The Dallas Cowboys are one of the easiest NFL predictions to make — if things go the way things always seem to go for the Cowboys. But what do the best-case and worst-case scenarios look like for the Cowboys this upcoming season?
2023 NFL Season Predictions: Dallas Cowboys Win the NFC East?
Here’s how the season will (likely) go. It’s the NFC East, so the Philadelphia Eagles, by default, cannot repeat as division winners. Rules are rules. Dallas and New York are the two other somewhat legitimate contenders right now. Washington has a talented team but huge questions at QB.
The Cowboys will win the division. They will likely rank inside of the top 10 in most offensive and defensive efficiency metrics, should they remain somewhat healthy. They’ll win 12 or 13 games and win the division. They’ll find themselves a decent Wild Card Round matchup and win, only to run into the hottest team in the league entering the Divisional Round.
They’ll lose in a close game, and the fanbase will lose their minds and try to replace everyone. Time is a flat circle.
Predicting the Best-Case Scenario for the Cowboys’ 2023 NFL Season
The best-case scenario involves the Super Bowl. It doesn’t include a Super Bowl victory because the AFC is so incredibly dominant, but there is a realistic chance that Dallas could be the NFC representative.
Now that would require them to break the Jimmy Johnson curse first, which seems unlikely given the stalemate between Jerry Jones and Johnson regarding the Cowboys’ Ring of Honor.
But on paper, Dallas has enough talent to compete against the Eagles and the San Francisco 49ers. While we don’t currently know if the switch from Kellen Moore to Mike McCarthy will bear fruit, we can almost certainly count on the Cowboys’ defense maintaining a high level of play in 2023, even if it takes a slight step back because defensive performance is historically finicky.
Dallas ranked sixth in DVOA and seventh in weighted DVOA a season ago. It’s fair to expect Dak Prescott’s INT rate to come back down to the 1.5%-1.8% range, the range he was in every season from 2018-2021. It would be shocking to see him lead the league in INTs once again with a nearly 4% INT rate.
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CeeDee Lamb ends up topping his 1,359-yeard season from a year ago and establishes himself as one of the league’s best young receivers.
“CeeDee, you’re talking about a guy that’s been electric since the moment he stepped into this league, but you saw last year what he did to really just go into that mode of a true No. 1 receiver,” wide receiver Brandin Cooks said on The Adam Schefter Podcast on Tuesday. “I’ve got a lot of respect for his game from afar, and I hit him up and was like, ‘Look, I’m coming to just help.’ Like, there’s no ego.”
Tony Pollard returns from his broken leg with all his explosiveness and remains as efficient and elusive as he was on a slightly bigger workload. Luke Schoonmaker contributes immediately as a seam target, and Cooks adds the speed Dallas desperately needed a season ago.
Meanwhile, Tyron Smith remains healthy for at least 10 games, allowing Dallas to truly put their best five blockers on the field for a majority of the season. But that also requires Terence Steele to return from his season-ending injury at 100%, and potentially even play left guard for the Cowboys while also serving as the team’s swing tackle.
“Yeah, we’re talking about it,” McCarthy told reporters during the owners’ meeting in Arizona. “We haven’t got in there with those guys yet. Offseason program starts in April, but yeah, we’ll definitely … we’re looking at all those things.”
Predicting the Worst-Case Scenario for the Cowboys’ 2023 NFL Season
Many believe that being bad is the worst thing that can happen to a football team, but that isn’t the case. The worst-case scenario for NFL teams is mediocrity.
If the worst happens and Prescott’s season is ended early, the Cowboys can just sit back, relax, and win six games. They get one of the top picks in the NFL Draft, the team gets to market the draft for months, and they get a better opportunity from a team-building perspective for 2024. If they’re bad enough and haven’t extended Prescott yet, the Cowboys could even decide to potentially target a QB with their pick.
The worst-case scenario includes Prescott missing enough games to where he can’t make up the difference, and Dallas ends up winning eight or nine games and misses the playoffs.
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Dallas’ schedule appears more difficult in 2023, at least according to projected Vegas win totals. If they suffer some unfortunate injury luck to their big-time difference-makers on both sides of the ball, even a healthy Prescott could struggle to lead this team to a division title, especially if the Eagles remain relatively healthy.
It’s not easy to imagine a scenario where the Cowboys remain relatively healthy and underachieve from a wins perspective. Things weren’t very pretty at times a season ago, and Dallas still won 12 games with Prescott missing five.
That took unbelievable defensive performances to accomplish. However, even the most pessimistic fan should understand that Dallas has a good roster, a talented coaching staff (mostly), and should not win fewer than double-digit games unless things go seriously sideways.
