NFL Standings: Cowboys Wake Up Monday in Second Place in the NFC East at 4-5, Chasing the 5-2-1 Giants
Sunday's 27-23 comeback at Indianapolis plus losses by Washington and Philadelphia moved Dallas to second in the division and 10th in the NFC - in the hunt, with the 49ers coming to Arlington on Sunday.
Monday morning's NFL standings tell a kinder story for Dallas than Sunday morning's did. The Cowboys' 27-23 comeback win at Indianapolis lifted them to 4-5 and into second place in the NFC East, and the rest of the division obliged: the Giants beat Philadelphia 19-11 to improve to 5-2-1 and strengthen their hold on first, Washington fell 20-13 to the Rams to drop to 2-5-1, and the Eagles' seventh straight loss left them last at 2-7.
The numbers behind the place are honest about the work left. Dallas has scored 246 points and allowed 236 - a plus-10 differential that matches the Giants' - but the Cowboys are 1-3 at home against 3-2 on the road, and their 2-4 conference record is the soft spot in any tiebreaker conversation. In the full NFC picture, Dallas sits 10th: outside the seven playoff places, but in the hunt with eight games to play.
The road runs straight through Arlington next. Dallas hosts San Francisco on Sunday, November 15 at AT&T Stadium (3:25 p.m. CT) - a conference game against a fellow contender, the kind that moves both the division table and the wild-card line at once. The Giants, meanwhile, carry the division's best record into the same weekend, and the Cowboys' clearest path remains the simplest one: keep winning and let the standings do the rest.
