While the Dallas Cowboys have stumbled their way to a 1-2 record so far in 2020 there’s still plenty of season left for things to improve. In fact, Dallas’ next five games present a good opportunity to right the ship and perhaps even be 5-3 in the standings at the midway point.
The potential road to recovery begins this Sunday with the Cleveland Browns coming to town. While the Browns are feeling good right now on a two-game win streak, those victories have come against the winless Bengals and the 1-2 Washington Football Team.
If the Cowboys play up to their potential, which should be helped this week by the return of Tyron Smith, Dallas is arguably a better team than Cleveland. They’ve certainly faced tougher opponents so far this year in the Rams, Falcons, and Seahawks.
In fact, despite the disparity in their records and level of opponents, the Cowboys actually have a slightly better point differential (-9) in their three games this year than the Browns (-13).
That’s not to say Cleveland is going to be an easy win. They have a strong pass rush with Myles Garrett and Adrian Clayborn (remember him?) and stout running attack with Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt. Both could exploit some of Dallas’ biggest weaknesses right now.
It’s funny to say this, but things should get easier for the Cowboys after playing the Cleveland Browns.
Next week they have their first division game against the 0-3 Giants, who now without Saquon Barkley are barely solvent. Having just lost 36-9 to the 49ers’ second stringers, New York is in freefall and Jason Garrett’s first chance at revenge against the Cowboys isn’t looking promising.
The Cowboys also get their first meetings with Philadelphia and Washington at the end of the month. Both games are on the road but that doesn’t mean what it used to thanks to the pandemic. Still, the Cowboys have lost both of their away games so far in 2020.
These matchups against NFC East rivals could actually help Dallas pad their record. Right now they have a combined 1-4-1 record; 3/4 of the worst division in football currently.
The Cowboys aren’t helping with their own 1-2 record. We may simply be the best of a bad bunch, and even that is yet to be proven until we play the Football Team.
That’s why our Week 6 game against the Arizona Cardinals (2-1) is a scary sight. I think the Cowboys are good enough to run the table against their rivals and even get this win this Sunday over Cleveland, but they’re going to have to look a lot better before I’ll have any faith in them against the Cardinals.
That’s why I’m not even suggesting Dallas could be 6-2 after Week 8. Is it possible? Sure, but the idea that the Cowboys would suddenly find themselves enough to go on a five-game win streak just doesn’t jive with what we’ve seen so far.
All I’m hoping for is that we split the games with Arizona and Cleveland and then handle business against our hapless division foes. That will at least set a decent stage for the second half of the season, when hopefully the Cowboys get healthier and can start being more competitive against better teams.
The first step is this Sunday against the Browns.
