Cowboys rookies Dak Prescott and Ezekiel Elliott look to avenge only loss to rival Giants

As bizarre statistics go, this one deserves a triple take.

The last three times the New York Giants played a team that had won at least 11 games in a row, they lost at home, 38-35, 38-35 and 38-35.

Enter the Dallas Cowboys, who will strut into MetLife Stadium on Sunday night having strung together a club-record 11 consecutive victories.

Will the visitors fare as well as New England in 2007, Green Bay in 2011 and Carolina last season?

That’s certainly the hope of these upstart Cowboys, but they’re also looking to wash away the taste of their 20-19 season-opening loss to their NFC East rivals, their lone defeat of the season.

And rookie Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott intends to reintroduce himself after a ho-hum 51 yards in that game, his lowest output of the season.

“It was definitely frustrating because it was not how I imagined it,” said Elliott, who leads the NFL with 1,285 yards rushing. “But I think it definitely helped shape me into the player I am today, and put a chip on my shoulder early this season to go out there and get things right.”

That should serve as cold comfort to the Giants, who will be without Pro Bowl defensive lineman Jason Pierre-Paul, out with a sports hernia. Elliott and fellow rookie Dak Prescott, who replaced injured quarterback Tony Romo and then held onto the job, are the youthful one-two punch that has rocked the league.

“You can’t even call them rookies anymore,” Giants defensive end Olivier Vernon said of the Cowboys tandem. “It’s already past that stage. We’re in December. December is all that matters.”

Earlier this week, the NFL provided a glimpse at Pro Bowl voting, with Elliott (681,361) and Prescott (607,621) leading all players and with a considerable lead over the rest of the top five: New England quarterback Tom Brady (519,210), Pittsburgh receiver Antonio Brown (508,913) and Oakland quarterback Derek Carr (500,770).

Those votes don’t translate into a single yard on the field, of course, but they’re reflective of the success enjoyed by those two rookies, and of the Cowboys, who are looking to extend their franchise-best winning streak to 12 games and beyond.

Much is up for grabs for the Cowboys in this one. They already have clinched a playoff berth but would win the NFC East by beating the Giants. Should Dallas combine that with either a Detroit loss or a tie against Chicago, or a Seattle loss at Green Bay, then the Cowboys would get a first-round bye.

If Dallas won, and both Detroit and Seattle lost, the Cowboys would claim home-field advantage in the NFC playoffs with three weeks to go in the regular season.

Make no mistake, the Cowboys see those goals as more of a starting gate than a finish line.

“That’s never been our mindset to coast at any point,” Prescott said. “We get up in games, it’s not, ‘Let’s coast this game out and finish to win.’ It’s, ‘Keep the pedal on the metal and get things done.’ ”

The Giants are no pushovers. They had won six in a row before last Sunday’s 24-14 loss at Pittsburgh. Giants quarterback Eli Manning has the most completions (491), passing yards (6,033) and passing touchdowns (47) against the Cowboys of any quarterback in NFL history.

In the wake of the loss to the Steelers, Manning called football “a humbling game.”

“You’re riding a six-game winning streak and you’re feeling good,” he said. “Obviously, you get beat and you get brought back down. You get that sick feeling that comes with losses. It can’t get you down, and you can’t start moping around. … We have to bounce back quickly and understand the importance of this next game.”

Clearly, that isn’t lost on Elliott and Prescott.

“They build on the good things and they learn from the things that weren’t quite so good and they just keep moving on,” Cowboys Coach Jason Garrett said. “I think over the course of the first 12 games, we’ve seen each of them take strides in every aspect on their game at their position.”

Surely, the Cowboys would be delighted to follow in the path of those other three streaking teams and come away from a road game against the Giants with a 38-35 victory.

Then again, that might be a good omen for the Giants too. After two of those losses, they rebounded and went on to win the Super Bowl.

sam.farmer@latimes.com

Twitter: @LATimesfarmer