As of now, the Dallas Cowboys do not plan on resting their starters in Saturday’s regular-season finale against the Philadelphia Eagles in a game that was moved up a day by the NFL.
“Not at this point. I feel like we’ll be full-bore ready to go,” vice president Stephen Jones said Monday. “We play on a Saturday night now. Certainly some things could happen where things could go our way.
“We need the momentum and work on our execution. Know we’ll do that and know we’ll have a great week of practice if we continue to prepare. This will be a big football game for us.”
The game likely has minimal playoff implications for the Cowboys (11-5), the NFC East champions who need a number of long-shot things to happen on Sunday to move up from the fourth seed in the playoffs to possibly the third or second seed.
The Cowboys would need to beat the Eagles and hope the Tampa Buccaneers (12-4), Los Angeles Rams (12-4) and Cardinals (11-5) lose their respective final games on Sunday.
The Buccaneers host the Carolina Panthers, the Rams host the San Francisco 49ers and the Cardinals host the Seattle Seahawks at 3:25 p.m.
The Cowboys need to be in a three-way tie with the Rams and Buccaneers or Buccaneers and Cardinals to move from the fourth seed to the second seed.
To move to the third seed, Cowboys need both the Rams and the Cardinals to lose.
There is a thought that the Cowboys might want to rest their starters and front-line performers before hosting a wild card playoff game the following week, especially with the Eagles game now coming on a short week following Sunday’s 25-22 loss to the Arizona Cardinals.
“We are going to play,” coach Mike McCarthy said. “We are going play to win the game. That is our approach. That is the best thing for us. That is the best thing for our football team. We understand the scenarios. There are slight odds we could potentially move up. We want to make sure we take care of business on our end. And playing well in the weather in Philadelphia will serve us well.”
The performance against the Cardinals, who ended a four-game winning streak, has the Cowboys angling for a bounce-back game to improve their execution and build playoff momentum.
“I plan on playing. Period,” Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott said of Saturday’s game against the Eagles.
The Cowboys blamed much of the struggles against the Cardinals on the officials, who penalized them 10 times for 88 yards, including two holds and a false start that killed scoring opportunities on their first three drives.
But the Cowboys can also blame themselves for a plethora of dropped passes, a missed field goal, a fumble by Prescott, a running game that produced just 25 yards from Ezekiel Elliott and Tony Pollard and a run defense that gave up 127 yards to the Cardinals and couldn’t get off the field in the fourth quarter.
The Cowboys were down 22-7 before Prescott rallied them with with two touchdowns in the fourth quarter before coming up short.
There is a good chance the Cowboys will face the Cardinals again in the wild card playoffs as the fourth and fifth seeds, barring changes this weekend.
The Cowboys would very much like a redo.
“Damn right,” defensive end DeMarcus Lawrence said after the game. “They came out and gave us their best shot tonight, we came out and we competed and shoot, we are just going to get better from it. If we see them again, they are going to get it all from us.
“Yeah, we just got to start faster. Take the tone that we started in the fourth quarter and move it to this next game.”
Prescott would like another shot at the Cardinals. But he said the Cowboys will be ready for whoever they play and added that they have not lost confidence in their goal of reaching the Super Bowl for the first time since 1995.
“For sure. To get to where we [want to] go we’ve got to play the best,” he said. “Obviously, this team right here gave us their best shot and we came up three points short. ...
“Whoever it is, line them up. We’ll play them here, we’ll play them their place, their back yard, wherever. I’ve got a lot of confidence in this team.”
