Thanksgiving Day in Arlington will be a homecoming in the most literal sense possible for the visiting team, but it will be the Dallas Cowboys fresh off their historic comeback win against the rival Philadelphia
Eagles that will be hoping to spoil it. Before the Dallas Cowboys in Arlington, it was the Dallas Texans, who relocated to Kansas City in 1963 and became the Kansas City Chiefs we know to this day.
Jerry Jones’ Cowboys have made a bigger impact on football in Texas than the Dallas Texans ever did in their short existence, but it’s the current Chiefs that have owned recent history with the Hunt family keeping their namesake trophy as AFC champions in five of the last six seasons – winning three Super Bowls. It’s the type of success the Cowboys have only been able to dream about over the last three decades.
The game will feature longtime Eagles head coach Andy Reid making his first trip to AT&T Stadium since 2017, a win for his Chiefs 28-17. Patrick Mahomes is making his first professional start from AT&T Stadium. The former Texas Tech Red Raider played the final game of Tech’s 2014 season at Jerryworld against Baylor, and lost a 48-46 shootout to another future NFL QB Bryce Petty.
Mahomes may not be asked to throw the ball as much as he did in college, but his attempts have been up in some of the games the Chiefs have struggled in lately. Similar to the Cowboys, the Chiefs pulled off an improbable home comeback against the Indianapolis Colts in Week 12 for their first win since Week 8 versus the Commanders. That win against the Commanders was the last win of a three-game streak where Mahomes never threw the ball more than 35 times in any game. Playing for their life to remain in the AFC West race at the Broncos in Week 12, Mahomes dropped back 45 times against Denver and KC lost their second straight 22-19.
The Chiefs’ hopes of returning to the playoffs likely rest on being a Wild Card team, an effort that was helped significantly by their overtime win against the Colts where Mahomes threw 46 times and was sacked four times. The Chiefs were able to amazingly stay balanced with the game going to overtime, running the ball 41 times, which went a long way in their comeback efforts despite going 1-6 in the red zone.
The catalyst for this type of comeback was the immense trust the Chiefs were able to put in longtime defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo. The Chiefs defense got four straight three-and-outs between the fourth quarter and overtime to pull off their 11 point comeback. Spagnuolo did what he is known for and turned up the pressure to the maximum against Daniel Jones, and despite not getting home for any sacks, the Chiefs defense made this game a test of which quarterback could operate the best – and saw Mahomes do what he’s known for and just win. Despite playing with the lead, the Colts could not run the ball with Jonathan Taylor who had his second lowest yards per carry of the season.
Not only will the Cowboys offense be harder to dissuade out of the run game, which they still used to come from 21 points down to beat the Eagles, but they’ll have faith in Dak Prescott to rise to the challenge and do a better job matching Mahomes. Prescott will actually be making his third career Thanksgiving start against an AFC West opponent, and is still looking for his first win. The Cowboys lost to the Chargers 28-6 in 2017 and 36-33 in overtime to the Raiders in 2021. Earlier in that 2017 season was also the only time Prescott has beaten the Chiefs, 28-17 with Cole Beasley catching two touchdown passes.
The Cowboys will need to have the balance and efficiency they’ve had when they’ve been at their best offensively to win on Thanksgiving, and winning the margin here by making the Chiefs unbalanced would be significant too. Starting running back Javonte Williams’ two highest career totals in carries both came against the Chiefs, with 27 in a 2023 win for the Broncos and 23 for 102 yards in a loss at Arrowhead in 2021.
The Chiefs aren’t the only team coming into this matchup with trust in their defense, which gets baked into how their offensive-minded head coaches can call a game, and for Thursday has the Cowboys and Chiefs looking a lot more even than meets the eye.
That’s right, we’re living in a world where a key to victory for the 2025 Dallas Cowboys is making Patrick Mahomes throw the football often. Tell that to anyone sitting around your Thanksgiving dinner table on Thursday that saw this team play against the Bears or Panthers earlier this season and see what type of discussion it sparks.
The biggest change that has led to this philosophical shift for Matt Eberflus’ defense is the way they play into their newfound strength at defensive tackle. With both Quinnen Williams and Solomon Thomas available together for the first time against the Eagles, the Cowboys used a lot of five-man defensive fronts, and declared before the ball was even snapped that Saquon Barkley and Philly’s ground game would not beat them. Barkley had his fewest rushing yards in a game since Week 11 of 2022 with the Giants, and this time around Jalen Hurts came up a few plays short both with his arm and his legs to beat the Cowboys on the road.
Mahomes is one of the best overall quarterbacks in the NFL obviously, and when it comes to the specific areas he’s the most elite in, identifying fronts and getting the Chiefs in the right look based on them is near the top. The chess match between the Cowboys having the flexibility to go between three-, four-, and five-man fronts against a Mahomes/Reid offense, while Jim Nantz and Tony Romo calling their second Chiefs game in a row for CBS look on, will be one of the main threads to follow in this game. Reid is coaching his 32nd career game between the regular and postseason against the Cowboys. 28 of these were during his time with the Eagles, but Reid is 1-2 against the Cowboys since going from Philadelphia to Kansas City.
These two teams have alternated wins and losses in their last four meetings, and if this pattern continues it will be Brian Schottenheimer’s Cowboys enjoying their turkey legs on the sidelines this holiday. Historically, the Cowboys have also won five out of six all-time games against the Chiefs at home. Their only loss came in 1975 under Tom Landry.
Coach Schottenheimer will also be the seventh different Cowboys head coach that Reid will coach against in his career that started with the Eagles in 1999. Reid did coach against Brian’s father Marty Schottenheimer three times with the Eagles, twice in 2001 when Marty was in his only season as the Washington head coach. After starting 0-5, Schottenheimer beat Reid’s Eagles in Week 11 to get to 5-5 with the 13-3 victory. The Eagles won the later matchup in Washington, and Reid also won in Philadelphia in 2005 against a Chargers team coached by Schottenheimer. However, despite all this rich history and places to draw storylines from, one of the things that makes Thursday’s matchup so exciting is the way both teams instantly found renewed hope on this 2025 season on Sunday. The Chiefs win against the Colts in overtime and Cowboys comeback against the Eagles were both wild games that fans on either side will still be processing right up until the ball is kicked Thursday, at which point the Cowboys will be looking to get over .500 for the first time all season and send the Chiefs to .5o0 at 6-6 in the process.
With the Chiefs’ only other road win this season being at the Giants, the idea that the Cowboys could knock off both of the reigning Super Bowl participants in the span of five days is not outlandish at all, and one that will keep the holiday cheer alive and well in the Dallas fanbase.
