They say that football is a game of inches, and the Dallas Cowboys discovered exactly how agonizing those inches could be during their 2023 Week 9 trip to the unfriendly confines of Lincoln Financial Field against the Philadelphia Eagles. It was a battle for supremacy in the NFC East, carrying massive divisional weight and eventual playoff seeding implications. When the clock struck double-zeros, Dallas fell on the short side of a 28-23 loss. This particular defeat was an especially difficult pill
to swallow because of just how many close moments refused to go the team’s way.
It was a fantastic back-and-forth battle, but Dallas struggled to keep pace for a stretch and found itself staring at a 28-17 deficit in the fourth quarter. Pre-snap penalties, a stagnant running game, and blown defensive assignments allowed the Eagles to take control. Then, a sudden late surge sparked a comeback. The defense abruptly came to life, forcing three consecutive three-and-outs and throwing the door wide open for the Cowboys to steal a huge divisional win on the road.
What happened next in that final quarter is still a little hard to stomach. The team endured one close-call letdown after another. The heartbreak started when a replay review overturned a Luke Schoonmaker touchdown, showing the ball was just short of the goal line when his knee touched the turf. Instead of closing the gap to 28-24, Dallas walked away with zero points and still trailed by 11.
The team kept fighting and got the ball back quickly. Dak Prescott marched them down the field, going 5/6 for 57 yards in just over two minutes, capping the drive with a seven-yard touchdown to Jalen Tolbert. Unfortunately, they fell victim to another close call after replay again spat in their faces. A two-point conversion was overturned because Prescott had stepped out of bounds before extending the ball past the goal line, keeping it a five-point game instead of a three-point game. That was massive.
Dallas got the ball back quickly yet again and drove 45 yards, but again they came up short at the Eagles’ 25-yard line, turning the ball over on downs with 1:17 left. The defense continued to come up huge, forcing another quick series for the Eagles’ offense. And Philly narrowly escaped disaster after running back D’Andre Swift ran into his own teammate and put the football on the turf. Micah Parsons was in perfect position to fall on it, but rookie offensive lineman Tyler Steen somehow pulled it in.
The offense still got one final possession and strung together a great final drive. Well, almost. They got all the way down to the Eagles’ six-yard line with first-and-goal with 27 seconds left on the clock. The game was right there for the taking.
What followed was an absolute debacle. False start. Terence Steele completely whiffs on a block, and Dak gets sacked. With no timeouts left, the clock continued to run. Incomplete pass. Delay of game. Suddenly, four shots at the six turned into one shot at the Eagles’ 27-yard line. Prescott hit CeeDee Lamb over the middle, but he was tackled well short of the goal line. That’s your ball game.
You might be asking yourself why we are choosing to relive this nightmare. These are bad memories. What kind of sadomasochist subjects people to this on a perfectly fine day? The reason is to show that fans are still living with the pain of what could have been. A mid-year regular-season game from three years ago might not seem all that important on the surface, but had the Cowboys emerged victorious, it could have completely altered the 2023 season.
Winning this game likely flips their record to 13-4 instead of 12-5, earning the highly coveted No. 1 seed in the NFC along with a first-round bye. That means dodging Green Bay entirely in the Wild Card round. Sure, you could argue that Dallas could have easily shown up just as unprepared in the Divisional Round against a different opponent or even that same Packers team. Then again, maybe they draw a Tampa Bay Buccaneers team where they match up a lot better?
But that’s still not the important part of this article. While all those hypothetical scenarios can clutter our headspace, the real crux of the matter is that the Cowboys must find a way to stop being the team that falls short. They need to stop putting themselves into these stressful, high-chance situations in the first place. Enough with digging deep holes early in games, only to spend the remainder playing catch-up.
They need to stop relying on last-minute miracles and the team that is ready to go from the outset. A better defense will always help, but we often overlook the times when the defense actually comes through, and the offense simply fails to make up the necessary ground. The team needs to get its act together and build a true culture of winning rather than being the poster child for late-game letdowns.
