{"id":428695,"date":"2025-12-06T11:36:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-06T11:36:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/428695\/"},"modified":"2025-12-06T11:36:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-06T11:36:13","slug":"cowboys-path-to-playoffs-is-simple-even-if-its-not-easy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/428695\/","title":{"rendered":"Cowboys’ path to playoffs is simple, even if it’s not easy"},"content":{"rendered":"

When it comes to football, I don\u2019t really want to think about math.<\/p>\n

(When it comes to math, I don\u2019t really want to think about math, either.)<\/p>\n

Analytics has its place. The problem is it\u2019s now everyplace. Last night, for example, I didn\u2019t need to know, and didn\u2019t want to hear, that Amazon AI said the Cowboys needed to score by 3:17 (give or take a second or two) to get the ball back again, with the number being pushed on the audience as if the words were being spoken from a burning bush. <\/p>\n

How about we just watch the game and see what happens instead?<\/p>\n

When it comes to the overall playoff chase, it\u2019s the most mathematical time of the year. Percentage this, percentage that, percentage va fungool<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Case in point: The NFL\u2019s NextGenStats said that, with a loss on Thursday night, the Cowboys\u2019 chances of making the playoffs would plummet to six percent.<\/p>\n

I prefer to look at the bigger picture.<\/p>\n

First, the Cowboys need to run the table, beating the Vikings, Chargers, at Commanders, and at Giants. Easy? No. Possible? Yes.<\/p>\n

Second, the Eagles have to go 2-3 down the stretch. Their schedule goes like this: at Chargers, Raiders, at Commanders, at Bills, Commanders.<\/p>\n

Impossible? Not at all, not with a team that has lost two in a row and could be in the opening stretch of a 2023-style free-fall to end the regular season. (After starting 10-1 two years ago, Philly lost five of six.)<\/p>\n

Is the chance of that happening six percent? Who knows? What is the number even in relation to? How is it calculated?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s far from a Gospel truth, but fans are expected (it seems) to regard it that way.<\/p>\n

From time to time, a team with a supposedly snowball\u2019s in-game percentage chance of securing victory pulls it off. And it seems to happen more times than the dire one- or two-percent calculations would seem to suggest.<\/p>\n

As to the Cowboys\u2019 playoff chances, screw the numbers. Win the next four, and hope the Eagles go 2-3. That would make the Cowboys 10-6-1, and the Eagles 10-7.<\/p>\n

And it would give the Cowboys the NFC East crown.<\/p>\n

The official chances as of Week 1 of the Cowboys having a plausible chance to secure a division title with four weeks left were probably a lot less than six percent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When it comes to football, I don\u2019t really want to think about math. (When it comes to math,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":428696,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[1232,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-428695","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-nfl","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115672421774191320","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}