2026 season

Dallas Cowboys 2026 Strength of Schedule: 7th-Hardest in the NFL

The Dallas Cowboys have the 7th-hardest schedule in the NFL for 2026: their 17 opponents average 8.73 projected wins, and 8 of them are projected winning teams, 6 of those projected for 10 wins or more.

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What is left, through Week 5

The opponents the Cowboys have left rate minus 0.016 net expected points added per play between them — offence minus what their defences allow — which is 22nd hardest of the 32 schedules that can be rated so far.

Through Week 5 · Data via nflverse · 12 of 12 remaining opponents rated

Dallas Cowboys 2026 schedule

Dallas Cowboys 2026 regular-season schedule with each opponent's projected strength and the rest days going into the game
Wk	Opponent	Opp Strength (Aug)	Kickoff ET	Rest
1	at Giants	—	Sun 8:20p	7
2	vs Commanders	—	Sun 4:25p	7
3	vs Ravensneutral site	10+ win	Sun 4:25p	7
4	at Texans	Winning	Sun 1:00p	7
5	vs Buccaneers	—	Thu 8:15p	4
6	at Packers	Winning	Sun 8:20p	10 (+3)
7	at Eagles	10+ win	Mon 8:15p	8
8	vs Cardinals	—	Sun 1:00p	6 (-1)
9	at Colts	—	Sun 1:00p	7
10	vs 49ers	10+ win	Sun 4:25p	7
11	vs Titans	—	Sun 1:00p	7
12	vs Eagles	10+ win	Thu 4:30p	4
13	at Seahawks	10+ win	Mon 8:15p	11 (+3)
14	Bye week
15	at Rams	10+ win	Sun 4:25p	13 (+6)
16	vs Jaguars	—	Sun 8:20p	7
17	vs Giants	—	Sun 1:00p	7 (+1)
18	at Commanders	—	Sun 1:00p	7

Opponent strength is the opponent's 2026 market win total, bucketed: “10+ win” is a win total of 10.5 or better, “Winning” is 9.5 or better. Rest is days since that team last played, with the edge over the opponent in brackets. Kickoff times are Eastern and highlighted when the game starts at or after 8:00pm — the Cowboys have 6 primetime games, 4 of them on the road. The Cowboys are on bye in week 14.

Toughest stretch

Weeks 12-15: Eagles, at Seahawks, at Rams. Three straight projected winning teams, all three projected for 10 wins or more. The bye falls in week 14, in the middle of it.

Softest stretch

Weeks 7-9: at Eagles, Cardinals, at Colts. Even here one of the three is a projected winning team — the Cowboys never get a genuinely soft run.

Primetime: 2026 night games

The Cowboys play 6 games at or after 8:00pm Eastern, 2 at home and 4 on the road — weeks 1, 5, 6, 7, 13, 16. That is against a league average of 3.4, across 55 night games on the 2026 calendar.

Counts are AS SCHEDULED. Flex scheduling moves games into and out of the evening windows during the season, so an in-season count is only current as of the last time this artifact was regenerated.

Rest: where the Cowboys sit

Across the 2026 season the Cowboys are up 12 days of rest on their opponents across the seventeen games. 0 games come at a rest deficit of three days or more, and 3 come with a three-day edge the other way. Rest is zero-sum across the league — every day one team is rested is a day its opponent was not — so these net out to nothing across all 32 teams.

A rest gap only turns up in the record when it is bye-sized. Across regular-season games since 1999, a team coming off at least seven more days of rest than its opponent has won 53.6 percent (645 games); at a three-to-six day edge the rested team has won 49.6 percent, which is no edge at all. Rest is a margin, not a mover.

How this is measured

Opponent strength here is this season's net expected points added per play — a team's offence minus what its defence allows, through Week 5. The betting market stops quoting win totals once games are played, so the August line below is kept as a labelled prior rather than used as the ranking.

Read the spread before the rank. Across the whole league, hardest schedule to easiest covers about 1.5 win-total points spread over seventeen games — real, but small. Every win total in the market ends in a half-win and every schedule is seventeen games, so two schedules one place apart in the table differ by about 0.06 of a projected win, which is why 24 of the 32 teams share a rank with somebody else. Strength of schedule is a tiebreaker between two teams you already rate evenly. It is not a reason to move one of them.

Cowboys schedule questions

Do the Cowboys have a hard schedule in 2026?

By market win totals, yes. The Cowboys have the 7th-hardest schedule in the league — their 17 opponents average 8.73 projected wins, against a league average of 8.50 — and 8 of those opponents are projected winning teams.

When is the Cowboys bye week in 2026?

The Cowboys are on bye in week 14 of the 2026 regular season.

What is the toughest stretch of the Cowboys 2026 schedule?

Weeks 12 through 15, when the Cowboys play Eagles, at Seahawks, at Rams — all three projected winning teams.

How many primetime games do the Cowboys have in 2026?

Six as scheduled — two at home and four on the road — counting every kickoff at or after 8:00pm Eastern. Flex scheduling can move games into and out of the evening windows.

Where the Cowboys rank

Dallas Cowboys have the 7th-hardest schedule of the 32. The Cardinals have the hardest at 9.32, the Lions the easiest at 7.79. All 32 schedules ranked.

Dallas Cowboys podcast and season preview · Cowboys running back depth chart · All 2026 bye weeks

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