Rested Cowboys need to leave Las Vegas with a Week 11 win

The Dallas Cowboys will be coming off their bye week when they hit the road in the 11^th week of the 2025 NFL season.

They are getting a rebuilding Las Vegas Raiders team. But it’s a team being coached by Pete Carroll, who knows how to get a young team ready to play.

And they get an up-close look at a player they really should have traded up in the draft to get: Ashton Jeanty.

With a home game against the Eagles looming the following week, the last thing Dallas can afford is to get caught looking past the Raiders.

Especially in a season that has a very tough schedule. Every win will be needed to make the playoffs this winter.

This will be the first time the Cowboys have played the Raiders in Las Vegas, and only the second meeting since the franchise moved from Oakland.

The first game was at AT&T Stadium and ended with a 36-33 overtime win for the Raiders in 2021.

A Trend To Be Worried About?

Remember the old joke about the three expectant fathers in the hospital waiting room?

The nurse comes in and tells the first dad his wife has delivered twins. He reveals that he works for the Doubleday Company.

She returns later and tells the second dad, who works for 3M, that he’s the father of triplets.

A few minutes later she returns to find Dad #3 nervously pacing the room, and she asks him what’s wrong. “I work for 7-Up,” he says.

In the history of meetings between the two teams there is a similar pattern developing that might give Cowboys fans pause.

The Raiders won the first-ever meeting at Oakland in 1974. The Cowboys won the rematch, also in Oakland, six years later.

Then the Raiders won the next two meetings, followed by Dallas taking the next two games.

Between 1998-2005, Oakland won the next three.

The Cowboys responded with a three-game win streak, snapped by the 2021 Raiders win.

So does this mean the Cowboys are destined to suffer a four-game losing streak to the Raiders? Or can they break that pattern with a win in November?

By The Numbers

The Cowboys will hope to even the all-time series against the Raiders at 7-7. They are already 4-3 when facing them on the road.

It will be the first time the teams have met on the 11^th week of the schedule.

Dallas is 34-27-2 in Week 11 games all-time. They are 17-16-1 when playing on the road during this week.

For whatever reason, the schedule makers seem to like sending the Cowboys packing when it comes time for the 11^th week of the schedule.

This will be the eighth straight season that Dallas will play away from home in Week 11. They are 5-2 in those games, so apparently they haven’t minded.

Unfortunately, both losses came against AFC opponents – Kansas City in 2021 and Houston last year.

All five of the wins were against NFC teams.