DALLAS — To be fair, the NFC East is not at the bottom of the pro football barrel. The NFC South (7-13) and AFC South (6-13) sport worse records through five weeks than the NFC East’s unremarkable 8-10-2. But in the era in which most football coaches (and some quarterbacks) have lost their minds, the East has surged to the front of the line. Put it this way. The Cowboys had a Thursday night ...

Dallas Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer yells from the sidelines during the fourth quarter against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Thursday, Oct. 8, 2026, at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

Amanda McCoy/Fort Worth Star-Telegram/TNS

DALLAS — To be fair, the NFC East is not at the bottom of the pro football barrel. The NFC South (7-13) and AFC South (6-13) sport worse records through five weeks than the NFC East’s unremarkable 8-10-2. But in the era in which most football coaches (and some quarterbacks) have lost their minds, the East has surged to the front of the line.

Put it this way. The Cowboys had a Thursday night home game against a winless Buccaneers team with an undrafted rookie quarterback. The Eagles were kicking off with the lead with eight seconds to go against Jacksonville. New York and Washington were playing each other. Yet the East came away with no victories from all this.

That’s how the Bucs’ Todd Bowles slid from the top spot on one betting site’s “First Coach to be Fired,’’ replaced by the once beloved Cowboys coordinator Dan Quinn, who found a way to turn an almost sure victory into a tie Sunday … with plenty of help from quarterback Jayden Daniels and the uncommunicative offensive coordinator David Blough.

We have seen teams struggle when pressed for time, trying to execute a play or a spike to stop the clock. This wasn’t that. The Commanders willingly huddled and slowly ran the clock down at the end of overtime before Daniels took a snap and ran around in the backfield before being tackled, leaving Washington no chance to spike the ball and kick the winning field goal.

Given how the Giants had fumbled the ball when they were already in field goal range, maybe both teams deserved a tie.

Quinn took the blame, which everyone in Washington was very happy to hand him. But Daniels acknowledged he needs to do a better job of understanding that situation.

Regardless, this was just one of a handful of frightful endings around the league. In London, Jacksonville coach Liam Coen stared up at the sky after one of his many bad decisions around the Eagles’ 1-yard line. The Jaguars had two drives stall there with zero points. Coen was basically gifted a free second at halftime to kick a field goal, but he opted for a third straight crack at a touchdown which turned into a 6-yard loss on a lateral running play.

Yet Coen won the game, anyway. The Eagles had taken a 17-16 lead with eight seconds to go. Cowboys fans know from Brazil what can happen in the last seven seconds of a game. In this case, the Eagles’ kick was returned all the way to the Philly 39-yard line. In seven seconds. Cam Little’s 57-yard field goal gave the Eagles their third straight loss.

For me, that loss is all about Jalen Hurts and his unwillingness to run. On a day when Saquon Barkley and Tank Bigsby, the first two running backs, were out (not to mention all the changes on the Eagles’ O-line) and third-string Will Shipley would get hurt, Hurts finished with two carries for 2 yards. One of the Eagles’ absolute best weapons was never put into play. Inexcusable.

And when Philly needed to take a few seconds off the clock on their final snap before what they hoped would be a winning field goal (Jacksonville was going to call time out after the play), Hurts simply handed to a helpless Dameon Pierce for a 3-yard loss as the Jags smothered him and stopped the clock. A Hurts fake and rollout would have gotten the same or better yardage and removed two or three more seconds, killing any chance of Jacksonville snapping the ball after the kickoff.

When asked about the clock management at the end, Hurts said, “Ultimately, that’s not my place.’’

Not exactly what you want to hear from a Super Bowl-winning quarterback in his seventh season. But the dysfunction in Philly is one of the best things the Cowboys have going for them. The Eagles already traded A.J. Brown for this reason. The quarterback and coach aren’t exactly on the same page. The GM is trading starting linemen to Baltimore in midseason after another key lineman, Lane Johnson, retires. Forget the brotherhood that coach Brian Schottenheimer talks about way too much, it’s the lack of one in Philadelphia that’s keeping the Cowboys afloat.

Barely.

Even with all this mess, the Cowboys find themselves tied with the Eagles and 1 1/2 games behind the Giants after five weeks. Washington may feel like it’s six games back after what happened Sunday but it’s really only two games out.

What additional insanity can we look forward to? NFL head coaches across the league have absolutely no clue when it’s OK to kick field goals anymore. They are more fearful of being called out for not sticking to the analytics play chart or for a lack of courage in pushing for touchdowns. Schottenheimer’s decisions tend to be guided by knowing his defense can’t hold its own. Bowles’ decision to skip the short field goal that would have put Tampa Bay up 17 against Dallas remains one of the worst decisions of the weekend. It’s just that the Cowboys weren’t good enough to make him pay for it.

It’s hard to like where the Cowboys are headed after that home performance against the Bucs. The challenges posed by the Packers and even the scuffling Eagles on the road feel like mountains to climb for this team and especially this defense. But you never know what choice a coach (or occasionally a quarterback) will make to change the trajectory of an outcome. If you’re the Cowboys, it’s not much of a place to hang your hat, but it’s what you’ve got.

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