The Dallas Cowboys host the Los Angeles Chargers for their final home game of what’s been another disappointing season and finishing outside of the playoffs for the second year in a row. Just as the Cowboys missed the playoffs in the final year of Jason Garrett’s tenure and first year of Mike McCarthy’s, Dallas is doing the same moving on from McCarthy to Brian Schottenheimer.
There have been positive flashes under Schottenheimer that show he may still be the right coach to make a deep playoff run
in seasons to come, but the overall reality of this team having a healthy Dak Prescott in year two of his massive contract and still sitting outside of the playoff is not a good one. The ongoing story that the Cowboys can’t get the overall roster around their franchise quarterbacks right enough to be a real contender simply won’t go away, even with the team being more active in free agency and the trade market in both the offseason and at the deadline this year.
Meanwhile, the Cowboys’ opponent this Sunday can clinch a second straight playoff berth with a win and loss by either the Houston Texans to the Las Vegas Raiders or Indianapolis Colts to the San Francisco 49ers. Their continuity in year two with Justin Herbert at QB and Jim Harbaugh as head coach is paying off, as the Chargers are on the verge of making the playoffs in consecutive seasons for the first time since they did so four years in a row from 2006-09. The Chargers come to Arlington riding high after winning on the road at the Kansas City Chiefs, their third in a row that also earned them a tie with an impressive feat the Cowboys pulled off earlier this season. Prior to knocking the Chiefs out of the playoff picture, the Chargers beat the Eagles on Monday Night Football, meaning they also beat the two Super Bowl representatives from last season back-to-back.
The Chargers have a better overall situation around Justin Herbert than the Cowboys do for Dak Prescott right now. They proved they could win a low scoring game 16-13 against the Chiefs, but haven’t had the same success doing so against the Cowboys losing their last two matchups in this series 20-17 at home. The Cowboys have not had any of the same recent luck winning when they score less than 30 points, and in one career game against Matt Eberflus’ Bears defense, Herbert put up 30 points in a 30-13 win. The Cowboys will need to match the playoff-hungry intensity of the Chargers, make the right defensive adjustments to not let Herbert beat them for the first time in his career, and take care of the ball themselves offensively – all things that would be encouraging signs regardless of the game not having any meaning in the big picture for Dallas.
The Dallas Cowboys will beat the Los Angeles Chargers if…
Dak Prescott is put in a position to outplay Justin Herbert.
The Cowboys formula to play winning football is fundamentally broken right now, and it’s led to a team that seemingly had everything still to play for going into December running out of gas and limping across the finish line of this 2025 season. Their reeling defense is unable to bring down the level of play of any opposing quarterbacks, instead doing just the opposite and allowing career days at will to the likes of J.J. McCarthy, Bo Nix, and Jacoby Brissett.
This has led to the Cowboys being way too overly dependent on Dak Prescott playing “hero ball” on a weekly basis, but has also taken the balance out of an offense under immense pressure despite having a strong running game led by Javonte Williams and a retooled offensive line. Coach Schottenheimer may never fully admit to it, but the pressure his offense is under on a drive-by-drive basis is simply unsustainable and impossible to win with any regularity under. The Cowboys offense on paper did a lot of things right against the Vikings like getting CeeDee Lamb involved after he left the game against the Lions early and running the ball between the tackles well. Everything they did felt like empty yards and points though, as the Vikings offense mostly moved the ball at will and controlled the game with the ball in the hands of an inexperienced starting quarterback.
Prescott and the Cowboys offense will see another multiple defense that mixes up coverages at will with the Chargers in this matchup. Dak’s proficiency against all kinds of coverages made the NFL’s Next Gen Stats week 16 list of nine outrageous stats this week, and is something that will help a Cowboys team with burning questions about the makeup of their passing game personnel and only three games to evaluate it get these important reps against Los Angeles.
7. Dak Prescott by Coverage
Dak Prescott leads the NFL with 3,931 passing yards and is on pace to be the first Cowboys player to do so. He’s been able to do it against basically any defense he’s seen. He has the most passing yards against 2-man (263), Cover 2 (667), and Cover 6 (431), while ranking second against Cover 1 (855) and top six against both Cover 0 (191, 4th) and Cover 4 (568, 6th).
The Cowboys need to get back to playing with the better quarterback on the field, which will require Prescott mostly continuing to do what he does while the offense cleans up pass protection, penalties, and red zone efficiency. Unfortunately, it will also require a drastically different approach on defense, where the task doesn’t get any easier this week against Herbert – who also made the Next Gen Stats outrageous stats list this week with a positive note.
1. Justin Herbert’s Heroics
We mentioned the pressure Justin Herbert has been under in this same spot last week. Also of note on the topic, Herbert has faced a 43.9 pressure percentage this season, the second-highest among 184 quarterbacks with 450-plus pass attempts in a season in the Next Gen Stats era (Deshaun Watson, 45.6% in 2018). The Chargers have also used 27 different offensive line combinations this season, tied with the Saints for the most in the NFL. Despite this, Herbert has found a way. He leads the NFL in pass touchdowns under pressure (T-9), on the run (9), outside the pocket (9), and on scrambles (T-5).
The Cowboys have not gotten a lot of pressure off the edge at all this season, and even if they do against the Chargers, Herbert is adept at escaping the pocket to make huge plays downfield. Just playing pure coverage against Herbert isn’t ideal either, as the Chargers lack dynamic receivers that get downfield with ease, but are happy to take what the defense gives them and go on long drives.
Dallas building a QB advantage in this home game is no easy feat at all, but if they do so it will be a welcome sign.
The Dallas Cowboys will lose to the Los Angeles Chargers if…
Oronde Gadsden becomes a matchup nightmare.
The Chargers passing attack does not have a receiver that ranks in the top 30 of average separation so far this season. Ladd McConkey is their top-rated player here at 3.3 yards, good for 37th in the league. Their big tight end, Oronde Gadsden, who’s been something of a revelation to fantasy players this season, is right behind McConkey at 3.2 yards. Starting wide receivers Keenan Allen and Quentin Johnson rank 91st and 92nd in this category at 2.5 yards.
With defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus moving up to the coaches box for this game, he will have the birds eye view of how his defense’s zone drops are able to plaster a Chargers receiving group that is not dynamic. The two biggest concerns for the Cowboys defense that can still see the Chargers offense wreck this game for them are their safeties continuing to get picked on in coverage and take poor angles that leads to the ball going over their head, or Gadsden winning one-on-one against either these safeties or the Cowboys struggling linebackers. Getting Gadsden on the ground after the catch is not an easy task, and something Cowboys fans won’t want to be seeing much of Kenneth Murray trying to do in the middle of the field. Since acquiring Logan Wilson from the Bengals at the trade deadline, the Cowboys have still not found a solution that gets Murray off the field, and when he is lined up in the middle, opposing offenses know how to pick on him with ease.
Herbert also has reliable check down options in both of his running backs that can work against linebackers in the pass game, rookie Omarion Hampton and Kimani Vidal. The Cowboys will have to find a way to overcome all of this and keep the Chargers out of short third down attempts that allow them to grind out this game with Prescott and the home team’s best players on the sideline. How the Cowboys communicate both pre and post snap and make sound tackles are the areas to watch in their effort here, but their pre snap plan for Gadsden to not allow him easy access to the middle of the field is perhaps the most important element to the defensive game plan on Sunday.
