Why the Cowboys’ Week 1 matchup against the Giants is so important
Yahoo Sports Daily host Caroline Fenton and Yahoo Sports senior NFL writer Frank Schwab discuss why the Cowboys Week 1 matchup against the New York Giants is so important. Watch the full episode of Yahoo Sports Daily on YouTube or YahooSports.TV .
Video Transcript
I mean, look, it, this is a team with 7-9-1, last year, and has spent all off-season- Mm-hmm talking about a Super Bowl.
You come into a face plant, on, in pri- in prime time against the Giants, and you will get ridiculed all week.
Not that that's the be-all, end-all, but we know that's coming.
So the Cowboys just wanna get off to a good start, and I think more than just, like, the reaction to everything, they need to show that things have changed.
We, we spent all off-season talking about, oh, the offense is gonna be great, but it's the defense that's really improved.
They got a new coordinator in Christian Parker.
They have all this new talent.
Caleb Downs, Quinton Will- Quinton Williams with a full season under his belt.
So I think the Cowboys need to show, hey, this is different.
We, we're not just talking here.
We're, we're walking the walk, as Jimmy Johnson said back in the day.
So they need to get off to a good start just to show that all these changes have stuck, that the defense is fixed, and they're not that 7-9, 7-9-1 team from last year anymore.
Mm-hmm.
That this is a different team that can compete for a championship, and if you lose against the Giants in week one, it's hard to take that seriously.
You know, pressure comes from expectations, and this Cowboys team has so many expectations this season, largely because of the expectations that they set for themselves.
You mentioned it.
Yep.
Jerry Jones has spent so many of his training camp press conference talking about Super Bowl.
Dak Prescott walks into practice wearing a Super Bowl T-shirt the last time the Cowboys were there.
They are the ones talking about Super Bowl.
No other team in the NFL talks about getting to the Super Bowl in training camp, especially when you haven't been there in more than two decades, but the Cowboys are.
So the pressure comes from the expectations that they've set for themselves.
The pressure comes from what they've done in the off-season supplementing their roster, addressing the holes and the, the deficiencies that they had in their roster last season.
To your point, yes, they were 7-9-1 last year, and I don't think that we can forget that in our conversations about the Cowboys, but that hasn't stopped the expectations.
That hasn't stopped the hype train that just continues to roll in Dallas no matter what, no matter how short they may fall of expectations in the past.
They are talking about the Super Bowl.
They are setting that expectation, so if you come out and you lose against a team with a second-year quarterback who just cannot seem to stay out of the blue tent, a, a team with a new head coach, and I know it's John Harbaugh, I know that we all trust John Harbaugh immensely, but it is still a new head coach, and you're still implementing, you know, a new culture, implementing a new offense.
Like, this is a Giants team that I don't have very high expectations for.
