The long drought is over! Sunday night, the Dallas Cowboys start their 2026 NFL campaign against the New York Giants and their shiny new coach John Harbaugh. It is that magical time when almost every fan base in the NFL (sorry, Jets and Browns) are filled with hope for the revamped rosters.
Of course, all but one fan base will see their season end without a shiny new Lombardi Trophy to take home. And it has been a long, long time since Dallas fans had a championship to celebrate. But this year has seen
a real uptick in optimism about the Cowboys’ chances.
Is it justified, however? Our Sean Martin and Tom Ryle take a look at things.
TOM: One thing I believe is a truism in the NFL: We don’t know as much as we think we do about the teams. Any team. At this time last year almost no one was looking for Sam Darnold to lead the Seattle Seahawks back to the promised land. Most of the projections are based more on what each team was last year than what they are now. There are just so many changes and variables.
Paradoxically, that is one reason I think there are legitimate grounds for optimism about Dallas. The offense is largely the same as last year, and they were very, very good. The 2025 season was a disappointment because the defense was historically bad. The one major move from last year was the controversial Micah Parsons trade, which left a horrible taste in our mouths (although it seems to be looking like a lot better move as the full picture has come into focus.) Over the past seven months, we have seen a major rebuild of the D, starting with new coordinator Christian Parker.
And from almost any angle you look at it, the defense almost has to be better. That’s how terrible they were. If they can just be close to middle of the pack, this year should see Dallas back in the playoffs.
SEAN: First of all, let me just say as we get both this season and this series started how cool it is to be working with a BTB legend in Tom, and with that said, bring on the season! I am with the fanbase on the optimism, and after months of offseason writing about how the front office has been moving differently, it is fun to flip this around and talk about how it’s felt different as fans too.
The biggest difference for me has been not having to artificially hype up players that other team’s fanbases have never heard of, then inevitably asking what were we all thinking just a few games into the season. The Cowboys depth chart is now littered with players with at least some level of proven production you can actually point to in making a case for them, at very least on special teams where they’ll need improvements anyway.
The one area I’ll disagree with Tom here is that I’m tired of the “be great on offense, and just average on defense” narrative as good enough for the Cowboys to achieve their goals. We’ve seen plenty of such teams in very recent memory and all of them have fallen way short of breaking the drought. It’s time to hold this defense to a higher standard, and to me that starts with the interior defensive line which is where a lot of my focus will be on Sunday night.
TOM: Why, thank you for calling me a legend, which Webster’s defines as meaning “what, he’s still alive?”
You also touched on something that I think has been under reported, the different feel to the front office moves. (Although I think OCC, a legit legend, is on the story, and our newest writer Dyllan Rivers also took note in his first article.) The new acquisitions seem better fits. More impressive in my view is how they have finally gotten over the sunk cost fallacy and been much more willing to move on from recent draft picks.
As for the defense, I’m really hoping they start out in that mid range but start nudging into top 10 territory soon. We just might have to have a little patience. Meanwhile, we really have to hope they can manage the Tyler Smith injury well. That may be the real measure of the staff’s evolution.
SEAN: There’s no denying the Smith injury took a fair amount of wind out of the sails of optimism for this game and the start to the season. We’ve been saying all summer that interior offensive line depth is worrisome outside of T.J. Bass, but one injury is something they can withstand for now. Bass is the most experienced and trustworthy of the backups.
We’ve waited patiently to see the Cowboys throw the ball downfield with their full cast of stars out there offensively, and with Bass being even better in pass pro than he is as a run game mauler, I don’t expect those things to completely fall off the game plan. That makes limiting these types of big plays on defense the focus, which like you said almost has to improve by default, and with time could be even more of a strength.
TOM: I do think we agree that our optimism has some sound reasons behind it. Now we see how it plays out!
