FRISCO, Texas _ The Dallas Cowboys have been politically correct and mostly laissez faire regarding Philadelphia Eagles coach Doug Pederson's guarantee of a victory in Sunday's showdown for first place in the NFC East.
Of course, that was before defensive end DeMarcus Lawrence spoke to the media on Friday.
"All right. He's gotta come here," Lawrence said when asked about Pederson's comments. "Tell him to come on. We ready. Can he play the game? He might want to shut his ass up and stay on the sidelines. He can't play the game for them."
Pederson seemingly inflamed an already intense matchup against the Cowboys Sunday night by guaranteeing a victory on his radio show Monday morning.
"We're going down to Dallas, and our guys are gonna be ready to play. And we're gonna win that football game and when we do we're in first place in the NFC East," Pederson proclaimed on WIP Radio.
Pederson tried to backtrack a bit when asked about the guarantee at his afternoon press conference, telling reporters he was just voicing confidence in his team and "never said guarantee a win."
"I promise you (Cowboys head coach) Jason Garrett's going to say the same thing with his team, that they're going to win the football team as well," Pederson said. "I'm not going to stand up here and go on record and say, 'We're going to go down there and try to win a game, or hopefully we can win this one.' That just doesn't show confidence, and I want to show confidence in our players."
Lawrence said there has not been a lot of talk about Pederson in the locker room just as there has not been a lot of anger regarding the three-game losing streak. He said the Cowboys know what they have to do.
"We have went through this before," Lawrence said. "We have seen hell. We done dug out of the pits of it. We was 3-5 last year. What is it to fear. We know what we got to do. We are doing to show it. Period."
Lawrence went back to Pederson when asked about playing fewer snaps as part of the defensive line rotation over the last couple of weeks.
But it will be full Lawrence on Sunday.
"You don't have to worry about it this week," Lawrence said. "Doug Pederson done called us out. So y'all know what it is."
