Happy Game Week, Dallas Cowboys Nation. It may be hard to believe, but the Cowboys take the field for a meaningful football game in just a matter of days as they travel to face the division rival, Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles, at Lincoln Financial Field in the NFL opener.
Everyone has their thoughts on how the game (and season) will go, with the Eagles penciled in as a strong favorite. It makes sense, considering the Cowboys are projected to win between seven and eight games this season. However, some computers seem to be on America’s Team’s side.
ESPN’s Seth Walder shared the season forecast, which was generated by simulating the season using ESPN’s Football Power Index (FPI).
He explains, “We’re detailing the story of a single simulation from ESPN’s Football Power Index, which normally uses 10,000 simulations to build its projections. To be clear, this is not my prediction or ESPN Analytics’ prediction of how this season will unfold.”
While many expect the Cowboys to be a non-factor in their first season under Brian Schottenheimer, the sim delivered a major surprise.
According to the sim, the Dallas Cowboys are your 2025-26 NFC East Champions. You read that right. Unfortunately, the team is bounced from the postseason in the Wild Card round, but a playoff berth this season would go down as a success.
“Maybe we shouldn’t be that surprised that the Cowboys made the playoffs (even if winning the division seemed unlikely),” Walder wrote. “Though the preseason chatter was all about Micah Parsons and his eventual trade, the remaining foundation of this team still included Dak Prescott, CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens. Considering Prescott finished second in QBR in 2023, Dallas was always capable of having a quality offense, and it was good enough in this case to make up for missing Parsons. Young pass rushers Donovan Ezeiruaku and Sam Williams stepping up helped, too.
“In the end, the Cowboys won the division with a 9-8 record, though they fizzled again in the postseason with a wild-card loss.”
The season gets underway in a matter of days, and the first step toward winning the NFC East crown would be upsetting the reigning champs in the season opener, so let’s see what the computer sims are made of.
