Tony Romo and the Cowboys to creep into the playoffs?

Before you make any decisions about who your playoff picks might be, don’t sleep on Tony Romo and the Cowboys. Just two games out of the NFC East, Thanksgiving approaches with hope.

I’m familiar with the kind of comments that usually pop up on a post like this one.

“They have seven losses; their season is over — give it up, you Cowboys homer!”

First off, let’s get one thing straight — a Dallas fan I am not (although I do have an appreciation for their warm weather at this time of the year).

Ultimately, the “Cowboys might be legit” talks around the NFL aren’t just a ploy to draw readership or interest into a team that the media desperately wants to cling to. Sure, the national media has done much worse and desperate, but this storyline is legitimate — just hear me out.

At 3-7, Dallas has a clear focus: win out.

It’s the only way they’re getting into the playoffs. No other way around it. With six games left, you’d think this conversation is mere hyperbole — grasping at straws in a spot where none exist.

That’s where I direct you to the remaining schedule.

Panthers
@ Redskins
@ Packers
Jets
@ Bills
Redskins

Six games, and Romo and Co. need all of them. Pulling it off likely see them earning a spot in the playoffs with a shot to be a dark horse contender to run the table.

And as far-fetched as it might be, the folks around the team are … well, kind of feeling it these days. Momentum is the name of the game, and you could argue that it’s actually the last-place Cowboys who own it.

Here’s what Jerry Jones had to say, via NFL.com:

"“To give you an idea, if you ever want to make a picture of his positive competitive mentality, do it when he came back off a shoulder that had six fractures,” Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said. “OK? Six. OK! And he came back, and the first thing he did was go out there and deal with that kind of rush in a driving rain. “Now, there’s no glory there. That’s not big-time lights, anything. That’s just big men coming down on you hard in a monsoon, trying to figure out how not to have a terrible play at the first of a ballgame. That defines him so well. He’s had many defining plays. That’s a defining play right there. That’s fresh off of no competition for two months. So, hello!”"

This, from the owner, comes during the same time when Dallas DE Jeremy Mincey called Romo “the savior of [the] season”.