ARLINGTON, Texas -- What the Dallas Cowboys have done to the New York Giants in their two matchups in 2023 can be described with many different words: bullied, embarrassed, demoralized, dropkicked, body-slammed, brutalized, terrorized, punked or destroyed, just to name a few. After beating them 40-0 in Week 1 and following that iwith a 49-17 thrashing in Week 10 on Sunday, another word to describe what has transpired between the two NFC East rivals this season is historic.
"Yeah, I thought, I mean, not the results we wanted," Giants head coach Brian Daboll said postgame Sunday. "I thought we fought in the second half, but obviously a lot to work on, a lot to be better at. So, give credit to Dallas. They played one heck of a game.... Every loss is demoralizing...Yeah, give those guys credit. They did a better job than we did."
The Cowboys outscored the Giants 89-17 in their two meetings this season, the biggest score differential by one team vs another in a season since the 2007 New England Patriots (who went 16-0 in the regular season that year) vs. the Buffalo Bills (94-17, +77). Sunday's game was also the largest margin of victory against a single opponent in a season in Cowboys history.
"That has to be record, I'm sure," Dak Prescott said postgame on Sunday. "The points that we put up in the two games, credit to our defense holding them to 17 points in two games. It's hard to do in this league and hard to do against a division opponent that you see twice. It's not a goal that we went after. It's not something that we were trying to do. Obviously, we wanted to handle them for the second time this season, and it just happened to be in that manner with that many points and the [Cowboys] defense played the way they did. They had unfortunate circumstances with a young quarterback, but he made some plays at times. Good for us."
Biggest score differential by one team vs. another in a season in last 40 years
| Season | Team | Score Differential | Opponenet |
|---|---|---|---|
2007 | Patriots | +77 | Bills |
1992 | +77 | ||
1994 | 49ers | +75 | Falcons |
2023 | Cowboys | +72* | Giants |
* Best vs single team in a season in Cowboys history
New York has the worst offense in the NFL this season, averaging 11.8 points per game, while dealing with injuries to both starting quarterback Daniel Jones (torn ACL, out for the season) and backup Tyrod Taylor (currently on injured reserve with a rib injury). They started undrafted rookie Tommy DeVito on Sunday in the Week 10 defeat. They have only scored 12 touchdowns total this season while the Cowboys have scored 12 touchdowns in the two games against New York in 2023.
Dallas also put up the second-most total yards in a game in their franchise's history on Sunday (640) while the Giants had under 200, 172 to be exact. When zooming in on the box score, it's eye-popping that the Cowboys had 411 more passing yards than the Giants (472-61), which is the second-largest passing yardage gap between two games in a game in the Super Bowl era, since 1966, trailing only the 433 passing yardage gap (426-7) between the Patriots and Titans in a 59-0 Patriots win in Week 6 of the 2009 season.
The Giants went 0-for-12 on third down conversions. Dallas went 6-for-12 on third downs by comparison.
"There is so much that goes into that [the Cowboys out-scoring the Giants by 72 points in their two 2023 meetings], I'm sure they don't want to hear me talk about their team," Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy said postgame "This is a hard league. You get in situations whether it's health or whatever else is going on, but that's why I just talk about it all the time: when you don't have all your players, nobody cares. I've been on both sides of that. You have to keep your eye on target, and that's why I think our guys did a good job this week because it was important for us to go out there and play better than we did last week [in a 28-23 road loss at the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 9]… Our guys totally took control of the game early and commanded it for four quarters."