The Dallas Cowboys will find out their official schedule on Thursday night. Until then, we’ll look at the opponents on the docket and discuss the outlook.
Each year the release of the NFL schedule is highly anticipated. It isn’t quite the spectacle of the NFL Draft, but in some ways, it is just as important to a team’s upcoming season. An easy schedule can make it, a hard schedule can break it. That applies to the Dallas Cowboys and for each of the other 31 teams in the league.
For those unfamiliar with how NFL scheduling works, it’s actually a fairly simple formula. Each team plays their divisional opponents twice each. On top of that they play each team from a division within their conference. They also play each team from a division in the other conference.
To round out the schedule, they’ll play the two remaining teams from their conference that finished in the same rank within their division from the previous season.
With the logistics settled, let’s start examining each team that is on the Dallas Cowboys’ 2017 schedule as it’s set to be official on Thursday night.
NFC East Rivals
Benjamin Franklin once said, “In this world noting can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” He mostly got that right, but he forgot to include one thing. Really, it’s death, taxes, and yearly games against the New York Giants, Washington Redskins and Philadelphia Eagles.
The NFC East will feature some of the Dallas Cowboys’ greatest competition. The New York Giants are coming off a playoff campaign, and have strengthened their receiving corps with the addition of Brandon Marshall.
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The Giants defense gave the Cowboys offense fits last year, and with no real losses to speak of, Big Blue poses a viable threat to Dallas’ supremacy of the East.
Meanwhile, the Washington Redskins are coming off a heartbreaking third place finish that barely saw them miss the playoffs. However, the Redskins lost their top two receivers from a season ago, and haven’t made major additions besides poaching ex-Cowboys defensive tackle Terrell McClain.
Lastly, the Philadelphia Eagles are entering the second year of rebuilding after the Chip Kelley era, and will have a second-year signal-caller under center. Carson Wentz showed promise in his rookie season, and should improve in year two.
In addition, the Eagles added stud receiver Alshon Jeffery, who should provide them with a viable threat. Behind the Giants, the Eagles are the next greatest threat to Dallas. As usual, the Cowboys will play one home game against each NFC East rival, and one away game against each.