Micah Parsons sounded like a player talking about more than a two-game winning streak. Before heading to the locker room following the Dallas Cowboys’ 27-20 Thanksgiving Day win over the New York Giants, Parsons shared the following in an immediate postgame interview.
“Everybody counted us out,” he said on the Fox broadcast. “And it was just like enough is enough. We know what we got. We know what we can do here. And I believe in every one of these guys. I believe we’re going to turn it around and make a run.”
The Giants are arguably the NFL’s worst team. They have an excellent chance of having the first overall pick in April’s NFL Draft. But Parsons was clearly pleased with how Dallas’ defense stepped up and helped deliver the team’s first home win of the season.
“There’s been a lot of trash talk out there, talking about what difference can we make,” Parsons added. “We still got some guys coming back from (injury). I’m telling y’all right now, we coming.”
Even the usually optimistic team owner Jerry Jones wanted to pump the brakes when he was asked about playoff possibilities after the game. The Cowboys are 5-7. They probably need at least nine wins for a chance of getting a wild-card spot. That would mean going at least 4-1 over their final five.
Two of those games are against teams with losing records. One is against a team that is .500. The other two are against division rivals Washington and Philadelphia. Dallas has done its best work under head coach Mike McCarthy when playing NFC East opponents. But it’s still a lot to ask from a team that is without its franchise QB and the NFL’s highest-paid player, Dak Prescott.
Most fans seem to agree that 9-8 or 10-7 is probably unrealistic.
With games remaining against the Bengals, Panthers, Buccaneers, Eagles and Commanders, how many wins will the Cowboys (5-7) end up with this season?
— Jon Machota (@jonmachota) November 29, 2024
“I get it,” McCarthy said about playoff talk. “I understand that people want to talk about it. It’s good content. There are narratives that everybody is talking about. We believe we can accomplish everything that’s still in front of us when we started this journey back in April. But I just think with my personality and my approach and my messaging, let’s just pour our energy into Cincinnati right now, because that’s all that matters. Because if we don’t take care of Cincinnati, the narratives will definitely change.”
While Dallas is not close to being the team that won 12 games each of the last three seasons, Cincinnati also isn’t the team that won double-digit games in 2021 and 2022 and reached the Super Bowl. Star quarterback Joe Burrow is still playing at a high level, but the Bengals lost again Sunday, their third in a row. They’re 4-8. And they still opened as 5.5-point favorites over the Cowboys next Monday night.
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