To date the Dallas Cowboys have played in nine total games. They have won only three of them. For the most part these last nine games, if you want to call them “games” given the lack of competitiveness in many of them, have taken far too long.

Many fans are ready to get to the end of this Cowboys season and get to work on how to turn this thing around. In seasons like this, those who lean optimistic are still hanging on to hope as long as Dallas is mathematically alive for a playoff spot, but even that crowd appears ready to wave the white flag.

However you feel about this team, the reality is that we are about to see the Cowboys season blast into hyperdrive. They are going to match a third of their current games played before dawn on Friday after next thanks to the way this part of the schedule goes.

Buckle up because we are about to move quickly to say the least.

The Cowboys’ season will be defined in many ways by the next 11 days

It is important that we are honest with ourselves and acknowledge that the Cowboys are not serious contenders for any sort of playoff spot. Nobody is arguing against that. But we are here to share and discuss information, and the reality is that if the Cowboys were going to pull off some sort of insane saving effort for the 2024 season then it would have to start tonight.

Why is that? The Cowboys host the Texans tonight on Monday Night Football which makes their next week a short one. Dallas will travel to face the Washington Commanders on Sunday afternoon, their third division game of the year (keep in mind Washington is coming off of the mini-bye having lost on Thursday night last week), before they turn around and get ready to host the New York Giants on Thanksgiving Day.

Here are the Cowboys games to be played in the next 11 days, counting tonight:

• Monday, November 18th: Houston Texans on MNF
• Sunday, November 24th: at Washington Commanders (1pm ET)
• Thursday, November 28th: New York Giants on Thanksgiving Day

Even winning all three of these games, a very tall task, would only bring the Cowboys to .500 on the season, but the reality is that three games is a serious amount. That represents a third of the season already for the Cowboys. If they are all wins or all losses that will seriously move the Cowboys one direction or another relative to the field.

Consider that there are six teams on bye in Week 12 in the Atlanta Falcons, Buffalo Bills, Cincinnati Bengals, Jacksonville Jaguars, New Orleans Saints and New York Jets. The NFL will not see any of those six teams play again until December 1st. This means that all three Cowboys games we are talking about will take place before then. It is not exactly a common thing to see another team, any team in the NFL, play three contests between two of yours.

This weird wrinkle is obviously a result of Dallas playing on Monday night this week and on Thanksgiving Day two weeks (in terms of weeks of the season) from now. Of their next three games, the first is the last one of its given week and the last is taking place on the first day of that week (obviously the Detroit Lions play their game before the Cowboys on Thanksgiving).

A big part of the season is about to happen in a very short amount of time.

Which direction do you think it will push this team?