Fansided
Fansided

Six reasons the Dallas Cowboys are going to nosedive in 2017

By Sayre Bedinger

HOLLYWOOD, CA - JULY 11: NFL player Ezekiel Elliott at BODY at ESPYS at Avalon on July 11, 2017 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by John Sciulli/Getty Images for ESPN)
HOLLYWOOD, CA - JULY 11: NFL player Ezekiel Elliott at BODY at ESPYS at Avalon on July 11, 2017 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by John Sciulli/Getty Images for ESPN) /
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
5 of 6
Next
ARLINGTON, TX – JANUARY 15: Dak Prescott
ARLINGTON, TX – JANUARY 15: Dak Prescott /

5. Schedule difficulty

I don’t often like to use strength of schedule as a reason why teams won’t do well in a new season, because the teams they face in 2017 are never exactly the same as they were in 2016.

That being said, the Cowboys’ first couple of games are against the New York Giants and Denver Broncos, two of the best teams in the NFL at defending the pass. That should be no problem for the Cowboys, since they have Ezekiel Elliott, right?

Not if he’s suspended…

The Cowboys have a bye week in mid-October and then have a very strange stretch of games where they play Sunday, November 19th at home against Philadelphia before they play two straight Thursday games, one of course being on Thanksgiving.

The Cowboys then finish out the season with three out of four games on the road, including three matchups against 2016 playoff squads (Giants, Raiders, Seahawks) and a road game to close out the season against Philadelphia.

No one in the NFL plays an ‘easy’ schedule unless they get a bunch of teams playing backup quarterbacks due to untimely injuries, and even then, it’s not easy to win in this league. The Cowboys face a pretty tough schedule, both in terms of their opponents as well as the strange layout of games.

Home/NFL Hot Takes