Most often when a team misses the playoffs but comes into the following year with renewed enthusiasm that optimism is driven by a strong finish the previous season.
This year, the Dallas Cowboys have high expectations.
Of course, Jerry Jones, the Cowboys flamboyant owner, is always promoting his team as being on the cusp of another Super Bowl win. He’s been preaching that for 30 years, and “America’s Team” hasn’t won a Vince Lombardi Trophy since the 1995 season. And, despite this year’s optimism, the Cowboys closed out their 2025 campaign with losses in four of their final five games.
What is driving the high expectations in Big D now?
Perhaps it is based on the regular season performances of their long tenured starting quarterback, Dak Presoctt.
Prescott is talked up by Jones each year as if he were the likes of Roger Staubach or Troy Aikman, the only two quarterbacks in Cowboys history to guide Dallas to Super Bowl victories. Prescott has stats that rank him among the best quarterbacks in the league if only factoring in the regular season. Prescott in the playoffs has been a dismal failure.
Prescott has never advanced out of the Divisional Round in the postseason. He has split four Wild Card contests but lost all three Divisional games he has participated in while preventing the Cowboys from even advancing to an NFC Championship Game during his ten seasons running their offense.
In the NFC East Division this season the Cowboys could get stiff competition from all sides. The Philadelphia Eagles are just one season removed from a Super Bowl win and have won their division three of the past four seasons. The Washington Commanders are looking to bounce back after a disappointing 2025 campaign following a surprise trip to the NFC Championship Game the prior season.
And then, the long-standing doormats in the NFC East, the New York Giants, have a new head coach and what they hope to be their franchise quarterback in Jaxson Dart. Their new head coach is not new to the position, moving from his surprise firing after 18 mostly successful seasons in the same position with the Baltimore Ravens to the Giants is John Harbaugh.
The Giants have a collection of talent gained from years of high draft picks based on poor regular season records. A last place schedule this season could also buoy their efforts. Unlike the Cowboys, the Giants finished their 2025 season with wins in three of their final four games including a season concluding victory over the Cowboys.
Dallas’ problems last year were mostly focused on a porous defense. In nine of their 17 games in 2025 the Cowboys allowed 30 or more points, 40 or more three times. Still, first-year head coach Brian Schottenheimer kept the Cowboys competitive in most of their games and like his father, longtime NFL Head Coach Marty Schottenheimer, developed a strong relationship with his players and staff.
From our perspective, Schottenheimer showed great poise in a very difficult position that began with his team owner unable to come to terms with the best defensive player on the team and shipping him to Green Bay in a trade that drastically changed the defensive culture on Schottenheimer’s team. Now, a year later, the Cowboys have moved on from Micah Parsons departure and appear ready to challenge for the top spot in their competitive division.
The NFC is poised to soon become the best division in football … and the Cowboys are leading that charge in a season they should add a few wins to the seven victories they picked up last season. Their 2026 win total is set at what looks high, 9½, but it is a number Prescott should eclipse in his 11th year as the Cowboys starting quarterback.
What will matter most to the Dallas faithful is how their quarterback fares once in the playoffs.