Do 3-5 Cowboys still have a playoff path through NFC East?

ATLANTA — Has the Dallas Cowboys’ season reached its low point after Sunday’s 27-21 loss to the Atlanta Falcons dropped them to 3-5?

It depends on how you want to look at things.

If all you want to see is that the next three opponents are the Philadelphia Eagles, Houston Texans and Washington Commanders, who are a combined 19-7, then maybe not. This is shaping up as another 2020 (6-10) or, gulp, 2015 (4-12) season.

If you want to focus on the impending returns of Pro Bowl edge rusher Micah Parsons (ankle) and cornerback DaRon Bland (foot), as well as wide receiver Brandin Cooks (knee) and defensive end DeMarcus Lawrence (foot) a little further down the road, then you can paint a path to getting to the playoffs for a fourth straight season.

And maybe the hamstring injury that forced Dak Prescott from Sunday’s game is not serious and the late shoulder injury CeeDee Lamb sustained also is not that serious.

“Sometimes in this league it just takes one [win],” Prescott said. “It takes one to get it going, to get that confidence back, to feel good, and rally from there. So not looking too far ahead, it’s about getting our bodies back and healthy [Monday] and then trying everything in our power to put our best performance next week at home against a good Philly team.”

Last week, Prescott called the Atlanta game a must-win for the Cowboys, who began the season with a 63% chance of making the playoffs, per ESPN Analytics. With Sunday’s loss, they have an 8% chance, behind only the Panthers, Giants and Saints in the NFC.

At 3-5, their best path to the postseason — albeit not that easy at this point — is through the NFC East. They are currently 3½ games behind the Commanders and 3 behind the Eagles.

Prescott has an 11-2 record in his career against the Commanders. He is 9-4 against the Eagles. He has not lost to the Giants since 2016, his rookie year, winning 13 straight against them, including a Week 4 win this season.

“Well, we’ve just got to really keep the focus narrow,” coach Mike McCarthy said. “I felt like we were doing that coming into the game. We need to win a game. I know everyone wants to talk about long term. We have five losses. We clearly understand where that puts us as far as what it will take.”

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Mike McCarthy slams tablet after Darnell Mooney’s wide-open TD

After Darnell Mooney scores a touchdown on fourth down, Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy shows his frustration by slamming down a tablet.

A McCarthy-coached team has never made the playoffs with a record below .500 after eight games. As the Packers’ coach in 2018, they were 3-4-1 before finishing 6-9-1 in a season in which he was dismissed with four games to play. In 2006, his first year in Green Bay, the Packers were 3-5, on the way to an 8-8 finish.

In 2020, the Cowboys were 2-6 and finished 6-10.

Just once have the Cowboys started 3-5 and made the playoffs: 2018. That season they made a bold trade for wide receiver Amari Cooper that jump-started their season, going from 3-5 to 10-6 with an NFC East title and playoff victory.

Guard Zack Martin is one of five players either on the current 53-man roster or on injured reserve remaining from that team; Prescott, backup QB Cooper Rush, RB Ezekiel Elliott and Lawrence are the other four.

“Absolutely that’s what we want to do,” Martin said. “I’ve said this before, there’s absolutely no secret to this thing. It’s right back to work and we just got to get our confidence back and go in there with some swag and expect to win.”

What comes first, the wins or the confidence?

“I mean, we’ve got to have some confidence before the wins start coming, right?” Martin said. “So we’ve got to believe that we can win and play that way.”

Even when healthy, however, the Cowboys have not played that way.

Against the Falcons, they were penalized nine times for 55 yards, with too many pre-snap penalties. They converted just three third-down opportunities and none in the first half. Lamb averaged more yards per rush (7.5) than yards per catch (5.9).

Defensively, they were better but still could not get a red zone stop and allowed three pass plays of 22 yards or more. Kirk Cousins was sacked twice but threw three touchdown passes. The Falcons averaged only 3.3 yards per rush, but Bijan Robinson controlled the tempo of the game.

“We’re having too many self-inflicted wounds,” McCarthy said.

Perhaps the Cowboys make a trade before Tuesday’s deadline that helps, although Jones cautioned any deal would not be as big as the Cooper one. Perhaps the offensive line starts playing well and the running game finds its rhythm (21 carries, 137 yards). Perhaps the takeaways return when Parsons and Bland get back. Perhaps the big plays return when Cooks gets healthy.

Perhaps.

“I mean, we’ve got the guys in here. We’ve just got to take ownership of this thing as players, and we’ve got to go out there and execute plays better,” Martin said. “We can’t beat ourselves and put ourselves in a hole. Our margin for error is too small for that. Back to work. And everything we still want to do is in front of us, right?

“We’ve got a lot of division games coming up, and we’ve got to get one and get on a roll.”