Saints games have always been very interesting for the Cowboys.
The Dallas Cowboys Week 1 win at the Cleveland Browns certainly isn’t going to cause anyone to prematurely rank Dallas among the top contenders in the NFL, the time for them to prove they can be that team is still months away. The exact same can be said about their Week 2 opponent in the New Orleans Saints, who lit up the scoreboard at home with 47 points to beat the Carolina Panthers and start 1-0. Only one team will emerge from AT&T Stadium with a coveted 2-0 start on Sunday, and when these teams get together, it’s typically a hard-fought win for either side.
The Cowboys offense looked rusty for much of the game against the Browns, understandable given how many players sat out the preseason. The defense looked more than ready to help carry this team while they find their rhythm on offense, and Mike Zimmer’s group will be expecting to hold the Saints well under 47 points this week. The Cowboys have only given up more than 45 points in the regular season once under Mike McCarthy, and it was in his debut season with Mike Nolan as defensive coordinator. If the defense plays up to the standard set for all four quarters in the season opener, the Cowboys offense will have a chance to come to life in their first home game, something they did remarkably well last year averaging 37.4 points per game and over 305 passing yards in eight wins – six of them by more than one score.
The Cowboys are within a touchdown favorite this week though because three of their last four games against the Saints have been one-score contests. The Cowboys have won two straight home games against the Saints dating back to 2014.
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The last two meetings between these teams have both come at the Superdome, with Dallas and New Orleans splitting two games won by an average of six points either way. The most recent game in 2021 went the Cowboys’ way 27-17 in a Week 13 Thursday Night Football matchup.
Michael Gallup opened the scoring at the end of the first quarter with a one-yard touchdown, with the big play of the drive coming from CeeDee Lamb who ripped off a 33 yard run. Lamb also carried the ball three times for 25 yards against the Browns in Week 1.
The explosive play from Lamb would stand as the team’s longest of the game until the third quarter. With New Orleans drawing closer on a Brett Maher field goal to make the score 13-10, Tony Pollard scored from 58 yards out to open the game up. Now working with a ten-point lead, Dan Quinn’s defense did what it does best and came up with a third-down sack, three and out, and three straight interceptions on the next five Saints drives to seal the game. The last interception which was returned for a touchdown came from the most unlikely player, defensive tackle Carlos Watkins who snatched a Taysom Hill pass and took it 29 yards. It is still the only interception of Watkins’ career, with the DT reunited with Quinn currently on the Commanders practice squad.
The win snapped a two-game losing streak for the Cowboys that season against the Chiefs and Raiders, starting a new four-game win streak down the stretch of a season that ended in the Wild Card round.
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The most recent meeting between these teams before the above Cowboys win in primetime came in the final year of Jason Garrett’s tenure. It was a week four road loss that was Dallas’ first of the season, after beating the Giants, Dolphins, and Redskins with relative ease to start the season 3-0. Saints defensive coordinator Dennis Allen, now their head coach in his third season, frustrated the Cowboys all game as they were held out of the endzone until midway through the third quarter. Ezekiel Elliott scored from one yard out to give the Cowboys their second lead of the game at 10-9, but a fourth Will Lutz field goal put the Saints ahead for good 12-10 in the fourth quarter.
The Cowboys would have three more possessions with a chance to win the game, but punted twice on two missed 3rd-and-2 passes, and ended the game with a Dak Prescott interception to Marcus Williams. Just like the Cowboys win against the Saints in 2021 started a win streak, this loss in 2019 led to more as the Cowboys lost to the Packers and Jets and fell to .500 on the season at 3-3, where they’d ultimately stay at 8-8 on the year. Cowboys and Saints games always seem to bring extra emotions and intensity, and this Sunday should be no different in a meeting of teams that feel they can stake their claim as favorites in their division should they continue a hot start.
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Of course, no recap of the history between these teams can go without mention of an epic Cowboys win from deeper in the history books of 2009. This is personally one of my favorite and most memorable Cowboys wins of all time, and from interacting with fans here at BTB and elsewhere. Led by the defensive mastermind Wade Phillips, the Cowboys went on the road for a Saturday night game against the 13-0 Saints. At the peak of the Drew Brees and Sean Payton era, the Saints had won by an average of over 14 points per game in every game so far that season.
They did show some signs of faltering coming into the game against the Cowboys, needing overtime to win by three at the Redskins and again winning by just a field goal at the Falcons the following week. Returning home to the Superdome was supposed to help this team get right, with few people giving Dallas any chance at all to end a historic run for the Saints.
Instead, the Cowboys prevailed 24-17 on a Miles Austin 49-yard touchdown to start the scoring and two touchdowns from Marion Barber, the latter putting the road team up 24-3. The Saints would score quickly twice in the fourth quarter to get back in the game, but DeMarcus Ware’s second sack of the game and forced fumble sealed the deal, allowing the Cowboys to run out the clock. Anthony Spencer also had two sacks in the game, and Mike Jenkins had an interception.
The Cowboys would ride this defensive high to back to back shutouts to end the season at Washington and versus Philadelphia to win the division, turning right around to face the Eagles again in the Wild Card round and beating them 34-14. The Saints lost their next two regular season games, but they would be their last losses of the season as that team went on to beat Peyton Manning and the Colts in the Super Bowl.
New Orleans versus Dallas seems to always be a measuring stick type of game, and although this is the earliest these two teams have met since the 1989 season opener won by the Saints at home 28-0 (Troy Aikman’s NFL debut), this Sunday’s Week 2 game in the rare early kickoff slot for the Cowboys feels no different. The feeling around both teams at 2-0 compared to 1-1 would be noticeably different, and both come into it off complete performances in all three phases to start the season with reason to believe they can win in Arlington.
