Cowboys Playoff Picture: Dallas will visit an eliminated Washington Commanders team in Week 18

Last Thursday night the Dallas Cowboys visited a Tennessee Titans team that had nothing to play for. Such can be the case in the final weeks of the regular season. While the Titans had nothing to play for on Thursday night, they will have everything to play for next week when they visit the Jacksonville Jaguars with the AFC South title up for grabs. It is for this exact reason that the Titans were seemingly content to back off against the Cowboys and focus on the greater game to come.

Fortunately for Dallas they won on Thursday night, and interestingly enough they are drawing a similar situation in the final game of their regular season. Sunday had a lot of action across the league and among the fallout was the Washington Commanders’ season.

The Washington Commanders have been eliminated from playoff contention

There are a lot of playoff scenarios that have been in play for a few weeks now and the Washington Commanders were right on the fringe. Ron Rivera decided to make a change at quarterback and go with Carson Wentz in an unsuccessful effort as they ultimately lost to the Cleveland Browns.

This put Washington one foot out the door, a door that the Green Bay Packers had no problem shutting. With the Packers following up Washington’s loss with a win of their own they officially eliminated the Commanders from postseason contention. There goes the possibility of having all four NFC East teams in the tournament.

Obviously this has been a bit of an up and down season for Washington but it will officially not feature any playoff football. There is still one regular season game left for Washington, and it happens to be at home against the Dallas Cowboys.

With the Eagles losing on Sunday the Cowboys are now in position to win the NFC East should they beat Washington and the Eagles lose to the New York Giants. Interestingly, both Dallas and Philly have drawn division rivals that have nothing to play for with the Giants locked into the #6 seed in the NFC and the Commanders packing up their lockers on Monday afternoon.

It is possible that the Commanders decide to do some end-of-season things like say play Sam Howell at quarterback and theoretically those sorts of things would benefit the Cowboys. Whatever ultimately does happen, the Cowboys will be playing a team with nothing on the line this week.