Inside Slant

The Sports Xchange

December 06, 2018 at 1:12 am.

Cowboys’ consistency paying dividends

All season long, Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett has preached to the media that his team’s goal is to come in each week and prepare, day by day, for the task at hand.

Garrett stays on message so consistently that many in the Dallas area consider him to be boring to the point of seeming robotic. But his professionalism gets more and more admirable as the Cowboys’ second-half winning streak continues.

This week, Dallas hosts Philadelphia on Sunday afternoon in a game that appears crucial in the race for the NFC East championship. The Cowboys (7-5) are in first place in the division, a game ahead of the Eagles and Redskins at 6-6. A win over Philadelphia could possibly give Dallas a two-game lead in the NFC East (if the Redskins’ current losing streak continues) and the tie-breaker over Philly with three games left in the season.

But that’s no reason for Garrett to hit his own personal hype button. He dismissed the notion that there’s another level for his team to reach in getting ready for this one.

“My experience in life and in football is that the best players, the best teams, they come to work every day,” Garrett said. “They prepare the right way every day.”

As the NFL season wears on and other teams fall out of contention – the Redskins come to mind as they are forced to stay in the race with third-option quarterback Mark Sanchez – Dallas’s unflappability and consistency look pretty good. The Cowboys have a top-notch running game, a healthy quarterback in Dak Prescott, who has proven he can captain a winning ship, and a rapidly improving defense that currently ranks fifth in the NFL.

Just don’t expect Garrett to start breaking down playoff scenarios.

“Really the same message we preach every day, a hundred times a day every way that we can,” Garrett said. “It’s about being our best. It’s about focusing on us and the task at hand.”

SERIES HISTORY: 116th regular-season meeting. Cowboys lead series, 64-51. The Cowboys and Eagles have split the NFC East regular-season home-and-home each of the last five seasons. In 2017, the Eagles won in Dallas, 37-9 and the Cowboys won a Week 17 matchup in Philadelphia, 6-0. Dallas will try to avoid another season split after the Cowboys won in Philly, 27-20, on November 11.

ALL  |  NFL  |  College Football  |  MLB  |  NBA