For many Dallas Cowboys fans, it’s a tiresome nugget.
Coming into 2024, the Cowboys won 12 games in each of the past three regular seasons. From 2021 through 2023, the Kansas City Chiefs led the NFL in regular-season wins with 37. The Cowboys are next on that list with 36.
The Chiefs have two Super Bowl victories in that span. The Cowboys have one playoff win.
The reason this conversation has become even more relevant is because of the correlation to Mike McCarthy. With the Cowboys stumbling early this season, naturally, there has been dialogue about if McCarthy — he’s is in the final year of his contract — is the head coach who can lift the Cowboys over the hump in the playoffs. After a decade of flirting with a .500 record with Jason Garrett and experiencing minimal playoff success, McCarthy was brought in with one objective in mind: Win the big games.
The Cowboys are 1-3 in the playoffs with McCarthy. His first year in Dallas (2020) was a throwaway as he dealt with installing a new culture in a heavily restricted season due to COVID-19 and losing his franchise quarterback to injury early in the season. In the three years that followed, McCarthy led the Cowboys to the kind of sustained success that hasn’t been seen in Dallas since the mid-90s.
How good have the Cowboys actually been under his leadership? Let’s examine.
2021
The Cowboys played 10 games against teams that missed the playoffs and went 9-1. The lone loss to a non-playoff team came in Week 9 to the Denver Broncos (30-16). Against teams that made the playoffs, the Cowboys went 3-4. Two of those three wins came courtesy of a sweep of the Philadelphia Eagles. The first was a 41-21 victory in Week 3 and the second came in the regular-season finale when Gardner Minshew started at quarterback and Jalen Hurts did not play. The other win against a playoff team came against the Mac Jones-led New England Patriots in overtime in Foxboro, Mass.
Of the Cowboys’ four losses against playoff opponents, the first came in the season opener, when Tom Brady led a game-winning drive and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers kicked a field goal with 2 seconds left to win, 31-29. There were back-to-back losses in Weeks 11 and 12 to the Chiefs and in overtime to the Las Vegas Raiders on Thanksgiving. The other loss to a playoff team came in Week 17 against the Arizona Cardinals (25-22).
The Cowboys won the NFC East and were the third seed entering the playoffs, where they lost 23-17 to the San Francisco 49ers in the wild-card round in a game that’s best known for the offense being unable to spike the ball for one last shot at the end zone.
2022
In 2022, the Cowboys went 7-2 against teams that missed the playoffs. The Cowboys went 5-3 against playoff teams.
Three of the Cowboys’ five wins against playoff teams came within the division — the NFC East sent three teams to the postseason. The Cowboys beat the sixth-seed New York Giants twice. They beat the Eagles 40-34 late in the season at home in another game that Hurts missed and Minshew filled in as the starter. The other two wins against playoff opponents came in Week 2 against the Cincinnati Bengals in Cooper Rush’s first of five starts, and a Week 11 40-3 domination of the Minnesota Vikings, who entered the matchup 8-1.
The Buccaneers, Eagles and Jacksonville Jaguars (in OT) were the three playoff teams to beat Dallas.
The Cowboys finished second in the division and won a road playoff game in Tampa Bay, sending Brady into retirement. Their season ended the following week in the divisional round with a 19-12 loss to the 49ers.
2023
Like 2021, the Cowboys played 10 games against non-playoff teams in 2023 and went 9-1. Dallas’ only loss was a Week 3 head-scratcher at Arizona in the first game after Trevon Diggs tore his ACL in practice.
The Cowboys went 3-4 against playoff teams. Their first win was against the Los Angeles Rams at home after the bye week. Their second win was in Week 14 over the Eagles, who were in the middle of their reeling 1-5 end to the season. The Cowboys’ third win against a playoff team was 20-19 against the Detroit Lions in Week 17, which featured the controversial ending regarding player eligibility.
Their four losses against playoff teams included an embarrassment against the 49ers in Week 5, a close loss to the Eagles in Week 9, a 31-10 setback to the Buffalo Bills in Week 15 and a 22-20 loss to the Miami Dolphins in Week 16.
Despite the two late-season losses, the Cowboys won the division, thanks in part to the Eagles falling apart down the stretch. They were the No. 2 seed and hosted the Green Bay Packers in the wild-card round, which ended in arguably the worst playoff loss in franchise history.
Takeaways
• The cliché applies: The Cowboys can’t control who they play. They play against the next team on the schedule. With that being said, there are interesting things to pull from this analysis because the strength of schedule conversation changes when looking at things with the benefit of hindsight.
For example, the Cowboys’ Week 1 win against the Cleveland Browns would be considered a quality win, based on preseason assessment, but looks less impressive with each passing week.
• In the three 12-win regular seasons, the Cowboys went 25-4 against non-playoff teams and 11-11 against playoff competition.
• In terms of six data points of point differentials, the Cowboys come out on the wrong side of things just once. They were minus-16 against playoff opponents in 2023 (159-175). Outside of that, the Cowboys were plus-210 (350-140) against non-playoff teams in 2023, plus-30 (205-175) against playoff teams in 2022, plus-95 (262-167) vs. non-playoff teams in 2022, plus-33 (220-187) against playoff teams in 2021 and plus-139 (310-171) against non-playoff teams in 2021.
• The 2023 Cowboys are often looked at as missing the biggest opportunity but the 2022 squad may have been McCarthy’s best team in Dallas. One of McCarthy’s most impressive feats in Dallas was helping the Cowboys go 4-1 from Weeks 2 through 6 in 2022 when Prescott was out with an injury and Rush had to step up. It’s also the only season that produced a win in the playoffs under McCarthy. The Cowboys lost 19-3 to the Bucs in the season opener but avenged that loss with the postseason win over Tampa Bay. Two of their other four losses came in overtime, and another was Rush’s final start in Week 6.
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• The Cowboys don’t just beat bad teams, but do so by a wide margin. When they beat good teams, they often have a similar approach. Five of their 11 wins in those three seasons against playoff teams came by 20 points or more.
• The Cowboys legitimately were a quality team during those 12-win seasons, to varying extents. The issues in the playoffs are indisputable, and understandably taint the success of the regular season. Remembering how the Cowboys looked from 2021 through 2023, what postseason results came from it, then measuring that against how the Cowboys have looked so far through 2024 is a grim reminder of how far this year’s team has to go if it’s going to taste success deep into January.
(Top photo of CeeDee Lamb and Mike McCarthy: Thearon W. Henderson / Getty Images)
