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AT&T Stadium (Arlington, Texas) – Dak Prescott likes being down.
The Cowboys quarterback says it’s fun to laugh and joke when you’re ahead. As football goes, though, he honestly wants to be trailing with the need to pull a team together to win.
He felt that way down 21-0 to the Eagles in the second quarter Sunday, and he feels that way looking at the NFL standings now.
Prescott threw for 354 yards and two touchdowns and ran for another score, matching the largest comeback in Cowboys history and rallying Dallas to a 24-21 victory over the defending Super Bowl champs.
“I love being down,” Prescott said at the podium after the win. “I don’t know why. I couldn’t tell you. When you’re down, when it requires such-and-such a play, it’s a unique place that you have to get to in resilience and focus … just trying to lead the other guys and get them to do the same. When they do, and you end up winning a game like this, this can be huge for us, moving forward.”
‘That was for Marshawn’ – Dak Prescott after Cowboys’ comeback win over Eagles | NFL on FOX
The Cowboys are 5-5-1, having won back-to-back games coming off their bye week. They are 1 ½ games out of the NFC’s final wild-card spot with a 3-4-1 conference record that won’t help them as tiebreakers go. Dallas will soon stop celebrating a win over a Super Bowl team because it faces another in four days, with the Chiefs coming to town as hungry for a win as Dallas is in their playoff push.
“This game tonight, this was our season,” Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said moments after the win, standing outside a jubilant locker room.
All over the NFL, there are teams motivated by losses, but the Cowboys are very much a team motivated by loss. Just 17 days ago, defensive end Marshawn Kneeland died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, only 24 years old, and his absence is a constant source of motivation for the Cowboys. Kneeland’s No. 94 jersey is hung behind the team bench, and as his former teammates celebrated in the locker room, they waved a huge flag with Kneeland’s name and jersey number.
“It’s about the brotherhood,” Prescott said. “And trust me, once again, we’re always going to do it for Marshawn. And he was felt tonight, and I’m sure he was playing there right alongside with us.”
The Cowboys’ comeback wasn’t easy. After they’d rallied back for a 21-21 tie, the Eagles muffed a kick and Dallas recovered at the 7-yard line, and the Eagles made a goal-line stand. Given a fourth-and-1, the Cowboys opted against a field goal for the lead and went for it, with Prescott throwing incomplete. The defense stopped the Eagles, with Jalen Hurts getting sacked on third down by defensive lineman Osa Odighizuwa, who said he and his teammates are inspired to win for Kneeland.
“The way he played the game, the effort, the passion that he played with, it’s definitely contagious,” Odighizuwa told me. “Just knowing, even down to his last play, he was sprinting to the ball, giving everything he had. So when we honor him with the way we play, we’re keeping him alive and keeping that style alive.”
Cowboys coach Brian Schottenheimer said his favorite moment in the game was Brandon Aubrey’s field goal as time expired to complete the comeback, the only moment in the game when Dallas had the lead. But a close second was him walking into his locker room and seeing his players joyous at what they had pulled off together.
“I love walking into the locker room and hearing the music and the guys dancing, and it was great,” he said. “They had the Marshawn flag up there in the locker room, and they were dancing and holding it. He’s always going to be with us, and we drew strength from him, like we always do.”
The Cowboys made it harder for themselves in the standings with losses to middling teams like the Panthers and the Cardinals. If they beat the Chiefs on Thursday, their next game is at Detroit, another talented team fighting for playoff position, though the schedule gets easier from there. They entered the Eagles game with an 8% chance of making the playoffs, per The Athletic’s playoff simulator. That probability is up to 13% – beat the Chiefs, it’s up to 24, and beat the Lions, it’s a healthy 49%.
Sunday’s win is a reminder of why the Cowboys were somehow buyers at the trade deadline, giving up draft picks to add defensive tackle Quinnen Wilson and linebacker Logan Wilson. They’re getting key players back from injury, and continue to see stars emerge like receiver George Pickens, who made a contested leaping catch downfield to set up the tying touchdown, finishing with 146 receiving yards and a touchdown.
Prescott isn’t a collector, doesn’t take a lot of keepsakes from games, but he said as he got changed in the locker room after Sunday’s win, one of the trainers asked him if he wanted the jersey he wore.
“I go, ‘Yeah, I’m going to keep that one,'” Prescott said. “I know it’s a game I won’t forget. … I can’t look back and say, ‘This was the moment, this game meant everything to that season.’ Right now, just staying with my feet, and super, super thankful for this team, for the men, for the opportunity.”
Greg Auman is an NFL Reporter for FOX Sports. He previously spent a decade covering the Buccaneers for the Tampa Bay Times and The Athletic. You can follow him on Twitter at @gregauman.
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