The Dallas Cowboys' season has a pulse.

The 31-28 win over the Kansas City Chiefs at AT&T Stadium keeps Dallas' season alive at 6-5-1, with the Detroit Lions up next week for Brian Schottenheimer's team.

We've spoken at length here of Dallas' brutal three-game gauntlet of the Philadelphia Eagles, Kansas City Chiefs, and Detroit Lions, and how that stretch would make or break the Cowboys' season.

Well, they're 2-0 ... with the Lions to come - and with a new flicker of hope.

Entering Thursday, Dallas held the No. 10 slot in the seven-team NFC playoff chase. The win inched them up to the No. 9 slot.

And on Friday? Another inch toward parity in the conference as the Bears beat Philly, 24-15.

The Eagles are still in charge in the NFC East with a record of 8-4. But they have lost two straight.

The Bears leapfrogged Philly into the No. 2 slot and are now 9-3 as well. 

What it all means? The playoff race is increasingly (maybe) sort of "anything goes.''

Now back to the Cowboys, who surely paid attention to the Friday result and who rather amazingly have just one more loss than the Eagles have.

They can't actually catch a collapsing Philadelphia team ...

Can they?

What the Cowboys team has done in the past two weeks isn't lost on Dak Prescott, who again willed his team to a win, going 27 of 39 for 320 yards with two touchdowns vs. KC.

“I mean, the two teams that played in the Super Bowl last year, you're talking about two organizations that obviously know how to win, and we just beat them both in two great games in four days,” Dak said. “Just showing the resiliency of this unit, this brotherhood, on top of everything that we've been through."

Given what was at stake back when the Cowboys faced the Las Vegas Raiders, the team got through that. 

Then to come from 21-0 down against the Eagles to win 24-21, then to back up just a few days later against Mahomes and the Chiefs, put up 457 total yards, and 31 points to slay the current AFC Champs, has Dak feeling a certain type of way.

"I don't know if there's been two more impressive wins, but I can tell you right now that we're not going to just sit on some high because of that," Prescott added. " We know we've got a big one coming again next week. All this really does for us is just give us more confidence knowing that we can go play with whoever.”

Needing to win at least two of the three games in the "gauntlet," the Cowboys, in this sort of form on both sides of the ball (credit Matt Eberflus for the defensive turnaround), will be confident heading into Ford Field next week.

Win that, and suddenly, the season will take on a whole different look.

Something's building at The Star, folks.