Cowboys Result 'The Worst Thing That Could've Happened!' to Dallas, Shouts ESPN

ESPN's football analysts were not pleased with the way the Dallas Cowboys' starters rolled over on Sunday in Landover.

Rex Ryan believes that the Dallas Cowboys failed to put their best foot forward on Sunday evening.

The playoff-bound Cowboys, left with relatively little to play for when it came to playoff positioning, perplexingly opted to keep their starters in for a majority of a Week 18 visit to the eliminated Washington Commanders. That plan egregiously backfired, as the Pokes' premier group, particularly on offense, slogged through a 26-6 defeat. Dallas' offense mustered only 182 yards, its worst output since an October 2020 visit to FedExField (142). The doomed Commanders thus breezed to an easy victory overseen by Sam Howell, a day-three draft pick making his first NFL start. 

That rubbed Ryan and others gathered on ESPN's morning program "Get Up!" the wrong way, as there's now an aura of hesitation and concern hovering over the Cowboys' latest playoff push.

"If you're going to play (all the starters), you expect to blow the doors off the other team, so to speak. I mean, you should!" Ryan, a former NFL head coach, said. "But the exact opposite happened! This is the worst thing that could've happened to you!"

Dallas had an outside shot at securing both the NFC East division title and the conference's top seed/first-round bye. That possibility, however, appeared doomed from the start when the eventual champion Philadelphia Eagles were shown to be facing the New York Giants' reserves in their own finale. The Eagles were up on the Giants (firmly locked into the NFC's No. 6 seed) 16-0 at halftime but Dallas kept their starters in for most of the second half. 

Ryan likened the outing to his first NFL playoff trek at the helm of the New York Jets at the end of the 2009-10 season: at the time, his Jets faced a Cincinnati Bengals team locked into the fourth seed on the AFC playoff bracket in a game they needed to win to move onto the postseason. That Bengals team curiously opted to play its starters, including Chad Johnson and Carson Palmer, for a majority of the game. 

The Jets dismantled the Bengals 37-0 in that Week 17 game, allowing only five first downs and 72 yards. They would then go on to upset those same Bengals in the AFC Wild Card playoffs six days later en route to a surprising appearance in the conference title game. Ryan foresees the Cowboys enduring a similar fate.

"On paper, they should kill Tampa Bay. They should've killed Washington!" Ryan said of Dallas, referring to their upcoming opponent in the NFC Wild Card. "The lack of professionalism by this team ... that is absolutely awful! They played down to their competition (against the Commanders). Hey, guess what: that's not a good thing, that's a freaking horrible thing! That means you lack it!"

Ryan has been a frequent critic of the Cowboys (12-5) despite their relative success but felt that Sunday's no-show fulfilled every one of his complaints with the current group.

"You're supposed to be a great team. How the hell this team won 12 games absolutely blows me away ... Show some professionalism! Show up every week!"

Ryan's points are supported by fellow analyst Ryan Clark, who claims that the Cowboys now have extra things to worry about as they head east to battle the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Monday night (7:15 p.m. CT, ESPN/ABC). 

The former NFL defensive back recalled that, despite Tampa Bay's modest record, they thoroughly dismantled the Cowboys in Week 1 and that Dallas' mental issues that surfaced against Washington are now carried into a postseason meeting with a hosting Tom Brady.

"Sometimes when you're playing these teams like the Washington Commanders, who (are) now starting this new rookie quarterback, who you understand is going to come out and play his butt off, if you're the Dallas Cowboys, you have to be more prepared than this," Clark said. "You do have to be more professional than this. Now, they have to find a way to go into that building and say 'we need to erase all the negative we did last week and look at the positives of the things we have done this season' ... that's extremely hard.

"If you're the Dallas Cowboys, you limp into the playoffs again."

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Geoff Magliocchetti is on Twitter @GeoffJMags

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