Dallas Cowboys fans everywhere entered Sunday of Week 13 with a happy heart and relaxed brain thanks to the team’s big win on Thursday night over the New Orleans Saints. While the rest of the league fought for the right to relevancy, we chilled and ate nachos (personally speaking).

Just because the Cowboys didn’t play on Sunday doesn’t mean that the day wasn’t important, though. As we do every week we rooted for certain outcomes that would help the Cowboys playoff chances overall since that’s the action that we’re all about.

The Cowboys had almost a perfect Sunday from around the NFL

As the NFC East-impacting game between the Philadelphia Eagles and Washington Redskins won’t be played until tonight there were very little division-related situations hanging in the balance of Sunday. You know, cause the Giants are terrible and what not.

While New York might be definitely are a bad team they actually helped the Cowboys out by beating the Chicago Bears. Dallas now has an opportunity to procure the NFC’s third seed if they do hold on and win the division, plus the Giants worsened their overall draft status. The most wonderful time of the year is great.

Chicago’s loss wasn’t the only important one for the Cowboys. Carolina lost as well which keeps Dallas all the more relevant in the wild card race if it comes down to that. Here’s everything we wanted and what we got. Only San Francisco failed us.

Time Away team Home Team Result 1:00 PM Carolina (6-5) Tampa Bay (4-7) Win 1:00 PM Chicago (8-3) N.Y. Giants (3-8) Win 1:00 PM Buffalo (4-7) Miami (5-6) N/A 1:00 PM Indianapolis (6-5) Jacksonville (3-8) N/A 1:00 PM Cleveland (4-6-1) Houston (8-3) N/A 1:00 PM Arizona (2-9) Green Bay (4-6-1) Win 1:00 PM L.A. Rams (10-1) Detroit (4-7) Win 1:00 PM Denver (5-6) Cincinnati (5-6) N/A 1:00 PM Baltimore (6-5) Atlanta (4-7) Win 4:05 PM N.Y. Jets (3-8) Tennessee (5-6) N/A 4:05 PM Kansas City (9-2) Oakland (2-9) N/A 4:25 PM San Francisco (2-9) Seattle (6-5) Loss 4:25 PM Minnesota (6-4-1) New England (8-3) Win 8:20 PM L.A. Chargers (8-3) Pittsburgh (7-3-1) N/A MNF Washington (6-5) Philadelphia (5-6)

Things are looking quite nice for the Cowboys entering Week 14

Dallas will have to keep their foot on the gas if they want to be in the conversation for the third seed in the conference, but as far as things they can’t control they’re sitting pretty. The Bears are only a game up on the Cowboys and next week figures to be quite rough for them as they’ll be taking on the Los Angeles Rams (who just clinched the NFC West by the way).

There are only three teams in the NFC with more wins than the Cowboys. It’s pretty amazing that this sentence is true in early December, but football is beautiful and unpredictable like that.

NFC Standings entering Week 13’s MNF matchup:

Los Angeles Rams: 11-1 (clinched division) New Orleans Saints: 10-2 Chicago Bears: 8-4 Dallas Cowboys: 7-5 Seattle Seahawks: 7-5 Washington Redskins: 6-5 (MNF at Eagles) Minnesota Vikings: 6-5-1 Carolina Panthers: 6-6 Philadelphia Eagles: 5-6 (MNF vs. Redskins)

While we were rooting against the likes of Atlanta and Detroit on Sunday they have fallen out of contention for a wild card spot in the NFC. They’re simply too far behind mathematically with four games left for 30 teams.

The losses that Chicago, Carolina, and even Minnesota took on Sunday were pivotal towards the Cowboys wild card hopes if they are derailed from winning the NFC East. Consider their remaining schedules.

Chicago: Rams, Packers, at 49ers, at Vikings

Carolina: at Browns, Saints, Falcons, at Saints

Minnesota: at Seahawks, Dolphins, at Lions, Bears

The Bears and Vikings still have to play each other once so we can firmly assign one loss somewhere there, not to mention that Minnesota also visits the Seahawks this week which means one will fall there as well. Meanwhile half of the remaining games on the Panthers schedule are against New Orleans and that’s going to be tough sledding, too.

While anything can happen (hello last Thursday night) it bodes well for the Cowboys that they have remaining games against opponents like the Buccaneers and Giants. The Indianapolis Colts looked mortal on Sunday and Dallas already beat the Eagles so there’s certainly reason to feel optimistic. They’ll have to handle their business as well if they want to be playing football in January, but again the week that they had outside of things that directly involved them was pretty incredible.

There’s one game left in Week 13 that will impact the Cowboys and almost 60% of BTB wants the Redskins to lose it. At this point we’re sort of playing with house money on this week, but let’s go ahead and finish strong.