The Cowboys actually need to start Trey Lance now more than ever

The Dallas Cowboys can only rely on false hope this year. Despite winning their last two games, Dallas is just 5-7 this season. That puts them five games behind the Philadelphia Eagles at 10-2 and three games behind the Washington Commanders at 8-5 in the NFC East race. If the season ended today, Washington would be the third wild card team to be eliminated from the NFC this year.

What I’m saying is that the Cowboys now have virtually no chance of making the playoffs. They need to pretty much win to finish with a 10-7 mark to have a real chance. Even if they were close, the Cowboys don’t have that crucial head-to-head comparison with a shaky team that beat them previously in the Atlanta Falcons. Cooper Rush was great for them, but now it’s Trey Lance’s turn.

This isn’t about shopping Rush or keeping him on ice to prevent further damage to their backup quarterback assets. The Cowboys are about two things right now. Can Lance even play? If he can, Rush is expendable now. If he can’t do that, the Cowboys are at least in a far better position to draft a player in the top 10 to give Dak Prescott the best chance to succeed.

Unfortunately, since Jerry Jones loves attention as much as he loves mediocrity, this isn’t going to happen.

It doesn’t matter what happens in the next few weeks, this year has been a complete failure for the Cowboys. Dallas should have almost the same success as Washington right now. There is no reason to celebrate a win over a scrappy New York Giants team. At least the NFL’s IBM is beginning to realize how miserably it has been run in recent years.

Self-awareness isn’t in Jones’ dictionary, so Cowboys fans pay the price for it every year. What I hope to see in Dallas is that the Cowboys position themselves better and become something like a 7-10 team. In my experience in the Falcons fandom, that gets you picking #8 overall. Trust me when I say this, you can find good players in this area (Drake London, Bijan Robinson, Michael Penix Jr.)

While Lance may go down as one of the biggest NFL Draft busts in recent memory, Dallas has a good reason to keep him. There’s a belief that the player who was so good for North Dakota State a season before COVID could actually mean something in the NFL. The San Francisco 49ers took bait, hook, line and sinker. Dallas can still benefit from him.

Starting Lance isn’t a panacea, but it could be a means to an end for the Cowboys moving away from center.