Heading into week 14, the 4-8 Dallas Cowboys are hoping that their visit to Green Bay in order to play the Packers doesn’t spell the end of their hopes to somehow make the playoffs this season.
The Cowboys don’t usually come out of Lambeau Field with a win. It happened in 2008, and since then the Packers have won three games at home playing the Cowboys, including 26-21 in last year’s playoffs. The game that included the Dez Bryant no-catch, and also Dan Bailey missing a 50-yard field goal that could have made it a completely different game had he made it at the time.
Maybe the good thing about the Cowboys’ visit to Green Bay is the shaky confidence the Packers have going in. Yes, they have a 10 day rest behind them and that miraculous win over the Detroit Lions with a hail mary pass. But Aaron Rodgers has struggled for almost this entire season, and against a Cowboys pass rush that has made it difficult for some good quarterbacks this season, he might be in for another frustrating game, although leaning on the Cowboys secondary usually yields some very positive results.
The Cowboys offense doesn’t come in with any expectations. Darren McFadden might be on a decent season which would at least put him at 800 yards – not great but not too awful, but there’s really no way of looking at Matt Cassel and the offense he’s running and think they’re going to do very well. Who knows if they’ll even be able to score a touchdown. Getting in field goal range has been a difficult task for them most of the time.
But due to the NFC East being bad (Everyone can’t stop mentioning that), the Cowboys have hope of the playoffs remaining open for them. They’ve won one game without Tony Romo and they know Cassel won’t try to turn the momentum into something like the Romo interception show in the loss to the Panthers. Cautious, conservative, tight and who knows, maybe a little bit lucky will put the Cowboys in a position to actually lead their division when this weekend is over.