Tag: Dallas Cowboys vs New York Giants

Cowboys schedule: Is Dallas playing today?

Are the Cowboys playing today? Here’s a look at the 2024 schedule; results and the games to come.

The bulk of Week 13 of the NFL football schedule has arrived, with 12 games on Sunday’s slate. Will the Dallas Cowboys be playing football today?

The Cowboys have won two consecutive football games, in an attempt to turn around a lost season. The worst fears about a Mike McCarthy and staff lame-duck year seemingly had come to fruition, with the team being non-competitive as a whole in several games. But with two straight wins coming against division opponents, the team has gained back a bit of respectability. Fans won’t be able to watch them on Sunday, though.

Dallas isn’t on a bye week, however. They simply already played this week when they took down the New York Giants, 27-20, on Thanksgiving. That game was part of the Week 13 schedule, as eight teams have already seen action between Thursday and Friday action.

Dallas finally earned their first victory of the season at AT&T Stadium. Here’s a look at their schedule so far this year.

TEAM 2024 schedule

Week Date Opponent Time (CT) Result
1 Sep. 8 @ Cleveland Browns 3:25 p.m. W, 33-17
2 Sep. 15 vs New Orleans Saints Noon L, 44–19
3 Sep. 22 vs Baltimore Ravens 3:25 p.m. L, 28-25
4 Sep. 26 @ New York Giants (TNF) 7:15 p.m. W, 20-15
5 Oct. 6 @ Pittsburgh Steelers (SNF) 7:20 p.m. W, 20-17
6 Oct. 13 vs Detroit Lions 3:25 p.m. L, 47-9
7 BYE WEEK
8 Oct. 27 @ San Francisco 49ers (SNF) 7:20 p.m. L, 30-24
9 Nov. 3 @ Atlanta Falcons Noon L, 27-21
10 Nov. 10 vs Philadelphia Eagles 3:25 p.m. L, 34-6
11 Nov. 18 vs Houston Texans (MNF) 7:15 p.m. L, 34-10
12 Nov. 24 @ Washington Commanders Noon W, 34-26
13 Nov. 28 vs New York Giants (Thanksgiving) 3:30 p.m. W, 27-20
14 Dec. 9 vs Cincinnati Bengals (MNF) 7:15 p.m. TBD
15 Dec. 15 @ Carolina Panthers Noon TBD
16 Dec. 22 vs Tampa Bay Buccaneers (SNF) 7:20 p.m. TBD
17 Dec. 29 @ Philadelphia Eagles 3:25 p.m. TBD
18 Jan. 5 vs Washington Commanders TBD TBD

*prime-time game

For a look at how the rest of the season could play out for Dallas, check out this list of predictions.

Shifting the Overshown window: a major takeaway in Cowboys 27-20 win

DeMarvion Overshown has normalized the spectacular and that’s great for the Cowboys now and moving forward. | From @ReidDHanson

The Overton Window is known as the shifting spectrum of government policies that are deemed acceptable by the masses. What seemed crazy one year ago might now seem perfectly fine today. It’s achieved by changing circumstances and/or desensitization to the public.

DeMarvion Overshown has produced his own shifting window. When the Texas product was first drafted by the Cowboys in 2023, he was player without a clear and obvious position. At 6-foot-2, 220-pounds, he played a safety-linebacker hybrid role in college and projected to play something similar in the NFL.

After missing his rookie season to a season-ending injury, Overshown has been used largely as a linebacker in 2024. Yet day by day, he’s seen more and more opportunities to showcase the special talents other linebackers don’t possess. In the Cowboys’ 27-20 win over New York on Thanksgiving, Overshown has successfully normalized an abnormal role on the Dallas defense.

As the best weapon not named “Micah Parsons,” Overshown is an elite weapon blitzing up the middle, playing in the box, dropping into coverage, and playing off the edge. He’s become the player a defensive coordinator schemes for. He’s become a player offensive coordinators scheme against.

12 weeks ago, using Overshown as a regular pass rusher seemed like an absurd thought. A player built for the secondary didn’t have much business playing on the line of scrimmage. But Mike Zimmer’s infamous double A-gap blitz provided him a perfect opportunity to showcase his skills. He did that and more this season, logging 17 pressures and five sacks prior to Week 13. He trails only Parsons in the sack department this season and added another pressure, interception and touchdown to the ledger on Thursday.

It’s no longer a crazy proposition to use Overshown as a regular pass rusher, be it from the edge or up the middle. The Overshown window has shifted where the absurd have quietly become the expected.

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Cowboys carve up Turducken meat, devour Giants 27-20 on Thanksgiving

The Cowboys have taken advantage of familiar foes, winning their second in a row to improve to 5-7. | From @KDDrummondNFL

The Dallas Cowboys are back, baby! Okay, not really, but they are still are capable of beating teams playing badly and flat-out bad teams. Just four days after upsetting the Washington Commanders to snap a five-game losing streak the Cowboys returned to the field to take on another division opponent. This time, the New York Giants were up on the schedule and for the first time in seven games, the Cowboys were able to win in Dallas.

A losing streak stretching back to the wild-card game in January, Dallas had also fallen behind by at least 20 points in each contest. But with Drew Lock under center and a clear fixation on the No. 1 draft pick, the Giants offered little resistance, even to a team flying as low as the Cowboys have been.

Dallas extended a three-point halftime lead and turned it into a dominant second half. A late Giants touchdown shrunk the final margin to 27-20, as the Cowboys improve to 5-7 on the season.

The Giants dropped to 2-10 as the Cowboys swept the season series.

QB Cooper Rush turned in another solid, bus-driver performance and was complimented by Rico Dowdle’s first career 100-yard ground game and a second-consecutive strong defensive performance. Edge rusher Micah Parsons chipped in a sack and a half, while LB DeMarvion Overshown continues to develop into a complete weapon.

The second-year Texas product who missed all of his rookie season had a Pick-Six and a fumble recovery, along with seven tackles on the game. Dallas held Lock to a frustrating day after a 70-yard opening touchdown drive.

The Giants managed just 161 yards on offense until their final scoring drive, as they struggled to string together any semblance of rhythm in his first start of the season. The Giants released starting QB Daniel Jones, who cleared waivers and signed with the Minnesota Vikings on Wednesday. Last week he was replaced by Tommy DeVito, who was unable to go on Thursday.

The Cowboys are now 2-2 since Dak Prescott was lost for the season with a hamstring injury.

After playing three games in 10 days (Week 11 was a MNF blowout loss to Houston), the Cowboys will now get a mini-bye week before closing out their 2024 schedule. At 5-7 the playoffs isn’t impossible, but it’s an incredibly long shot, as is now the No. 1 overall draft pick.

Dallas’ next opponent will be the Cincinnati Bengals on Monday Night Football in Week 14.

Is Jake Ferguson playing today? Injury news update for Cowboys tight end

Here’s the latest status for the Cowboys’ Jake Ferguson for Week 13 against the New York Giants.

The Dallas Cowboys cannot seem to get out from under the injury bug. The club, already down their franchise quarterback Dak Prescott for the remainder of the year, has struggled to get their downfield targets involved. CeeDee Lamb was just coming out of his early season funk when Prescott was lost in Week 9. He wasn’t getting much help.

Brandin Cooks had just nine catches through four games when he was placed on IR with a knee injury. He’ll return to the lineup in Week 13 against New York, but how much will he be able to contribute? The scheme has been unable to make Kavontae Turpin a serious inclusion in the offense more often than not. The development of third-year wideout Jalen Tolbert, second-year man Jalen Brooks or rookie Ryan Flournoy has been slow. The one guy who was established, TE Jake Ferguson, seems to have regressed from his Pro Bowl 2023.

And a concussion suffered in Week 11 will force Ferguson to miss his second consecutive game when the Cowboys take on the Giants Thanksgiving afternoon.

The third-year man out of Wisconsin caught 71 targets for 761 yards and scored five touchdowns in 2023. He’s failed to reach the end zone so far in 2024, disappointing fantasy owners left and right.

In his wake, Dallas will tun to second-year, second-round pick Luke Schoonmaker, along with 2024 UDFA Brevyn Spann-Ford. Schoonmaker had his finest game as a pro Monday after Ferguson was lost; he’d been relegated to afterthought with Spann-Ford usurping his snaps. The team has also added Princeton Fant to the roster, signed from their own practice squad.

Blocking improving but Cowboys RBs must take things to another level

The Cowboys offensive line is doing their part it’s now up the RB group to push the running game over the top, finds @ReidDHanson

The Cowboys are starting to see some return on their investment. Over the offseason they invested heavily in their offensive line, dedicating their first-round and a third-round pick to the unit. After some significant growing pains melding the new pieces into the machine, the unit is starting to show some signs of life in the run game.

Even with the constant shuffling of personnel along the line, Dallas ranks eighth in run block win rate. While Zack Martin is the only individual high performer of the group, the unit as a whole has been producing solid results.

In a single point failure area like run blocking, team success is paramount. It only takes one error for the entire play to be blown up. A study conducted by Pro Football Focus concluded a running play in which all blockers received positive grades produces a 60.2 percent success rate while a block with one or more negative grades offers just a 25.7 percent success rate. It carries over in EPA as well, with a positively graded blocking effort producing a +0.27 EPA compared to -0.27 EPA for a run block with one or more negative scores.

Shockingly, the Cowboys are currently in the NFL’s top tier in perfect run block rates in 2024. Ezekiel Elliott and Rico Dowdle have both been given solid opportunities for positive gains even if the results of the run haven’t shown it. While running games are largely a byproduct of the blocking, at some point it falls on the running back himself to really push it over the goal line (so to speak).

Explosive plays in particular are an area in which the Cowboys RBs are struggling. Creating holes and delivering positive gains often falls on the offensive line, but it’s the RB himself who’s largely responsible for making players miss at the second level.

Per Sumer Sports, Dowdle’s explosive run rate is 6.3 percent while Elliott’s is just 1.7 percent. For reference, Saquon Barkley is at 11.7 percent and Derrick Henry is at 11.8 percent. It’s a significant difference but Cowboys fans can take solace in the fact the difference between Dowdle and Elliott is far greater than the distance between Barkey/Henry and Dowdle.

Based on a side-by-side statistical comparison it’s clear the Cowboys made the right move giving Dowdle the top spot and pushing Elliott into a supporting role. Dowdle hasn’t just shown he’s the best of the bunch in Dallas but that he’s a legit NFL starter. When Dowdle is getting the ball, the Cowboys are producing at a top 10 success rate (filtered for those with 70+ carries).

Nontraditional ball carriers in Dallas are also producing at high clip. Hunter Luepke (66.7%), KaVontae Turpin (40.0%) and CeeDee Lamb (38.5) are posting decent success rates behind this Cowboys offensive line as well.

The Cowboys haven’t fixed their issues with run blocking, but they are clearly moving in the right direction and better than what some want to credit them for. What this offense needs now is some extra juice from the ball carriers themselves and some more assistance from downfield blockers like receivers and tight ends.

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Is CeeDee Lamb playing today? Injury news update for Cowboys wide receiver

Here’s the latest status for the Cowboys’ CeeDee Lamb for Week 13 against the New York Giants.

The Dallas Cowboys are right back in action, just four days after snapping their five-game losing streak. In the annual tradition, the Cowboys will once again host the late afternoon Thanksgiving Day game, this time their opponents being the New York Giants. At 4-7, Dallas’ playoff hopes remain on life support, but facing the 2-9 Giants may pump a little oxygen in the Cowboys’ collective lungs.

Short weeks are extremely hard for teams, as Dallas learned earlier in the year when these two teams first met in Week 4. The Cowboys won, but left that game with a ton of serious injuries as Micah Parsons, DeMarcus Lawrence and Brandin Cooks all missed significant action. This time, the short week brings recovery into question, and that includes All-Pro WR CeeDee Lamb.

Lamb was on this week’s injury report with both back and foot troubles, but he appears ready to play agaisnst the Giants in Week 13.

The fifth-year wideout currently leads the NFL with 77 receptions, gaining 841 yards and scoring four touchdowns. He and QB Cooper Rush, filling in for Dak Prescott who is lost for the year with a hamstring injury, rekindled their 2022 connection the last two weeks.

Lamb has hauled in 18 passes for 160 yards, but the end zone continues to elude him though they hope to change things Thursday against New York.

In his career against the Giants, Lamb has 59 receptions for 820 yards and four touchdowns, with another on the ground, in just nine career games. The Cowboys have lost to the Giants just once with Lamb playing.

 

Report: Cowboys expected to face Drew Lock; Giants QB Tommy DeVito ‘unlikely to play’ Thursday

From @ToddBrock24f7: The Cowboys are expected to face Drew Lock for the first time on Thanksgiving, with current starter Tommy DeVito nursing a forearm injury.

The Cowboys defense can’t be sure exactly what will be on the menu when they host Thanksgiving this year, so they’re coming hungry for whatever is offered up when their visitors from New York arrive.

The 2-9 Giants are undergoing a total revamp at quarterback. Daniel Jones, who started the 2024 season as Big Blue’s $160 million man lasted just ten games this season before getting benched, demoted to fourth string, and finally waived, all within a five-day span last week.

The team turned to Tommy DeVito, the second-year backup who came on in relief of Jones for six starts last year, but there’s no guarantee he plays Thursday. In fact, reports late Wednesday call him “unlikely to play. He did not travel to Dallas with the team but is expected to catch a later flight.

DeVito had been added to the Giants’ injury report with a forearm injury of unknown severity. The team had just a walkthrough Tuesday, but DeVito was officially listed as limited.

“I wouldn’t say it’s timing or a lot of depth to it or velocity to it, but he was throwing in the walkthrough,” Giants head coach Brian Daboll said Wednesday of DeVito’s throwing arm. “He’s going to test it out here today in practice in another walkthrough. So, I’m hopeful, but it’s not 100 percent.”

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DeVito reported that he wasn’t even sure of when the injury occurred during New York’s 30-7 loss to Tampa Bay last week, in which he went 21-of-31 passing for 189 yards.

“My whole body’s kind of sore,” DeVito explained, according the Giants website. “First time playing in a while, took a couple shots. It’s not even 48 hours, so things are still kind of just settling in.”

Dallas last saw DeVito in Week 10 last year at AT&T Stadium. The ex-Syracuse and -Illinois passer threw two touchdowns in the 49-17 Cowboys win, but he went just 14-of-27 for 86 yards otherwise.

If DeVito cannot play Thursday, the Giants would turn to Drew Lock, the former second-round draft pick out of Missouri who spent three years with Denver and two seasons with the Seahawks. Lock has reportedly taken some first-team reps with the Giants offense in case he is pressed into making his first start since Week 15 last season.

The Cowboys have never faced Lock, who has 23 career starts and a 9-14 mark in those contests.

Tim Boyle is the other quarterback on the Giants’ depth chart and would probably serve as the primary backup to Lock.

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Cowboys former 1st-round pick finally showing a pulse after much maligned beginning

Mazi Smith has shown a lot of improvement lately this year, could it be launching pad for his future on the Dallas Cowboys? | From @cdpiglet

The Dallas Cowboys selected defensive tackle Mazi Smith out of Michigan with pick No. 26 of the 2023 draft to the delight of many, including star edge rusher Micah Parsons.

After a poor rookie season held back by weight loss, a lousy get-off, and adjusting to a new scheme, Smith hoped to bounce back under Mike Zimmer this season. In the first nine weeks of the season, things looked like they hadn’t changed much for Smith. He had a single outstanding performance against the New York Giants, a genuinely tanking team, in their first meeting in Week 4.

Smith’s sole Pro Football Focus (PFF) grade over 80 was that week, but he was objectively a bust in all other instances. In that time, Smith had one game over 55 in overall defensive grade and one over 60 in run defense. His average was 35.2 overall PFF grade and 38 in run defense. Things look to have turned the corner for Smith though, as he’s strung together several improved outings in a row.

In Weeks 10 through 12, Smith had a 55 or higher overall defensive grade in all three games, two of them over 60.

His run defense grades have all been over 60, with two of those over 70.

His average overall grade was 62.9, and his run defense average was 70.5. That 70.5-run defense grade would put him in the top 15 in the league this year.

While Pro Football Focus grades are an essential tool for evaluation, they don’t tell the entire story. Smith has had the production to back up those improved marks. Seven of Smith’s 19 tackles have come in the last three weeks. Four of his eight assists and six of his 14 stops have as well.

These numbers still don’t scream first-round pick, but they show improvement in his second season. Smith has had his top three games this year against division opponents, and the Giants are next up. This could be the week Smith registers his first sack, and in a lost season for Dallas due to injuries, keeping an eye on him and hoping to see a starting-caliber player in the final five games, could change everything this offseason for Dallas.

You can find Mike Crum on Twitter @cdpiglet or YouTube on the Across the Cowboys Podcast.

Here’s why Cowboys offensive success is Fool’s Gold, but sustainable

The Cowboys offense has an easy schedule ahead of them so their potential success should be taken with a grain of salt, says @ReidDHanson

Things finally started going right for the Cowboys in Week 12. Even ravaged by injury, the Dallas offensive line was a surprisingly solid unit. They paved the way for Rico Dowdle’s 45 percent success rate rushing and kept quarterback Cooper Rush relatively clean, only allowing one sack and four pressures.

Not surprisingly their success helped pave the way for the first Cowboys win in six weeks. Receivers played efficiently, play callers schemed wisely and role players played their roles effectively. It wasn’t pretty but it was solid and that’s something the Cowboys haven’t even sniffed in over a month.

But can the Cowboys keep things rolling on offense and would that mean good things for the future?

To answer that simply, a little bit of “yes” and a little bit of “no.” The Cowboys beat a good Washington team, but a bad Washington defense. The Commanders defense ranked 26th heading in Dallas Week and looked every bit of the struggling defense they were billed to be. A case could be made their cupcake schedule has only masked their concerns and they’re actually far worse.

Looking ahead at the Cowboys’ upcoming schedule, they face the Giants, Bengals, Panthers, Buccaneers, Eagles, and Commanders. Defenses on those teams currently rank 27th, 29th, 31st, 26th, sixth and 25th, respectively. Only one defense left has an EPA ranking above 25th.

Based on this it’s perfectly reasonable to expect the good times to keep rolling down the stretch. Every opponent but the Eagles rank at the very bottom of the NFL so success isn’t just possible, it’s probably likely.

That’s not to say the Cowboys are about to go on a 5-1 run down the stretch, just that the Dallas offense may finally show some life in it based on low quality defenses they are scheduled to face.

No one should read into upcoming weeks too much because the quality of opponent has dropped considerably. But a winning streak wouldn’t be an unreasonable dream provided the other parts of the team can hold their own as well.

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Cowboys fans bickering over proper tanking etiquette have new goalposts in Week 13

Cowboys are playoff longshots making fan rooting interest a complicated situation, says @ReidDHanson.

Arguments among  Cowboys Nation is nothing new. Dallas fans will go back-and-forth about nearly anything. They argue which star player should be re-signed and which should be traded. They argue about which coaches are helping or hurting. They argue about the ineptitude of the front office, the realness of the salary cap, and the viability of aged players. Hell, they even argue about curtains.

What the Cowboys fanbase doesn’t seem to argue about is whether or not they want the team to win. Until now, of course.

Heading into Week 12 the Cowboys stood 3-7, their franchise quarterback was out for the season and their odds at making the playoffs stood less than one percent. The situation moved many fans to low key focus on next season. Dallas had an inside track on a top 10 draft pick and, given the sorry state of affairs, the potential to move into the top five.

The thinking was/is if the Cowboys can stink bad enough, they may be able to snag a blue-chip prospect in the draft. The only thing they’d have to do is just keep losing. The logic was sound even if the heart was disgraceful.

Well, if the Cowboys were supposed to tank this past Sunday, someone clearly forgot to tell the team. They put out possibly their best effort since the win in Pittsburgh, showing out on both sides of the ball, even if the occasional snafu had a way of popping up a few too many times.

The surprise win over the rival Commanders sparked argument after argument in many online communities. Those wanting to tank for a better draft pick were upset at the seemingly meaningless win.

ESPN’s recently updates playoff odds still had Dallas locked in as a ridiculous longshot (<1% chance) and top prospects like Travis Hunter and Tetairoa McMillan no longer seemed like realistic options. Playoff hopes technically stayed alive, but at what cost?

On the other side of the argument fans were appalled at the notion of cheering against the Cowboys. The team plays to win and fans cheer to win. Anything to the contrary is unacceptable.

Obviously, players don’t tank. They’re playing for their jobs, incentives and reputations. They don’t care about draft picks. Coaches, even those likely on the way out, don’t tank. They’re coaching for their next job and coaching for pride. They couldn’t care less about the draft situation they leave the next head coach.

Fans are different. While players and coaches often bounce from team to team, fans are in it for the long haul. For better or for worse, they pass on their fandom to the next generation, making the situation far more complicated for them.

At the end of the day, it’s an argument about nothing. Fan support from JoeDog24 on X doesn’t impact the team’s ability to win one iota. The players and coaches will try to win regardless of what’s in the best long-term interests of the team.

What’s smart isn’t always what’s noble just like what’s noble isn’t always smart. This test in fan etiquette likely isn’t going away this season. In fact, Thursday’s Thanksgiving tilt against the 2-9 New York Giants who didn’t just bench, but released their starting QB, will be a huge moment in draft placing.

Another win will keep hope alive and it’s safe to say even once hope is mathematically eliminated, plenty of fans will still cheer for their beloved silver and blue.

And there’s nothing wrong with that.

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