Dallas lost in New York without its best offensive lineman, and our model dropped the Cowboys two full wins
Updated
The Cowboys were supposed to outscore people. In Week 1 they scored 20 in New York, lost 28-20 to a Giants team we projected for five wins, and did it without Tyler Smith, who needed thumb surgery the week before the opener and will miss four to six weeks. Dak Prescott went 22 of 34 for 175 yards with two touchdowns and an interception. Javonte Williams got twelve carries. When we re-ran the season with all of that seeded in, Dallas fell from eleven wins to nine, a 9-8 finish with a 58 percent playoff chance, and the mild over we published in July became a mild under.
The offense is still the reason to watch, and it still grades well. Our model projects Dallas scoring 401 points, seventh in the league, with the seventh-most yards. Prescott's line reads 4,469 yards and 30 touchdowns against eleven interceptions behind a passer rating near 100, a step down from the 4,665 and 32 we had in the summer but still a top-tier season. CeeDee Lamb projects for 95 catches and 1,264 yards with eight scores. George Pickens for 77 catches and 1,061 yards. Jake Ferguson for 58 catches and five touchdowns. Williams carries the ground game at 941 yards and nine scores. That is a dangerous group, and against the Giants it produced 175 passing yards, which is the part that needs explaining.
The explanation is up front. Smith is the best lineman on the roster and one of the best guards in football, and a line without him for the first month is a line that does not give Prescott time to find Pickens downfield. The Cowboys did not turn the game into the shootout they are built to win because they could not stay on schedule, and when we ran the rest of the season with Smith out through October that pattern repeated often enough to cost the Cowboys two wins. When he is back, the offense we previewed in July is back. Until then it is a very good passing game working behind a patched-up front.
The defense is the reason the projection is a mild under rather than a plunge, and it is also the reason the ceiling is capped. Our model projects Dallas allowing 372 points, 18th in the league, right where we had the unit in the summer. Rashan Gary and Donovan Ezeiruaku project for roughly nine and a half sacks apiece off the edges, Kenny Clark for eight inside, and Caleb Downs had a sack and a forced fumble in New York. What the defense does not do is take the ball away. The Cowboys project for fewer than nine interceptions, 29th in the league, and a defense that does not create short fields cannot cover for an offense that is temporarily short of protection.
The Giants game exposed both halves of that. Jaxson Dart threw three touchdowns without an interception against this secondary, and the Dallas offense could not answer because its line could not hold. DeMarvion Overshown left with a hamstring injury and Malik Hooker with a likely fractured forearm, which means the defense may be shorter-handed in Week 2 than it was in Week 1.
The division changed shape in the same weekend. Philadelphia beat Washington and climbed to twelve wins in our projection with the best defense in football. The Giants, who we had at five wins, still project for five, but they own the head-to-head now. When we ran the rest of the season, Dallas finished a clear second in the NFC East and fought for a wild card rather than the division, and the two Philadelphia games look like a heavier lift than they did in July.
The market opened Dallas around nine and a half wins, and in July we sat a win above it. Now we sit a shade under, and the lean is explained by one lineman's thumb and one bad Sunday rather than any change in what the roster is. If Smith is back by mid-October and the passing game looks like the summer projection from then on, ten wins is still very much on the table. If the line stays leaky and the defense keeps failing to create turnovers, nine is generous.
The path to being wrong in either direction runs through Prescott, as it always has. His health is the whole season, and a middling defense with no takeaways is not built to win games without him. The path to more is the offense returning to the 31-27 games it was designed to win once the protection is whole. The path to less is the Giants game becoming a template.
The next four weeks are the ones Tyler Smith will miss, and they are not gentle. Washington comes to Dallas in Week 2, which is the most winnable game on the slate and the one the Cowboys need. Then Baltimore visits with the second-best defense in football, Dallas goes to Houston against the league's best pass rush without its best pass protector, and Tampa Bay comes in Week 5. When we ran that stretch, the Cowboys were favored against Washington and Tampa Bay, a modest underdog to Baltimore and a clear one in Houston, which is a 2-2 month if the patched-up line holds and 1-3 if it does not. Smith is due back around the time the schedule softens. The question is what the record looks like when he gets there.
So the read is a loaded offense playing short-handed for a month, stapled to a passable defense that does not take the ball away, in a division with a champion at the top. Nine wins is where that lands. The firepower is real, the reinforcements have a date, and the Cowboys are a playoff coin flip rather than the double-digit win team we called them in the summer.
