Cowboys: An Up-Close Look At 2016 Opponents

The Dallas Cowboys play the NFC and AFC North divisions in addition to their usual diet of NFC East competition – just one match-up remains undetermined.

With just a single, meaningless game for the Dallas Cowboys to play in 2015, is it too early to get a taste of the 2016 schedule?

Nope.

While we certainly don’t know when the Cowboys will play anybody, we already know all but one opponent and all locations that the Cowboys will visit next season.

In addition to the home-and-away routine between the Washington Redskins, Philadelphia Eagles and New York Giants, the Cowboys will also play the entire NFC North, AFC North and one opponent from each the NFC West and the NFC South.

The Cowboys could have two division rivals with new head coaches next season, and obviously one for sure with this week’s canning of Chip Kelly in Philadelphia. But things don’t look too certain for Giants coach Tom Coughlin either. The East isn’t looking like a division that Dallas shouldn’t be able to take right back in ’16, but let’s not get carried away with projections just yet.

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The NFC South opponent is yet to be determined, but we do know that it will be whoever ends up in last place, currently a race to the bottom between the New Orleans Saints and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. As the Cowboys played the entire NFC South in 2015, we know that Dallas will play a rematch between either the Saints or the Bucs, but this time at AT&T Stadium as opposed to a road game.

With the Saints playing the Atlanta Falcons and the Buccaneers playing the Carolina Panthers on Week 17, it should be a real dogfight for the last-place spot in the South. My money is on the Panthers sitting some players out with the top-seed already wrapped up, thus the possibility of an ‘upset.’ Expect the Saints in Arlington next season.

The NFC West opponent will be the San Francisco 49ers at Levi’s Stadium, the very site of Super Bowl 50 in just over a month from now. If you witnessed ‘The Catch’ back in January of 1982 as one of your first Cowboys memories, any game at San Francisco is worth circling on the calendar, period. Unlike previous NFC championship contests between these two former NFC titans, these two teams will simply be trying to prove that their relevant, both likely to choose in the first few selections in the NFL draft next April – the ‘Niners could have a rookie quarterback in place.

Playing the entire NFC North next season, the unthinkable looms for the Cowboys – another game against the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field, a venue where America’s Team has just a single victory over it’s 55-year history. Another road game against the Minnesota Vikings looms, but in terms of weather the Cowboys get a break since the new U.S. Bank Stadium does have a fixed roof. In Arlington the Cowboys will host the Chicago Bears and the Detroit Lions in a rematch of that Divisional Playoff game last January.

Rounding out the schedule, Dallas plays each of the four teams from the AFC North, which includes nothing but outdoor venues. The two road games take place against the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Cleveland Browns. Is it possible that, instead of acquiring him over the offseason, the Cowboys might actually play against Johnny Manziel? Home games include meetings with the Cincinnati Bengals and the Baltimore Ravens, a team that won it’s last game in North Texas in what ended up the final game at Texas Stadium in 2008.

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All in all, this schedule looks rather lenient, at least as we sit right now. Four last place teams grace the schedule in addition to the six other games against NFC East rivals that don’t look scary at all.

Then again, the NFL is a week-by-week league, and the idea that any projections can made so long as owner Jerry Jones continues his self-appointed role as general manager and head coach Jason Garrett continues his well-paid apprenticeship with the most valuable sports franchise in the world is almost ridiculous.