Four key details about the Cowboys calendar for 2024 to be aware of.

The Dallas Cowboys will play a brand-new schedule of games starting on Wednesday when the NFL releases its 2024 schedule. We already knew who because that information is derived from a formula that is decided upon following the last regular-season game. However, the when is now known.

As we get ready for the new season, there are a lot of exciting games that fans have marked their favorites in. What features do you find particularly striking in a game’s layout? Four things to note about the Cowboys 2024 schedule are listed below. 1. There are some formidable opponents, but all in all, it’s mediocre

The Cowboys have a mediocre schedule overall, with a mix of difficult and unchallenging opponents. This season, they have a 0.505 winning percentage with a combined win/loss record of 146-143 against their opponents. This ties them with three other teams (the New York Jets, Los Angeles Rams, and San Francisco 49ers) for the 12th-best strength of schedule in the league. By contrast, the Washington Commanders are ranked 16th (.502), the Philadelphia Eagles are ranked 21st (.491), and the New York Giants are ranked 6th (.516).

The Baltimore Ravens are the only team the Cowboys face this season that finished ahead of them in the previous campaign. The Cowboys only fell short of the Ravens (+203) in terms of point differential (+194), finishing second in the league. The 49ers and Lions are the two teams Dallas will play against that have the same record as them, but the only other opponent with a strong point difference from the previous campaign is San Francisco.

That was, of course, last year. A team’s previous year’s win/loss record doesn’t always accurately predict their performance in the upcoming season. The road gets a little harder if we took a different approach to evaluating the quality of the schedule, such as basing it on rankings of Super Bowl odds. The Cowboys’ opponents this season—the 49ers, Ravens, Lions, Cincinnati Bengals, Houston Texans, and the Eagles (twice)—will face the Cowboys in seven games (41%) this year.

We have to take into account young clubs such as the Texans and Lions, who are both winning under new head coaches. Last year, these 3-13 clubs were winning postseason games. Remember that the Bengals advanced to the AFC Championship games in consecutive seasons (and won the Super Bowl in 2021) prior to Joe Burrow’s injury derailing their campaign the previous year? To put it briefly, the Cowboys face some formidable opponents who are on the rise.

2. Let it rest! The primary determinant of the schedule’s difficulty is the opponents’ level of toughness, but getting enough sleep is also crucial. In that regard, the Cowboys received the short straw. Let us clarify. It’s believed that they would receive a brief rest matchup over Thanksgiving week, as we know they do every year. The week that follows the Thanksgiving game, or week 14, is when the Cowboys often play their second Thursday game, giving them a full week off in between games. Not in this year. The Cowboys will have to play on short rest from their Thursday games twice, as their second game is scheduled for Week 4 for an unknown reason.

But the good times don’t end there. This season, the Cowboys have two Monday night games: one against the Texans in Week 11 and another against the Bengals in Week 14. This implies that they will also have a limited recuperation period for their games the following week. That might not seem like much in the grand scheme of things, but when you add that to the two brief weeks of rest following the Thursday games, things get really bad.

The strange thing about this is that it’s the first season the Cowboys have had multiple Monday night games since 2006. The Cowboys used to be a Monday Night Football mainstay, appearing on the show two or even three times year. That is, those days have vanished as of late. Did you believe we were finished? Nearly. In addition, the Cowboys play the Eagles on Saturday in Week 17. It’s not a huge concern because they’ve played on Saturdays before, but it does mean that this season’s total of short rest games is now five. That is an unusually high number of quick relaxation games.

Regarding rest, what is the goodbye week schedule? It’s okay because the Cowboys’ bye week is in Week 7, which is comparatively in the middle. Week 5 of the NFL gives the Eagles their bye week, but Week 11 and Week 14 of the NFL go to the Giants and Commanders, respectively, later in the season. It’s also important to keep in mind that they will only play one opponent in Week 6, the Lions, who will be rested after their own bye week in Week 5. That’s unfortunate because this is supposed to be a pivotal NFC encounter. Speaking of which, the Cowboys will be rested heading into their Week 8 encounter with the 49ers, having just returned from a Week 7 bye. The Niners,

Overall, it doesn’t favor the Cowboys in any particular way from a bye standpoint. The East is ruled by the Cowboys? The Cowboys aim to accomplish something that hasn’t been accomplished in two decades: winning the NFC East in consecutive seasons. They will have to overcome their divisional rivals despite having the most difficult schedule of non-component games. These are the games, along with predictions for their 2024 victories…

The Cowboys are at a disadvantage here, and that’s on purpose, but as we previously mentioned, you can never predict which clubs will perform well year to year. While the Cowboys played the Lions last year, the Eagles were slated to play the harder NFC North opponent, the Minnesota Vikings. Who knows? Perhaps the Green Bay Packers, captained by Jordan Love, will prove to be a more formidable foe this season. You can’t read too much into that particular segment of the schedule.

4. Difficult in the beginning but easy in the end Even if the Cowboys’ opponents’ combined 2023 record is nearly.500, the distribution of difficult vs simple opponents isn’t uniform. The Cowboys start the season with some difficult opponents, but things go much easier in the final run. Only one of their final seven opponents achieved ten victories in the previous year, compared to seven of their first ten opponents who had double-digit victories.

Even if it doesn’t necessarily guarantee that what happened last year will happen this year, the Cowboys seem to be heading into a brief respite before making their fourth straight postseason appearance.