Cowboys Making Playoffs? ‘One & Done,’ NFL Execs Ranking Survey Predicts

Dallas is indeed a playoff team in the eyes of those surveyed, with the Cowboys at No. 6.

FRISCO - Dating all the way back to the Tom Landry era, there is an almost institutional thought that the Dallas Cowboys are bound to be playoff contenders.

Does the survey of  five "NFL front-office veterans" released this week by The Athletic concur with that notion regarding 2022?

Kind of.

The Los Angeles Rams took the top slot in the survey, with the outlet noting, “They return most key players from their Super Bowl-winning team last season. Most of the execs slotted them into the top spot without much discussion.”

The Green Bay Packers and the Tampa Bay Bucs (the Cowboys’ Week 1 foe) sit at Nos. 2 and 6.

Dallas is indeed a playoff team in the eyes of those surveyed, with the Cowboys at No. 6

But … 

The execs put Dallas’ NFC East rival, the Philadelphia Eagles, ahead of the Cowboys at No. 5.

The logic on Philly? “This is six spots higher than where execs had the Eagles entering last season, when it was less clear how the team might fare with Jalen Hurts in the lineup at quarterback,” says the outlet. “What Hurts showed last season was enough for execs to upgrade the Eagles, but only to a point, even though some now see Philly as having one of the NFL's top rosters.”

The logic on Dallas, led by QB Dak Prescott and his desire to "win back-to-back NFC East'' titles while guiding critics out of their "fog''? The Athletic writes, “Roster attrition … did not stop Dallas from faring decently in this exercise. Not that voters were excited about them.

"The issue with them is the division," an exec said. "They could conceivably win three of four, maybe four of four, against the Giants and Commanders. They might even split with the Eagles. They could stumble their way to nine wins.

“But if they make the playoffs, they are one and done."

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