Cowboys turn up physicality in practice, a rarity this late; want to clinch division now
There two ways the Dallas Cowboys (8-6) could clinch the NFC East title this weekend.
A win against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (5-9) on Sunday would get it done.
Or they could back into the playoffs with losses by the Washington Redskins (7-7) on Saturday to the Tennessee Titans (8-6) and the Philadelphia Eagles (7-7) to the Houston Texans (10-4) on Sunday.
The latter two options are certainly possible, considering the Titans are tough at home and are playing for a playoff berth, and the Texans have won 10 of their last 11 games and are fighting for the No. 2 seed in the playoffs.
The Cowboys, however, would prefer to take care of their own business. It is something they didn’t do last Sunday in an embarrassing, 23-0, loss to the Indianapolis Colts due to a “piss-poor” effort, per running Ezekiel Elliott.
“Obviously that’s the main goal,” quarterback Dak Prescott said of doing their own dirty work by beating the Buccaneers. “Nothing is given and nothing is given in this league and in life. We want to go out there and take it, take what we deserve. We don’t want to be just given the playoffs because other teams lose. We need to go out there and show how dominant we are and it’s about getting this win. That’s really the focus. It’s not necessarily anymore about, ‘Oh let’s go get this one, we’re in the playoffs.’
“Everybody knows it’s going to happen. It should have happened whenever I guess. But I guess we went into last weekend thinking that and was very humbling. So this week it’s just go out there and being the best team that we are and that we can be and just making sure we get a win and the rest will take care of itself.”
That humbling has resulted in a week of intense and physical practices as well as extra work on the red zone offense and a renewed focus for Sunday.
Owner Jerry Jones doesn’t even want to consider the possibility of the Cowboys losing and still backing into the playoffs.
“I really don’t want to talk about that for, I guess, superstition if for no other reason,” Jones said of possible losses by the Eagles and Redskins. “We have really turned -- I’m not going to say turned it up, but probably have been more of everything this week than we would have normally been. I know we’ve been more physical preparing. I’m talking about the team. We definitely have been more physical, and we’re just no holds barred physically for this time of year.
“And then we, of course, do intend to pull out the stops. We probably maybe show some stuff that we might have saved for the playoffs. We will do those kinds of things [Sunday] relative to our basic plays that we call. And, so, I think all of that really reflects back on your question. We want to this thing Sunday.”
The Cowboys want it so bad that they broke from the norm with physical practices this week.
Teams usually ease up on padded practices late in the season. More to the points, the NFL limits padded practices to 14 during the regular season, 11 of which must come in the first 11 weeks of the season.
The Cowboys had one on Wednesday.
The defense lacked physicality and intensity against the Colts, a point that was driven home like a “branding iron” this week, per Jones.
“This time of year and especially if you think you need to have that left eye looking at the playoffs you normally think maybe we need to step up a little bit,” Jones said. “We had great practices last week. We didn’t have as physical a practice. We had great practices. And I’m not one that this time of year is into that physical a practice because I want to save it for the game. And the key game would be a playoff game. But last weekend reminded us all we don’t have it yet. We need to get it. I think they are going to play better.”
This story was originally published December 21, 2018 at 2:19 PM.