National Football League

The Cowboys' ugly Thursday win was actually a 'huge statement' for Dallas

Published Dec. 9, 2016 12:55 p.m. ET

Andrew Lynch

It wasn't easy, it wasn't pretty, and they needed a little bit of help from the officials to get there. Yet the Dallas Cowboys managed to hang on for a 17-15 win over the Minnesota Vikings on Thursday night, which had FOX Sports NFL insider Michael Lombardi singing this team's praises on Friday's episode of FS1's "Undisputed."

Asked for his take on the Cowboys' win, Lombardi called the way in which Dallas emerged victorious a "huge statement" just weeks before the start of the playoffs.

LOMBARDI: I thought it was a great win for the Cowboys. These are the games that you need. When you're preparing for a marathon, you need days where you don't run effectively, but you run hard. That's what they did. They didn't play their best game. They played in a very hostile environment. The situation was against them. Every time they make a play, there was a penalty to call it back. They couldn't get into a rhythm.

But they fought their way to find a way to win, and I think these are the games that really make you battle-tested for the playoffs. That was a playoff-type game. It wasn't pretty, it wasn't well-played in terms of the way we think we want a playoff game, because we want the playoff games to be 37-34, like the Redskins-Dallas game on Thanksgiving Day.

This, to me, was a playoff atmosphere. This was a desperate team, playing against a very good team who knew they had their best shot. And I thought the Cowboys met the challenge, rose to the challenge, and found a way to win the game. I was impressed.

Look, any time you can walk off the field and say the Cowboys defense won the game, that's a huge statement to make.

The ugly win, then, was the best of both worlds for the Cowboys. Rather than drop a game like Michael Irvin wanted in order to face some adversity ahead of the playoffs, Dallas was challenged by a worthy opponent and should be ready to refocus in the coming weeks.

Shannon Sharpe, however, disagrees. In his book, Minnesota provided a blueprint for the rest of the NFL to beat Dallas — one that a more skilled offensive team can execute in the postseason. Check out the rest of the video above for Shannon's take on the Cowboys-Vikings game and whether Dallas can be considered a Super Bowl contender.