The Dallas-Washington rivalry has cooled considerably since its peak, with blips of bitterness and excitement every few years providing reason to remember how intense it once was. Given what’s at stake for each team in Sunday’s regular season finale at FedEx Field, animosity toward the Cowboys from fans of the Burgundy and Gold might be at an all-time low. Forget a funeral wreath; a thank-you card for Dallas Coach Mike McCarthy’s team might be more appropriate if the outcome is the same as in 1979.
If the season ended today, the Commanders would pick second in April’s NFL draft, putting them in prime position to select the franchise quarterback they have desperately sought for decades. An upset win over Dallas on Sunday, coupled with an Eagles win against the Giants, would deny the Cowboys the NFC East title, but it would also likely cause Washington to fall several spots in the draft.
The scenario has made for a strange week for Commanders faithful.
“There are a variety of non-Commanders results in Week 18 that we want for our team to get that No. 2 overall pick, but the most important Week 18 result for bringing home that No. 2 overall pick in the 2024 NFL draft is the Commanders losing to the Cowboys,” Al Galdi, who called Sunday’s showdown the “biggest must-lose game in Washington history,” said on his podcast. “ … Chant with me: ‘We Want Dallas! We Want Dallas! (To win).’”
On 106.7 the Fan, hosts JP Finlay and Brian Mitchell asked callers on Tuesday if they were rooting for the Commanders to beat the Cowboys.
“If you bleed burgundy and gold and are a true fan, you want them to win no matter what,” one fan suggested. But others are already looking ahead to next season.
“I’m thinking they can go ahead and take this ‘L’ for me,” a caller from D.C. said. “I took a lot of lumps for them, they can take this ‘L’ for me.”
In an unscientific poll on X, the site formerly known as Twitter, Kevin Sheehan of the Team 980 asked his 45,000 followers to pick between losing to Dallas and securing the No. 2 pick or beating the Cowboys to deny them the division title. Of the nearly 5,000 respondents, 88.5 percent chose a Commanders loss.
“Big picture, when you look back on the 2023 season, that will be the saving grace,” Sheehan said on his podcast.
If the Cowboys hadn’t already clinched a postseason berth, the rooting calculus for Sunday’s game might be different for some fans. As it is, Washington spoiling the Cowboys’ hopes of hosting a first-round playoff game would make the equally detestable Eagles the NFC East’s first back-to-back division champs since 2004.
A loss Sunday as 13-point underdogs is unquestionably the best possible outcome for the Commanders’ future, even though having the No. 2 pick in the draft does not guarantee a franchise-altering player. In 2019, Washington lost to the Giants in a Week 16 game dubbed the “Chase Young Bowl” because it gave the loser the inside track to drafting the Ohio State edge rusher. Washington clinched the No. 2 pick with a blowout loss at Dallas the following week, and, four months later, selected Young after LSU quarterback Joe Burrow went first overall to the Cincinnati Bengals. Quarterbacks Tua Tagovailoa and Justin Herbert were taken fifth and sixth, respectively. Washington traded Young to San Francisco in October.
A new regime figures to be calling the shots for the Commanders at this year’s draft, the results of which will go a long way toward determining whether Washington and Dallas are playing pressure-packed late-season games against each other anytime soon.
The teams’ showdown in December 1979 was among the greatest in series history, and resulted in one of Washington’s most painful losses. The winner would clinch the division, but the loser was in seemingly good position to earn one of the NFC’s two wild-card spots, provided the Bears didn’t make up a more than 30-point deficit in point differential. Chicago, which had scored 29 points over its previous three games combined, bludgeoned the St. Louis Cardinals, 42-6, to overcome Washington’s 33-point advantage coming into the week and steal the NFC’s final playoff berth.
“To have the division title won with 40 seconds to go and then to be eliminated, well, it’s tough,” Washington Coach Jack Pardee told reporters after Roger Staubach led the Cowboys’ frantic comeback in what would be his final regular season game at home.
As for the wreath, the Washington Star reported that it came from a flower shop in Rockville, and it had been sent by a Cowboys fan who was hoping to fire up the team. A few days after Dallas’s 35-34 win, Martin sent Pardee a telegram apologizing for his actions.
The Cowboys’ season ended with a playoff loss at home to the Rams. If Dallas wins Sunday, Commanders fans could be rooting for history to repeat itself next week.
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