Fresh off punching the Super Bowl champs in the mouth, the Dallas Cowboys get… the Super Bowl runner-up. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.

Three days after storming back from 21 points down to stun the Eagles 24-21, the Cowboys sit at 5-5-1 and are somehow both alive and on the brink. Now they welcome Patrick Mahomes and the 6-5 Kansas City Chiefs to AT&T Stadium in a game that feels like a playoff eliminator for both sides.

Some of the heavyweights on that supposedly brutal November/December schedule don’t look quite as scary anymore, but Kansas City isn’t one of them. They’ve won nine straight AFC West titles, yet just like Dallas, they’re sitting 10th in their conference and fighting for air.

Cowboys coach Brian Schottenheimer isn’t buying any “down year” talk about the Chiefs.

“I don’t turn on their film and be like, ‘Man, they’re really having a bad year,’” he said. “I don’t think that at all. I’m like, ‘Man, he’s really fast and he’s super fast, and that guy’s fast, and that guy’s a good runner.’”

On paper, this is a Thanksgiving fever dream.

The NFL’s top two passing attacks are lighting up the holiday stage. Dak Prescott’s Cowboys lead the league at 267 yards per game through the air, and Dak just claimed the franchise record for career passing yards. Mahomes, meanwhile, is coming off a 23-20 overtime win over the Colts and hunting yet another postseason run.

Prescott knows exactly what he’s up against.

“At the end of the day, obviously, the talent jumps out, but you watch a guy who plays with pure passion, who’ll do anything it takes to win,” Prescott said of Mahomes. “He’ll do anything and everything it takes.”

Dallas probably needs at least four wins in its final six to have a real shot at the postseason. There’s no hiding from that math in the locker room, but tight end Jake Ferguson is leaning into the one-game mentality.

“There are times when your mind might go a little forward into the future and start thinking and start going all over the place,” he said. “And that’s where you’ve got to focus on your training. We train on how to pull our focus back into the now.”

For Mahomes, this one is personal in a different way.

The East Texas native grew up watching the Cowboys with his dad, former MLB pitcher Pat Mahomes Sr., and now comes home as a three-time Super Bowl champ. He’s already played at AT&T Stadium with Texas Tech, but never like this.

“Just getting to play at home, having a lot of people in attendance that might not get to come to Kansas City, it’ll be really cool to experience playing there, especially on Thanksgiving,” Mahomes said, adding he’ll probably have “50-plus” friends and family in attendance.

There’s nostalgia on the Dallas sideline too.

Schottenheimer’s late father, Marty, won 101 of his 200 career games as head coach of the Chiefs. Brian hasn’t forgotten how the Hunt family treated his dad after his Alzheimer’s diagnosis.

“I can remember that stadium the first game my dad ever coached there (1989) … there was like 21,000 fans there,” Schottenheimer said. “He turned it around. They turned it around as an organization and then it became what it is today.”

On the field, Kansas City brings a physical run game to test a revived Cowboys defense. Kareem Hunt is coming off a career-high 30 carries against Indy, but will get help from Isiah Pacheco, back from a knee injury.

“He’ll play,” Chiefs coach Andy Reid said. “How much, I can’t tell you that right now. See how it goes.”

Dallas will counter with its own fireworks. CeeDee Lamb remains WR1, but George Pickens is putting together a career year after arriving via trade from Pittsburgh and is the one tracking Lamb’s 2023 All-Pro numbers. The 50-50 balls aren’t really 50-50 when Prescott lets it rip outside the numbers.

“If he’s one-on-one, he’s not covered. Not in my mind anyway,” Prescott said of Pickens. “And that’s not for just him. It’s for CeeDee as well. I said before, it’s not even a 50-50 ball. The favor lies in our hands.”

Two desperate teams, two elite quarterbacks, playoff stakes in the air, and turkey on the table. Thanksgiving at Jerry World is about to decide whether the Cowboys’ hot streak is a legit run—or just a really fun appetizer before the cold reality of December hits.