The last two weeks have been painful for the Cowboys.
They entered the Arizona game with a chance to move two games ahead of the New York Giants in the NFC East. A victory against the Cardinals, combined with the Giants losing to the Green Bay Packers, would have meant Sunday night's game at Cowboys Stadium would have been to clinch the division title.
Dan Bailey missed a 49-yard kick and then had a 47-yarder blocked, all in the closing moments, leading to two Cowboys losses. Now the Cowboys sit tied for first with the Giants in the NFC East. If the postseason started today, the Cowboys would be sitting at home.
"I would have liked to have been closed out right now," Cowboys owner/general manager Jerry Jones said Tuesday morning on his weekly radio show on KRLD-FM. "If we had won the last two games, that would have happened. But the reality of it is, they cut their guys, they're motivated to. Who is 'they'? They are the rest of the teams in the NFL. It shouldn't surprise us, here we are leading the league, and I'm not being facetious, but leading our division, but we got to fight it out, right down to the wire."