Eagles Brace For Cowboys' Playoff Approach

Welcome to the playoffs, Dallas. That is how the Cowboys are approaching Sunday’s game against the Eagles and every game from here until the end of the season. It’s a tough way to play, but this is the bind they are in at 4-5-1, four games behind the Eagles in the win column.

“Technically, we could treat this as if we're in the playoffs, if you want to think of it that way," Cowboys receiver CeeDee Lamb told reporters in Dallas. “Win or go home. I feel like that's the situation that we're in. And I feel like that's the right mindset that we gotta have going into every game.”

That sort of thinking backfired on the Detroit Lions last week. Their premier pass rusher Aidan Hutchinson called it a must-win game. They lost, 16-9, as the Eagles short-circuited a Lions team that had been averaging 31.4 points per game coming in.

“We have to win every game, and I like what CeeDee said; it's like a playoff game,” said quarterback Dak Prescott to Cowboys reporters.  “…all of these are must-wins. But we've got to take them one at a time. And, right now, it's Philly - a hell of an opponent, great division rival. There's no better place to start than right now.”

Nick Sirianni’s message to the team was just consistency and to remind them to treat this game like every other game.

“I know this is Dallas and I know what this game means to the entire city, and I know what it means to their city, but if we get more up for this game or start coaching differently for this game than we do for any other game, than we didn't do our jobs the other games,” said the Eagles coach.

“I think you all asked me that about the Lions in response to their comments of, 'Hey, this is a must-win.' We treat every game the exact same, so we're going to coach our (butts) off every single game. We're going to prepare our [butts] off every single game regardless of the circumstances because there's always going to be a circumstance.”