If the last 24 NFL seasons are any indication, anything is possible for a team that won only seven games the previous season. Well, almost anything.
The historical record tells us that between 2002 (when the league moved to the current divisional alignment), 87 teams finished their season with seven wins. Here’s a topline view of how they followed that up:
- 39 of the 87 teams (45%) improved on their record the following year.
- 15 teams (17%) repeated their seven-win season from the previous year, just like the Cowboys did from 2024 to 2025.
- 33 teams (29%) finished the following season with an even worse record.
- 25 teams (29%) made the playoffs the season after finishing with seven wins.
- And here’s a surprising little nugget: Two teams won the Super Bowl (2017 Eagles, 2020 Bucs) in the season after a seven-win season, two more made the Super Bowl (2003 Panthers, 2015 Panthers) but lost.
Here’s the full data set.
body .sbnu-legacy-content-table td, body .sbnu-legacy-content-table th, body .sbnu-legacy-content-table { border: 1px solid #000 !important; border-collapse: collapse !important; }| Wins in season after a 7-win season (2002-2025) | ||||||||||||||||
| Wins | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
| No. of teams | 1 | — | 7 | 2 | 5 | 10 | 8 | 15 | 10 | 7 | 4 | 11 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
The NFL is a closed system in which teams tend toward a .500 record, and eight- or nine-win seasons are mathematically
the most likely outcome (with a 17-game schedule). In this system, every win above or below that .500 record is increasingly less likely, and the data above bears that out, even if the data doesn’t follow a strict normal distribution curve, spiking both at two and 11 wins.
But we can take this analysis one step further and look at the historical record of teams with a similar trajectory to the Cowboys and look at what happened to teams with consecutive seven-win seasons.
Since 2002, 14 teams have had that specific combination of records in consecutive years, and here’s an overview of how they fared in Year 3:
| Team | Period | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Playoffs |
| Eagles | 2015-2017 | 7-9 | 7-9 | 13-3 | Won Super Bowl |
| Seahawks | 2010-2012 | 7-9 | 7-9 | 11-5 | Div. Round |
| Saints | 2015-2017 | 7-9 | 7-9 | 11-5 | Div. Round |
| Commanders | 2020-2022 | 7-9 | 7-10 | 8-9 | – – |
| Falcons | 2022-2024 | 7-10 | 7-11 | 8-9 | – – |
| Bills | 2006-2008 | 7-9 | 7-9 | 7-9 | – – |
| Saints | 2014-2016 | 7-9 | 7-9 | 7-9 | – – |
| Falcons | 2021-2023 | 7-10 | 7-10 | 7-10 | – – |
| Bills | 2007-2009 | 7-9 | 7-9 | 6-10 | – – |
| Dolphins | 2009-2011 | 7-9 | 7-9 | 6-10 | – – |
| Rams | 2012-2014 | 7-8-1 | 7-9 | 6-10 | – – |
| Jets | 2022-2024 | 7-10 | 7-10 | 5-11 | – – |
| Falcons | 2018-2020 | 7-9 | 7-9 | 4-12 | – – |
| Commanders | 2017-2019 | 7-9 | 7-9 | 3-12 | – – |
| Cowboys | 2024-2026 | 7-10 | 7-9-1 | ??? | ??? |
Unlike the previous data set where the data suggested that almost anything possible for a seven-win team the following season, once you string together consecutive seven-win seasons, the outlook looks less rosy, Philly’s Super Bowl win notwithstanding. Of the 14 teams listed here, only three (21%) had a winning record, 11 (79%) maintained their losing record. And that’s the real danger of consecutive losing seasons: mediocrity creeps in, slowly at first, but once it takes hold it’s very hard to get out of the rut without decisive action by the front office.
So what does this mean for the Cowboys?
It means that anything can happen in 2026, both good and bad. The NFL is intrinsically designed to be a parity-driven league; the draft, revenue sharing, the salary cap, compensatory draft picks, even the schedule, everything about the NFL is designed so that every team from every market has a legit opportunity to compete year-in and year-out.
The 2026 Cowboys record will be determined by what they are doing starting today, and for an organization that values comfort over accountability, taking decisive action to fix their many, many issues may be too much to ask for.
But hey, the Thanksgiving Day game against the Chiefs shattered viewership records, the Cowboys once again led the league in attendance by a wide margin, they had a special on Netflix, Jerry Jones had a cameo in Landman, and their cheerleaders even have their own TV-show.
What more do you want?
