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The Dallas Cowboys are set to visit the New York Giants this week, and it is the last promised game of the season for America’s Team.
Ultimately nobody will know just how alive the Cowboys season is until just about midnight on the east coast, regardless of whether Dallas winds up winning. As it has been well discussed all week long, the Cowboys need a win and loss from the Washington Football Team. Go Eagles (gross).
Interestingly enough, the last time that Dallas visited the Giants in the regular-season finale was also void of total and true implications. It was the final game of the 2018 season and the Cowboys, winners of the NFC East a week prior, had no playoff positioning to gain or lose. It was, for all intents and purposes, a meaningless game for the team.
The last Cowboys at Giants game in Week 17 ended in incredible fashion
While the Cowboys technically had nothing to gain, then-head coach Jason Garrett still found the afternoon to be one worth taking a bit serious. A few players were given the day off (Ezekiel Elliott among them, and he still wound up leading the league in rushing), but that list did not include quarterback Dak Prescott.
Dak wound up throwing four touchdowns on the afternoon and three of them went to tight end Blake Jarwin. This was such an impressive achievement for the young tight end that the Cowboys organization chose to bring Jason Witten out of retirement just a few months later, but that is a discussion for a different day.
The non-Jarwin touchdown that Prescott threw went to a receiver who now plays for the only team that actually has their home games in the state of New York. Buffalo Bills wide receiver Cole Beasley caught what might be the greatest throw of Dak Prescott’s career while in the silver and blue.
Dak won the game with an absolute LASERBEAM. @dak pic.twitter.com/F8SkywSdtx
— The Checkdown (@thecheckdown) January 2, 2019
Dallas was down by seven at the time of this touchdown and, given the lack of true implications hovering over the game, chose to go for two and the win instead of chancing things in overtime. A rookie wide receiver named Michael Gallup caught the all-important conversion, he’s turned out alright I’d say, the Cowboys won, and the team went on to beat the Seattle Seahawks in the Wildcard Round of the playoffs.
This season marked the last time that the Cowboys played the Giants while the Eagles played Washington in the regular-season finale like is going to be the case this week.
Dallas obviously won their game, and so did the Philadelphia Eagles. Let’s hope that history repeats itself in that capacity so that there is more Dallas Cowboys football on the horizon.