It’s a bit early for us to break out the rooting guide for the season, but there are a couple of reasons to do so. For one, the Dallas Cowboys have an early bye week this season. That’s not really new. Despite the NFL handing out byes through Week 14, Dallas has had a bye between Week 6 and Week 10 for the last nine seasons.
The other, and biggest reason is that there is a logjam of teams that are either bona fide or fringe contenders in the NFC this season. Dallas’ Week 5 loss to the San Francisco 49ers was devastating because of how it went down, but the result wasn’t unexpected. It was the Week 3 loss to the Arizona Cardinals that put the Cowboys in a “need” help situation.
Now, there’s context here. If Dallas wins a supermajority of their remaining 11 games, they don’t necessarily need a ton of help to get the coveted No. 1 seed in the conference. But the schedule is daunting and Dallas will inevitably lose more games as things move forward. Therefore help during their bye week can still go a long way towards helping.
Here’s a breakdown of which games hold interest this week and how Cowboys Nation should lean.