Cowboys 'Psych' Plan Backfires In Shocking Home Loss to Cardinals

As receiver CeeDee Lamb said, "You gotta go out there and do it.'' Dallas didn't do that here ... until it was too late.

ARLINGTON - The Dallas Cowboys entered Sunday's visit to AT&T Stadium by the Arizona Cardinals in Week 17 with something more than just an X's-and-O's gameplan. There was a psychology to the way the locker room's two highest-profile leaders, coach Mike McCarthy and quarterback Dak Prescott spent the holiday week talking about the matchup.

Said McCarthy on the matchup: “This is going to be a playoff-type game. We both need this game. And I think you’ll see that Sunday afternoon."

Said Prescott: “But we’re going to come out there and be the enforcers ...''

Said McCarthy: "The real football starts now.''

Said Prescott: “(Arizona) is a playoff team. This is a team we could see next month. So you want to make sure we come out and we play our best ball.''

Cardinals 25, Dallas 22 means ... The Cowboys were not playoff-ready. The "real football'' stalled. "We're the enforcers'' is an empty boast. And this game as a playoff preview?

McCarthy and Prescott's Cowboys better hope not. 

Unless they meant "the fourth quarter (when Dallas stormed back with 15 points) would be a playoff preview.''

Dallas views itself as a "bully on the block'' here, so much so that a quarterback not usually given to bulletin-board pregame commentary sees the need to say it out loud. Prescott sent messages all week; so did McCarthy.

But Arizona QB Kyler Murray, the DFW native who is now 9-0 here at AT&T Stadium (high school, college and pro) apparently didn't get the message. Murray was 26 of 38 passing for 263 yards and two TDs, and he scooted around Dallas' high-energy defense for 44 more yards.

Dallas (now 11-5) entered the weekend as the No. 2 seed in the NFC playoffs, hoping it could catch No. 1 Green Bay. Arizona (now also 11-5) entered at No. 5, but the apple cart just got turned upside-down.

On the board!

📺 : #AZvsDAL 👉 @NFLonFOX #WPMOYChallenge Prescott pic.twitter.com/CiPej7BLKL

— Dallas Cowboys (@dallascowboys) January 2, 2022

The Cowboys are now No. 4. That could put them in a home playoff games against ... yup, these same Cardinals. If that happens? Prescott (who finished with a deceivingly decent line of 24 of 38 for 226 and three TDs, the early one of those to a now-injured Michael Gallup but most of that part of a late flurry that followed Dallas scoring just seven points (and a missed field goal) through the first three quarters.

.@cedwilson95 AGAIN! 🙌

📺 : #AZvsDAL 👉 @NFLonFOX pic.twitter.com/HaiUQWiurf

— Dallas Cowboys (@dallascowboys) January 3, 2022

"There's a lot of football to be played,'' said Dallas running back Ezekiel Elliott, but the cliche does not really ring true here. Dallas had won four straight, most recently quieting critics of Prescott's "slump.'' The critics will return. And beyond the Week 18 visit to Philadelphia (itself trying to make the playoffs), there will not be "a lot of football to play'' if Dallas plays like this.

Arizona came in having lost three straight. And offensive slumping? The Cardinals had managed to score a total of 51 points in those three games.

That's right: Dallas (sometimes employing its "Fastball'' offense) coming into Sunday had more points in the last four quarters than Arizona has in the last 12 quarters. But that's ancient history now, as are gripes about a late Cardinals fumble that the refs botched.

The Dallas Cowboys are a playoff team. That is undeniable. 

But, as receiver CeeDee Lamb said, "You gotta go out there and do it.''