Will the Cowboys take the top spot in the NFC?
Frank Schwab and Charles Robinson break down the Dallas Cowboys after their thrilling win against the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday Night Football. Hear the full conversation on You Pod to Win the Game. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you listen.
Video Transcript
CHARLES ROBINSON: I'll tell you what, when the game is on the line, you got to have a go to play, and a go to player. Cooper Rush throwing a back corner fade 50-50 ball in a Sunday night primetime game, apparently that's what we do now.
FRANK SCHWAB: Yeah, just the way the Cowboys drew it up at the beginning of the season, right?
CHARLES ROBINSON: In that moment I thought, OK, they get the first down, looking at the clock, OK, there's enough time they'll run it. I mean, this is what you do, this is what you have Zeke for, Pollard, you're going to run this thing in. No, instead you get singled up coverage on Amari Cooper, who had a bad hamstring, clearly. And you go, yeah, I'm going to go ahead and fade this ball to the very back corner of the end zone, and Amari Cooper is going to come up with this. And I'm Cooper Rush, and I just threw a ball that won us a Sunday night game for a Dallas Cowboys team now that is going to-- they're in a position right now to say, hey, you know what, now we're going to jockey for the number one seed in the NFC. We want home field advantage, and this could be a game that ends up mattering.
FRANK SCHWAB: Yeah, I was asked earlier in the week, like, who do you think is the best team in the NFC? And I replied, basically saying, I think the Cowboys are going to get the number one seed because of their schedule. They play all these NFC East teams, that's a big deal going forward, and so, I think that gives them the edge. But then they come into a game like tonight where they're like, OK, well we have the lead in the division, we can take a loss, basically. We're just going to start Cooper Rush, we'll take our loss, we'll go home-- but then they win? They just absolutely stole a win.
And I always think about-- I probably think about this too much. But let's say, we don't know where Cooper Rush's career is going. I mean, good decent careers for guys have started with less than throwing for 325 and a win on a primetime game, like we don't know. Maybe Cooper Russell will come a thing, I doubt it, but who knows, we'll see. But if this was Cooper Russia's moment, he's going to be 60 years old saying, hey, let's-- whatever the technology is at the time, let's watch that game again, grandkids, gather round, and that's awesome. I think that those stories are just incredible.
And like we've talked about a little bit before, this is a really likable Cowboys team. It's kind of strange, but they are, and I think this adds to it, because this was such a cool story tonight.
CHARLES ROBINSON: I think it is such a huge program builder, mentality builder, confidence builder, when you suffer some key injuries-- and let's be honest, it's not like the Cowboys are banged up top to bottom, but they lost their best offensive player, their MVP caliber quarterback. To go, and as you said, steal win in a game in which the defense had some key moments, played pretty well, if you're the Cowboys you're like, OK, wait a minute, we in the past, particularly the recent past, this is the game we always lose. Of course, we always lose this game, we never win this game. No, you just won it, you won it on the strength of an opportunistic defense, a backup quarterback who-- I know a lot of people are going to look at those numbers and be like, oh my God, he's unbelievable, I thought it played pretty good, it was OK, but he hit the key moment when it absolutely mattered.
I think it just says a lot for this team, that you see some of the offensive creativity under Kellen Moore that we've seen, you see the confidence, and now they walk out of this going, hey, you know this is one that we absolutely could have lost, and instead we gave Dak Prescott another week to-- or at least, you've removed a game in which he would have had wear and tear on his body, and now he gets to go back into practice fresh. So big, big win for a Cowboys team that I really think you have to sit there and go, maybe this is like, when you put your rankings out, which they get blown up every single week anyway, but you have to factor this team.
FRANK SCHWAB: They might be number one, yeah they really might be. I hadn't even thought about it, but why wouldn't they be at this point. I mean, they're doing everything you want to do, they've got quality wins, they've got road wins, they've got a great offense, obviously. They have a defense that's good enough, obviously, I don't know if it's a top five defense, but it's good enough. It's good enough to win a lot of games, and like I said, this schedule is kind of leading to-- this team's probably going to be our number one seed in the NFC, and with only one bye, that's a big, big deal. It's much bigger than it used to be.