By Harry Allison
The Redskins were relegated to a sideshow yesterday, ending the season ignominiously with a 47-14 beatdown in Dallas that ended their season with a 3-13 record.
The Cowboys were eliminated from the postseason because Philly won the NFC East by beating the New York Giants.
Dallas (8-8) lost control of its postseason fate with a 17-9 loss to the Eagles last week. Now the fate of Jason Garrett is in the hands of Jones.
Case Keenum had a TD toss as the Redskins (3-13) secured the No. 2 pick in the draft in what could be their final game under interim coach Bill Callahan. The former Dallas assistant replaced Jay Gruden, fired in October with Washington at 0-5.
“The thing that I know is that this team, this group of guys, this record is not indicative of the type of locker room this is, and the type of talent I think that we had,” said Keenum, who was 18 of 37 for 206 yards. with an early interception. “You can see there’s a lot of different things that you could point your finger at. I’m going to point my finger at myself.”
Dak Prescott threw four touchdown passes, three of them to Michael Gallup, while falling 1 yard short of Tony Romo’s club record of 4,903 yards passing in a season.
Dallas could have made the playoffs without a winning record for the third time in franchise history. Instead, the Eagles won the division for the second time in three years by beating the Giants 34-17.
About the time the Cowboys put away the Redskins on Prescott’s second TD pass to Gallup for a 37-16 lead late in the third quarter, Philadelphia went up 10 with a TD after the Giants lost a fumble at their 2-yard line.
“I’ve never been disappointed after a win, to be honest with you. That was tonight,” Prescott said. He was 23 of 33 for 303 yards in his second straight game playing with a sprained right shoulder, looking much better than he did in the loss to Philadelphia.
In Gallup’s first career game with multiple touchdowns, the second-year player had five catches for 98 yards.
Ezekiel Elliott, who helped fuel Super Bowl hopes by signing a $90 million extension to end a long holdout days before the opener, had a 32-yard touchdown run and a 13-yard scoring catch.
The Cowboys won their first three games after Elliott signed the big contract, but lost eight of the next 12 to put their postseason fate in the hands of the Eagles.
Dallas was hoping to build on the first playoff win for Prescott and Elliott last season before a divisional-round loss to the Los Angeles Rams that ended the club’s 23rd consecutive season without reaching the NFC championship game.
It’s the fourth time in Garrett’s nine full seasons that Dallas has finished .500. The first three ran consecutively from 2011-13, with the Cowboys losing the finale each time when a win would have put them in the playoffs.
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