And just like that, thoughts turn to the 2022 NFL campaign. Every team is now 0-0, with a potential Super Bowl run laid out in front of them. While the next season’s schedule won’t be released for a while, we do know who will play whom… and where. Factor in a few givens, a couple longstanding traditions, and a common-sense assumption here and there, and Cowboys fans can try to piece together at least a few possibilities.
There’s a decent chance that 2022’s regular-season slate will start the same way 2021’s did: with America’s Team on the road, taking on the defending champs to kick off the new season in primetime.
As winners of the NFC East, the Cowboys were already scheduled to play the Rams, who claimed the NFC West crown en route to the Super Bowl LVI title. And it had already been determined that their matchup would take place in Los Angeles. Tradition holds that the Super Bowl champs host the NFL Kickoff Game, with just a few exceptions over the last two decades.
In 2019, for example, the season opener did not feature the defending Super Bowl champions, as the NFL chose to instead ride the “100th anniversary” theme with an old-school Packers-Bears tilt at Soldier Field. And in 2013, the champion Ravens were the away team for opening night due to a scheduling conflict in their home stadium.
So while the league schedule-makers could theoretically throw a late-breaking curveball, it’s hard to imagine the first game of 2022 wouldn’t take place Thursday, September 8 (the Thursday after Labor Day) at SoFi Stadium, the league’s favorite sparkly new jewel.
Next, we look at the Rams’ list of 2022 opponents, specifically, the teams they’ll play at home. There are, of course, their NFC West rivals: the 49ers, Cardinals, and Seahawks. But looking back at Kickoff Games past, the league tends to shy away from divisional matchups in that setting.
It has happened before: the aforementioned Packers-Bears meeting in 2019, Washington and the Giants in 2008, and the Cowboys-Giants in 2012. But in the other 17 Kickoff Games that have been played since the league turned it into an event-with-a-capital-E, the NFL hasn’t used opening night for a divisional showdown.
That leaves six other teams the Rams could host in Week 1. A high-profile clash between two projected contenders with big national followings is usually the goal, so one can probably reasonably rule out the Panthers and Falcons.
There’s geography to consider, too. In an effort to draw in the widest audience possible, the league may not want to pair two Western teams in the primetime slot. That would scratch the Broncos and Raiders from the list, even though both teams do have widespread fanbases, and the Rams facing either would likely be fun. (The added wrinkle of the Raiders’ long history and enduring presence in L.A. could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your perspective.)
That leaves us with two last possibilities, both of which provide compelling arguments and either of which would make a ton of sense: Buffalo and Dallas.
The Bills, of course, were a legitimate Super Bowl contender this past season and went right down to the wire versus Kansas City in one of the most exiting playoff games in NFL history. Quarterback Josh Allen is a rising superstar, and Buffalo is one of the small-market darlings of the football world. They’ve already opened among the favorites to reach and win Super Bowl LVII. The thought of Bills Mafia and their breakaway tailgating tables invading Hollywood on opening night has plenty of big-time potential in terms of storylines and high drama.
But the Cowboys are the league’s undisputed ratings juggernaut. Their visit to Tampa to kick off the 2021 season was the eighth-most-watched game of the entire year and the highest-rated NFL Kickoff Game since 2015. Was part of that tune-in just to see how Dak Prescott would perform after an 11-month absence? Sure. But Dallas always brings millions of extra eyes; they played in five of the most-watched games of the last regular season.
The Cowboys are definitely visiting SoFi Stadium in 2022; that much is guaranteed. But having them do it on opening night- so the Lombardi Trophy is paraded right under the noses of Cowboys Nation; so Prescott, Parsons, and Co. get an up-close look at the Rams’ Super Bowl rings; so Jerry Jones has to watch yet another championship banner get unfurled right under his nose- and have it all happen in a stadium that the Cowboys consider their satellite home venue?
The regular-season schedule likely won’t be released until sometime this spring, but all of that juicy subplot may be more than the NFL can possibly pass up as they look to kick off 2022 with a bang.
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