FRISCO, Texas – How delicious is this, like a three-legged turkey.
The 6-5 Kansas City Chiefs vs. the 5-5-1 Dallas Cowboys, but a half-game difference, yep, that darn tie still getting in the way.
On Thanksgiving, The Salvation Army ready to start filling up those Red Kettles with the help of these two strange Cotton Bowl bedfellow franchises born in 1960 and a grand halftime show televised live.
Plus this, both teams desperately needing to continue winning to keep playoff hopes alive. In the AFC, the Chiefs, in third place in the West, with six teams holding better records and three more part of a four-team clump at 6-5. In the NFC, the Cowboys in second place in the East, with nine teams owning better records, the two closest being the 7-4 Lions, who Dallas plays next Thursday, and the 6-6 Panthers, who already have beaten the Cowboys.
The Chiefs are coming off a come-from-behind win and winners of four of their last six. The Cowboys, too, are coming off a come-from-way-behind win, winners of two straight now for the first time since 2024 and trying for their first three straight since winning five consecutivein 2023.
The two teams with two of the very best quarterbacks in the NFL, the Chiefs' Patrick Mahomes from Whitehouse out in East Texas, and the Cowboys' Dak Prescott from Haughton, Louisiana., not far east of Shreveport, the two growing up roughly 120 miles apart. You have Mahomes with the second most passing yards in the NFL after 11 games and Dak third. You have Dak with the most completions in the NFL and Mahomes second. You have Mahomes with the second most passing attempts and Dak third. And when it comes to touchdowns, its Dak tied for second and Mahomes eighth.
The two have only faced each other once, Mahomes beating the Cowboys and Dak 19-9 in Kansas City during the 2021 season, so this will be Mahomes' first NFL start at AT&T Stadium, though did start twice at Texas Tech, playing Baylor at AT&T in 2014 and 2016.
See what I'm talking about? How good is all this?
Oh, and there is a good chance this game will break the record as the most watched regular-season NFL game on television, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones the other day estimating 70 million people could very well be watching this 3:30 p.m. start on CBS. And chances are the attendance at AT&T on this annual holiday event will stretch the capacity limits.
And as for a special side dish, there will be a "Posty" sighting at halftime, and go ahead, count the times a "Swifty" appears on your screen from a suite.
So my suggestion if sitting at home, make sure that bird is ready to be carved up no later than 2 p.m. This right here should be must-see TV.
And now so fittingly, here come more, uh, homegrown tasty "shots" than all them Thanksgiving side dishes.
• Another Commonality: Let's remember the Cowboys and the then Dallas Texans came into existence at the same time. The Cowboys, as the NFL's first expansion franchise, started in 1960, and the Texans, who became the Chiefs four years later, began that same season in the upstart American Football League. Hats off to the late owners Lamar Hunt of the eventual Chiefs and the Cowboys' Clint Murchison Jr., for bringing pro football to Dallas. The two teams shared the Cotton Bowl as their home stadium from 1960-62, and also participated in some ticket-selling hijinks as they competed for fans when pro football wasn't nearly as popular in Dallas-Fort Worth as college football.
• More At Stake: Sure, the win is vitally important to both teams, but the winning players also receive postgame, on-field, on-air turkey parts to gobble down. But maybe more important will be grabbing the Preston Road Trophy, a little friendly award initiated between Larmar Hunt and Jerry Jones since both resided on Preston Road in north Dallas. And don't think the winner wouldn't rub it in, proudly displaying the homemade trophy in their front picture window for all passing by to see.
• Pay The Man II: If you were paying attention, two weeks ago after the Cowboys beat the Raiders, 33-16, led by wide receiver George Pickens catching nine passes for 144 yards and a touchdown, giving him 908 yards receiving this year, I basically relented, saying, "Pay the man." Think maybe Jerry Jones listened to me (probably not)? But after Pickens caught nine more passes on nine targets for 146 yards and a touchdown in the Cowboys' Sunday win over the Eagles, he was asked on his Tuesday morning radio segment on 105.3 The Fan if he thought Pickens could be playing anywhere else in 2026 since he's on the final year of his contract, knowing the Cowboys already are paying CeeDee Lamb an average of $34 million a year. Well,Jerry most definitively said, "No, I do not at this time. We've got two No. 1 receivers, and that's just exceptional right at this time. And guess what, our quarterback is the best he's ever been." Nuff said for me. Franchise tag or extension, lock The Star doors down. Don't let GP out.
• Longer Warmup Please: Can't believe I'm going to say this, but when growing up watching White Sox pitchers struggle in the first inning of games before settling down, dear ol' dad would say, "These pitchers need to warmup longer," and of course from me came one of those "aww, dad" blow offs. Well, maybe these Cowboys need to warm up longer because check this out: In the past four games, two losses and two wins, the Cowboys have been outscored a combined 48-3 early on, falling behind in three of the four games while being shutout and only once taking just a 3-0 lead over Denver before quickly trailing 14-3. Won't get away with such a slow start against the "Chieeeffffs."
• Wouldn't Tell A Lie: Next time Ryan Flournoy says he did something, the Cowboys coaching staff better believe him. Remember, Sunday the second-year receiver was adamant he grazed Eagles Braden Mann's punt before he ran into the kicker, flagged for roughing the punter because white cap Bill Vinovich failed to see the impact of Flournoy's fingers on the ball, throwing the flag. Why, 15 yards, first down, the Eagles then converting the continued possession into a touchdown. No one on the Cowboys bench seemed to believe Flournoy, though in head coach Brian Schottenheimer's defense, he points out his assistants watching the TV replays didn't think there was a clear enough shot of the partial block to overturn the call. Well, wasn't long after that the Fox TV crew came up with an "enhanced" view of the play, clearly showing Flournoy did not tell a lie. He indeed had deflected the punt. And the bottom line here, according to NFL vice president of instant replay Mark Butterworth during a postgame pool reporter interview, "The Dallas Cowboys could have challenged it at any point, and we would have stopped to look at it. And by stopping to look at it, we probably would have gotten an enhanced shot from broadcast that would show that the ball was indeed tipped." Here is my point: With the thousands of dollar bills falling out of the NFL pockets every day, there should be enough money to provide the broadcast control room that invaluable "enhanced look" of their own? I mean, they have the pylon cameras all along the sidelines and end zones. Don't be so chintzy. Get it right.
• Nick Concurs: Sounds as if Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni thinks highly of Pickens, too, defending his defense by complimenting the Cowboys receiver now with 1,054 receiving yards, second in the NFL. "I think there were a couple of really outstanding individual plays by Pickens," Sirianni said. "Hats off to him, really good player. Made some big-time plays." Yeah, everyone, take your hats off to GP. Maybe pass them around to take up a salary cap collection.
• Side Shots: As injury-riddled as the Cowboys have been practically all season, will only be without starting left tackle Tyler Guyton on Thanksgiving, out with a high ankle sprain. Meaning Nate Thomas, forced to make his first and only NFL start against the Jets in this his second season in place of Guyton will step in once again … Veteran cornerback Trevon Diggs has already served his mandatory four-game stay on injured reserve and is eligible to return, and while Schottenheimer says Diggs is doing well with his knee rehab, because this is a short week with no full practice sessions, it's no time to start a 21-day practice period that could begin next week … That suggests if corner Caelen Carson isn't ready to return, leaving the Eagles game with cramps and showing up on the injury report this week as limited (hamstring), then the Cowboys will go as they finished the Philadelphia game with corners DaRon Bland, Reddy Steward and rookie Shavon Revel … And for a stat or two, the Cowboys' 473 yards against the Eagles was their second highest total of the season, 5 yards short of the high produced in the Giants overtime game … And maybe most incredible, after the Cowboys spent most of the season ranked in the 30s of this 32-team league against the run, they now have held the past two opponents to a combined 90 yards after giving up more than 119 yards rushing and a high of 216 to Carolina in seven of their first nine games. They have since moved up to 22nd in the NFL.
For this Thanksgiving final word, let's go to Prescott, simply short and sweet on the meaning of this Kansas City matchup following the win over the Eagles on Sunday. And now playing the two Super Bowl LIX opponents in back-to-back games on the way to playing this stretch of facing four of five opponents with winning records: Eagles, Chiefs, Lions and Chargers – the Vikings (4-7) the lone exception. Dak knows after digging themselves in a 3-5-1 hole, as CeeDee Lamb said before the Eagles showdown, each game going forward will be like a playoff game, win or go home. According to Dak:
"We've got to win every game at this point. The Philly game doesn't mean anything right now. Nothing that's happened up to this point really means anything other than just put us in a position to be in must-win games."
Truer words never said.
Gobble, gobble.
