Getty The Dallas Cowboys are coming up on a very important season for the team, and there’s one X factor on the team.

The Dallas Cowboys are gearing up for what will be a hugely important season for the team. The Cowboys are “America’s Team,” so the fact that they’ve suffered through losing seasons lately just isn’t acceptable. This is a team that has fans around the world, many without even ties to Dallas, so they’re expected to always be one of the strongest teams in the league.

This year, the Cowboys are under a new head coach in Brian Schottenheimer, so expectations are high that he’ll turn this team around quickly. One thing they have going for them is that their franchise quarterback, Dak Prescott, is healthy again, so hopefully he’ll be able to play for the full season, unlike last season. So, who is the most important person to the Cowboys’ fate?

In a piece published on Wednesday, August 13, for ESPN, the publication’s staff looks at each NFL team and predicts the win-loss record and X factor for each team. It’s early to predict the entire season record, but they did their best based on ESPN’s research and numbers. So, let’s get into their prediction for the Dallas Cowboys, which is mixed.

Dallas Cowboys and the Team’s X Factor

GettyDak Prescott #4 of the Dallas Cowboys on the sidelines with head coach Brian Schottenheimer during the NFL Preseason 2025 game between Dallas Cowboys and Los Angeles Rams.

In the piece, ESPN describes their methodology for determining the win-loss records and X factors for each team. “To look at the bigger picture and just how good — or bad — every team could be this season, we turned to our ESPN Football Power Index (FPI),” they explain. “The FPI projected win totals for every team based on 20,000 simulations of the entire season performed by our ESPN Research team, but to find a high and low, we picked out the middle 90% of those simulations.”

For the Cowboys, the ceiling is 11-6, and the floor is 5-12. That’s a pretty decent prediction.

So, what’s the X factor for the Dallas Cowboys? The one thing that will make or break the team this season, ESPN believes, is Schottenheimer.

“How ready is Schottenheimer for his first head coaching job? He saw his father, Marty, coach four teams, and has been an assistant coach in the NFL for more than 20 years,” Todd Archer of ESPN notes. “Players like the culture he has built so far in the spring and summer, but he will be counted on to make split-second decisions that will impact winning and losing, which ultimately will be how he is judged.”

He adds that Dallas isn’t “a typical team, given the attention they receive on an hourly basis.”

Another Win-Loss Projection for the Dallas Cowboys

Bleacher Report has their own thoughts on how many games the Dallas Cowboys will win in the 2025-26 season. In a piece published following the draft, Moe Moton predicts a 9-8 record for the team.

In the piece, Moton states that one area of concern is that “Matt Eberflus is an established play-caller, but his unit could be short-handed on the back seven, leaving the Cowboys susceptible to passing attacks.” He also predicts, “Dallas will start slow and battle for a playoff spot with an explosive passing attack late in the season.”

So, both win-loss predictions are middle ground for the Cowboys, which isn’t a bad thing. Chances are, no matter how this team performs this season, they’ll out perform the last one.