The Cowboys enter year two under Brian Schottenheimer with a brand-new defensive coordinator, a franchise-tagged No. 1 receiver, and a big question hanging over the building: was last year’s near-miss a sign of progress, or a ceiling? Here’s our team’s full breakdown of where Dallas stands heading into 2026.
2025 Season Recap
Dallas finished 2025 at 7-9-1, good for second in the NFC East but out of the playoffs for a second straight year after Philadelphia clinched the division in Week 16. The record told two different stories depending on the opponent: the Cowboys went 4-2 within the division but a rough 3-7-1 everywhere else, a split that captures a team capable of playing with anyone on a given Sunday but unable to find consistency across a full slate. The offseason before the season had already reshaped the roster in a big way — guard Zack Martin retired after 11 seasons, edge rusher DeMarcus Lawrence left for Seattle, and in the biggest move of all, All-Pro pass rusher Micah Parsons was traded to Green Bay in exchange for defensive tackle Kenny Clark and two first-round picks.
There were real bright spots. Dak Prescott passed Tony Romo as the franchise’s all-time leading passer and authored a 21-point comeback against Philadelphia in November, kicker Brandon Aubrey earned All-Pro honors, and CeeDee Lamb made the Pro Bowl despite the team’s overall struggles. The season was also marked by tragedy when defensive end Marshawn Kneeland died in November, a loss that weighed on the locker room the rest of the way. On a lighter note, Dallas’s Thanksgiving matchup with Kansas City drew 57.2 million viewers, the most-watched regular season game on record.
Offseason Moves
The most consequential change came on defense, where Matt Eberflus was let go after a single, difficult season running that side of the ball. In his place, the Cowboys hired Christian Parker away from Philadelphia’s staff — Dallas’s fourth defensive coordinator in as many years. Parker has coached under Vic Fangio in Green Bay and Denver and most recently helped an Eagles defense allow the sixth-fewest passing yards and the fewest passing touchdowns in the league in 2025. He’s also developed Patrick Surtain II into a three-time All-Pro, and the front office is hoping his track record for developing cornerbacks and building a disciplined scheme translates quickly to a defense that struggled through 2025.
On offense, the headline story was retaining George Pickens. After trade rumors swirled ahead of the draft, the Cowboys instead signed him to a fully guaranteed $27.3 million franchise tag, with COO Stephen Jones and owner Jerry Jones both publicly committing to a long-term deal down the road. Pickens gives Prescott a second true difference-maker alongside Lamb, and the plan is clearly to build around that pairing rather than move on from it.
The Parsons trade continued to pay dividends in the draft, where Dallas used its extra first-round capital on safety Caleb Downs at pick 11 and edge rusher Malachi Lawrence at pick 23, followed by linebacker Jaishawn Barham in round three — a clear effort to rebuild the front seven and secondary in one draft class. Free agency was quieter but purposeful: quarterback Sam Howell was added for depth behind Prescott, receivers Marquez Valdes-Scantling and Tyler Johnson bolstered the wideout room, and defensive additions like safeties P.J. Locke and Jalen Thompson, interior linemen Jonathan Bullard and Otito Ogbonnia, and trade acquisitions Rashan Gary and Dee Winters were all aimed at giving Parker more pieces to work with right away.
2026 Season Outlook
Dallas’s schedule is widely considered one of the toughest in the league — by opponent win totals, it ranks among the top handful of hardest slates in the NFL, and the non-division portion is particularly unforgiving. The Cowboys open with an international game against Baltimore in Week 3, then face a gauntlet that includes Green Bay, San Francisco, Seattle, and the Rams at various points, on top of the standard two games apiece against Philadelphia, Washington, and the Giants. An offense that finished top-10 in DVOA a year ago gives this team a real ceiling, but the schedule leaves very little margin for the slow starts that plagued Dallas outside division play in 2025.
Our Team’s Projection
We’re projecting the Cowboys to finish 9-8 in 2026. That number is built on the belief that an already strong offense gets better with Pickens locked in and Lamb healthy, while a defense under new coordinator Christian Parker takes real, if uneven, steps forward after last year’s injury-riddled unit finally gets some continuity in scheme and personnel.
Dallas’s season win total currently sits at 9.5, and our 9-8 projection leans toward the under. The case for the over is straightforward: this offense has legitimate top-10 upside, the red zone efficiency that cost Dallas points a year ago (touchdowns on just 57% of chances) is a fixable problem rather than a talent problem, and a full season of Parker’s scheme could turn the defense from a liability into a middle-of-the-pack unit fast enough to swing two or three close games. The case for the under centers on schedule difficulty and unresolved questions on the defensive side — a first-year coordinator installing a new system, secondary and front-seven pieces still gelling, and a slate that offers few easy weeks to work out the kinks. Schedule-shape and roster-continuity questions like these are exactly what makes win total betting its own skill, and our Bet Smarter breakdown on how season win totals actually work is a good starting point if you’re weighing this number yourself.
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