The Cowboys just squandered their only chance to make the playoffs in a well-deserved loss - The Dallas Morning News

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ARLINGTON -- It will take a few more weeks for it to become official.

The Cowboys might even tease their fans with an unexpected victory in these next five-and-a-half weeks, no matter how unfathomable that seems in the aftermath of what took place on Thanksgiving.

But make no mistake. The Cowboys lost the division and their only chance to make the playoffs with Thursday’s 41-16 loss at AT&T Stadium.

It was well deserved.

Any pretense that Dallas can win the NFC East is now gone. Any talk about climbing back into contention is ludicrous.

The Cowboys have lost three division games in the last four-and-a-half weeks. The team has been outscored 89-28 in those games.

Washington swept the season series for the first time since 2012, a season Dallas finished with eight wins. Eight wins looks pretty good at the 3-8 moment.

And out of reach.

The loss to Washington isn’t the only thing weighing on the hearts and minds of this team. Markus Paul, the Cowboys’ strength and conditioning coordinator, collapsed on the job Tuesday morning and died one day later. Head coach Mike McCarthy and others spoke of Wednesday night’s powerful team meeting when staff and players remembered their 54-year old friend and celebrated his life.

“You know, we suffered a tragic loss in Markus Paul,’' linebacker Jaylon Smith said. “He touched so many lives, all our lives and families and things of that nature.

“We really wanted to come out and do it for God and for Markus. And we didn’t accomplish the mission.

“It’s tough.”

The 96 hours leading up to this loss was an emotional exploration of the heights and depths of the sport. An unexpected road win over Minnesota on Sunday afternoon established the Cowboys as the favorite of the moment in a division that defies competitive logic. Smith actually proclaimed that the team would go 7-0 to finish the season.

That was followed by Paul’s tragic death.

That was followed by Thursday’s 25-point loss.

Dallas came out of its bye week with two games in five days. It needed a split to remain viable.

The Cowboys got the split, but they didn’t get it right. The one win they had to have was over Washington, not Minnesota.

The sweep gives Washington the edge if these two teams are somehow tied atop the NFC East at season’s end. It also drops Dallas to 1-3 in the division, meaning it can’t get above .500.

You don’t win many tiebreakers that way.

“I think everyone understands the state of our division,’' McCarthy said. “So we’re going to reboot and we’re going to regroup. Obviously, everything we’ve had to deal with this week…

“We knew that we had an opportunity, a division opportunity. We understand how important that division games are.’'

The Cowboys led on two separate occasions in the game’s first 23 minutes. They trailed by only four points at halftime.

But Dallas scraped together just 73 yards of offense in the second half. Ezekiel Elliott, who finished the game with a measly 32 yards rushing, lost a fumble 43 seconds into the third quarter to put Washington in position for a cheap touchdown.

Amari Cooper had 98 yards receiving and tormented corner Ronald Darby for a 54-yard touchdown in the first half.

He caught just two passes for 14 yards the rest of the way.

“I think we were in this game,” quarterback Andy Dalton said. “The score got out of hand at the end, but I felt like we were in a good place.

“In that first half, I felt like we played good and we played hard. We had everything in front of us, but we weren’t able to get it done in the second half.

“We can’t let the game end the way it did.”

It wasn’t all on the players. Far from it.

McCarthy’s decision to fake a punt on fourth-and-10 from his own 24-yard line early in the fourth quarter was inexplicable. The Cowboys trailed by only four points at the time.

Six seconds after Cedrick Wilson lost a yard on the fake, Dallas found itself down by 11 points. McCarthy called it “a solid call’' based on Washington’s look.

That’s a little like calling this a solid season.

This Thanksgiving game was the Cowboys’ last stand in the division. They fell. Badly.

They won’t recover.

Catch David Moore and Robert Wilonsky as they co-host Intentional Grounding on The Ticket (KTCK-AM 1310 and 96.7 FM) every Wednesday night from 7-8 p.m. through the Super Bowl.

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Find more Cowboys coverage from The Dallas Morning News here.

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