any team in the past 10 seasons.    

“In this league, it’s hard to get wins, so, we got eight of them,” Dallas Cowboys safety Jayron Kearse said Monday. “I take our eight wins, we haven’t beat a team with a winning record, but I know the type of team that we are. We got this stretch coming up and we can change that narrative. That’s all we can look forward to doing is changing the narrative, you can say whatever you want to say. We have the ability to go out there and change it.”  

The Cowboys decimated the Washington Commanders, 45-10, in Week 12 to extend the NFL’s longest active home winning streak to 13, which is also the second…

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Author : Garrett Podell

Publish date : 2023-11-29 22:41:24

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