IRVING, Texas -- Under the current NFL playoff format, no team has ever started the season 2-6 and made the playoffs. The Dallas Cowboys won't be the first.
We can talk about Tony Romo's return in two weeks and all the alleged talent on the Cowboys' roster, but the reality is this team has found ways to lose all season. There's no evidence that will change in the season's final eight games.
Only the 1-7 Detroit Lions have a worse record in the NFC than the Cowboys.
As you would expect, coach Jason Garrett refused to give a concession speech after the Cowboys' 33-27 overtime loss to the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday night at AT&T Stadium. So did owner Jerry Jones. The few players who chose to deliver a message to their fan base after the loss preached optimism.
"I think we're a good football team. I know some may think that's silly to say halfway through the season when we've lost six in a row," tight end Jason Witten said. "There are no moral victories. That's clear and I want everyone to know that, especially the fans.
"We have to look at it one week at a time and fight our way out of this. This team is made up of guys who fight together and coaches that do the same."
Well, we're about to find out because the playoffs are out of reach. The last-place Cowboys have created too big of a deficit to overcome.
The New York Giants (5-4) are the only team above .500 in the NFC East, but if they win 10 games, the Cowboys must go 8-0 to catch them. If the Giants win nine games, the Cowboys must go 7-1 to tie them.
The players' body language on the field after Sunday's loss proved that this game stung more than the others during the Cowboys' longest losing streak since 1989, Jones' first season as owner. Most players were dressed and gone before the media entered the locker room after the mandatory 10-minute cooling-off period following every game.
Witten and defensive end Jeremy Mincey delivered messages to the fans about the players' commitment to finishing the season strong. Other leaders such as Dez Bryant and Greg Hardy were nowhere to be found.
All of that makes Sunday's game against Tampa Bay one of the most important in Jason Garrett's six seasons as head coach.
Garrett's job this week is to persuade his players to play with the same passion and effort they have displayed throughout this wretched six-game losing streak that has wrecked a season that began with such promise. The Cowboys have played hard and, at times, played well during this losing streak. They have led at halftime in three of the losses and were tied at halftime in another.
"That's the nature of the NFL," Garrett said of the games being decided in the fourth quarter. "The teams that make the playoffs and have success in this league are best in those situations at the end of games. So all of the stuff about how we play is important -- it's the foundation of the entire program -- but you have to do those things at the end of the ballgame to win the game."
It's natural to have an emotional letdown after an overtime loss to a divisional opponent in a game the players knew they needed to keep their playoff hopes alive. Especially since the Cowboys are playing Tampa Bay, an opponent that's not going to generate the same type of emotion as a divisional rival.
No matter how badly the season goes, however, it's not in Garrett's nature to give up. There won't be a youth movement or any tanking to get a better draft choice. He has spent six seasons building a winning culture. He's not about to sacrifice it for a better draft choice.
Now it's up to the players to prepare and practice the right way. But will the young players prepare with the same focus and intensity, or will they spend the week hosting pity parties?
"How we practice and how we play matters and we emphasize that to our team a lot," Garrett said. "We believe that if you play the right way over time you're going to get the results you want. The spirit that we play with, the relentlessness we play with, the fight we play with makes me know the kind of guys we have on our football team.
"We're going to keep coaching them and keep teaching them and trying to get things right and they're going to respond the right way."
It's easy for players to believe in Garrett's tenets when the team is winning; it's more difficult when adversity reigns and the playoffs are a pipe dream.