The Cowboys’ route to the Super Bowl largely passes via Dallas.

Naturally, Mike McCarthy was doing what he believed every other member of the Dallas Cowboys organisation was doing on Sunday afternoon—watching the Philadelphia Eagles play the Arizona Cardinals. And his phone exploded with text messages after the game.His Cowboys, who had been struggling all season, were suddenly no longer the underdogs in the NFC East and faced a postseason full of road games. The Cowboys were only one victory away from winning the division, earning the No. 2 seed, and earning home games in the first two round of the playoffs when the Cardinals surprised the Eagles 35–31.

Two weeks prior, when the Cowboys were 10-4, McCarthy had actually stated, “I just think it’s important to keep focus on getting to the 11th win and then I think there’ll be some clarity on what we need to do.” But he’s right: With the Cowboys at 11-5, there’s no shortage of clarity.

All they have to do to win their second division title in the past three years and guarantee that their divisional round and wild card games will take place in Arlington, Texas, is defeat the Washington Commanders, a 4-12 squad that hasn’t triumphed since November 5. The game will take place in Landover, Maryland, on Sunday. And the Cowboys have been a totally different club at home all season long, so it is hard to stress what a significant advantage that will be in the hunt for the Super Bowl. Additionally, Dak Prescott, the quarterback in Arlington, has changed significantly. He has a passer rating of 120.0, has completed 73.3 percent of his throws at home, and has thrown 22 touchdown passes with only three interceptions. His completion percentage plummets to 62.6 when he is travelling, he has only thrown 10 touchdown passes with five interceptions, and his passer rating plummets to 87.1.

The Cowboys had a poor road record, going 0-4 against playoff-bound or contender clubs; they lost to San Francisco (42-10), Philadelphia (28-23), Buffalo (31-10) and Miami (22-20). They were 4-0 at home, defeating the Detroit Lions (20-19), Los Angeles Rams (43-20), Seattle Seahawks (41-35), and Eagles (33-13).

McCarthy also found a positive aspect to the fact that they didn’t exactly overwhelm the Lions on Saturday night and that Detroit had to rely on an unforgivable mistake by the officials to seal the victory despite missing a game-winning two-point convert.

McCarthy remarked, “If you look at the way our season has gone, our football team has needed adversity and we have clearly been put in those situations the last three weeks,” referring to a string of games that featured defeats in Buffalo and Miami prior to the Lions victory. “I believe that the essence of football is facing challenges in close games. Though it would have been nice to win them all, the challenges we faced in a few of the games will help us in the future.”