Nothing about the Dallas Cowboys recent history against the Denver Broncos suggests the road team for this upcoming week eight test will be able to win consecutive games for the first time in 2025, and first time under HC Brian Schottenheimer. However, both teams are coming off emotional, momentum-building home wins, and something has to give in a Cowboys versus Broncos clash that will feature an amazing classic uniform matchup.
The Cowboys will be wearing their classic whites with silver helmets, and are coming off a throttling of the Washington Commanders 44-22. The Broncos will be wearing their orange crush throwbacks with the royal blue helmets, and are also coming off an impressive 33-32 come from behind win versus the New York Giants.
All 33 points in this win were scored in the fourth quarter by Denver. The win put the Broncos a game ahead of the Chargers and Chiefs in the AFC West, while the Cowboys win saw them surpass the Commanders for second in the NFC East.
The Cowboys actually have the Broncos to thank for hanging one of two losses on the Philadelphia Eagles’ record on the road earlier this season, but now to gain ground, or at least hold serve against the Eagles, the Cowboys will need to do what the Eagles and also the Giants couldn’t and beat the Broncos. These teams share one more common opponent in the Jets, who the Broncos dominated on the stat sheet but only won 13-11 in London. The Cowboys’ complete game against the Jets manifested in a bigger way on the scoreboard with a 37-22 win, and now they are coming off their most complete game of the year in all three phases against the Commanders. The eye test says this game is right there for the taking for a Cowboys team with visions of building something special under Schottenheimer, mainly because of their offense being a runaway train of yards and points.
To keep the good vibes going and actually win on Sunday though, Schottenheimer will have to become the first Dallas head coach since Barry Switzer to beat Denver. That win for Switzer came in week two of 1995, as part of an 8-1 start to a year that saw the Cowboys hoist the Lombardi trophy at the end of it. The last time the Cowboys won on the road at the Broncos goes back even further to Jimmy Johnson’s tenure in 1992, and was also a part of a championship season.
The Cowboys only have two other regular season wins in their history against the Broncos, and remarkably one more of them also came in a Super Bowl season. They beat the Broncos 14-6 in the last week of the regular season in 1977 under Tom Landry, to end the season on a four-game winning streak. They went on to beat the Bears and Vikings in the playoffs to set up another date with the Broncos in Super Bowl XII, prevailing again 27-10. The other win for the Cowboys against the Broncos at least came in another playoff season, beating them as part of a 10-4 division winning season in 1973, but that Cowboys team fell short of the Super Bowl when they lost in the conference championship to the Minnesota Vikings.
Again, the uniform matchup for this Sunday may bring back memories of all these past meetings between these iconic franchises, but to bring things back to modern times the reality is the 2025 Cowboys still have a long way to go to be real championship contenders. Getting back-to-back wins for the first time would be a nice step, and doing so with Dak Prescott at quarterback against the Broncos specifically would also feel significant. Prescott has been on the losing end of two bad losses to the Broncos in his career. The first was in Denver in his second season as a starter, losing 42-17 in week two of 2017. The more recent loss came in 2021, at home 30-16 to snap a six-game winning streak that had the Cowboys sitting at 6-1. It would be their first of three losses in four weeks, even though Prescott and the Cowboys swore that Vic Fangio-led defensive team didn’t expose any secrets for how to slow their offense.
As we’ve noted countless times, those Cowboys struggles under McCarthy against Fangio defenses continued all the way until the end of McCarthy’s tenure. Schottenheimer has already made some slight progress in making this a point of improvement for his own offense against the Fangio-style defenses, by way of how the Cowboys offense played in a close loss at the Eagles in week one. Dallas has three games remaining until they can think about revenge against the Eagles, and this upcoming Broncos one appears the most challenging on paper. If Schottenheimer can carry over his personal momentum from having his fingerprints on both the offensive and defensive game plans that led to the total team win versus Washington, the ensuing win against the Broncos would be a real statement to put the Cowboys with a winning record for the first time under his guidance.
Prescott and the offense are locked in to being the top reason the Cowboys will have a chance in any game remaining this season, but it’s their balance that gives them the best chance to get out of a road stadium that’s been a house of horrors with an elusive win. In the Cowboys’ second to most recent loss at the Broncos, a 2009 game under Wade Phillips, they ran the ball 25 times between Marion Barber and Tashard Choice, but for just 74 yards. Kyle Orton threw the game winning touchdown to Brandon Marshall late in the fourth quarter, and the Broncos won 17-10 in a low scoring affair. In the 2017 loss under Jason Garrett, starting running back Ezekiel Elliott had the lowest rushing total of any game he started in his career with eight. Elliott carrying the ball only nine times is also one shy of a career low in games started, and the Cowboys got routed as a result 42-17. A home win against the Giants in week one was no problem for the Cowboys under Prescott and Elliott, getting revenge for the pair of losses they suffered to the Giants in the regular season as rookies, but a win at Denver was nowhere close to in the cards even playing against Trevor Siemian. Siemian had four touchdowns and Aqib Talib capped off the scoring for Denver with a 103-yard pick six in the fourth quarter to stamp the game.
The way Prescott is currently playing, it’s hard to picture him losing to a quarterback the level of Siemian or Orton, but it will also be up to the Cowboys defense to not let Bo Nix get in a rhythm. Nix has not been consistent this season, but fresh off that massive comeback against the Giants with a cast of big play receivers, the Cowboys defense will have its work cut out for it proving they actually turned a corner against the depleted Commanders and won’t prove a massive Achilles heel once again.
So long as the defense does this at a high enough level for the Cowboys to also stick with their run game better than they have against the Broncos recently, the Cowboys will also have their own revenge game storyline in the backfield with Javonte Williams going against his old team.
The makeup of this Cowboys team suggests they’re built better than any in decades to beat the Broncos for the first time in seven tries overall. From Schottenheimer’s leadership and presence, to Prescott’s MVP level play, to the defense’s new approach, a win against the Broncos would change the entire tune of how Dallas looks at their next games against the Cardinals and Raiders. A loss would unfortunately not feel unfamiliar, but would also leave the Cowboys searching for back-to-back wins past the midpoint of a season that earned a new lease on optimism at home last week.
The Broncos have improved their home record at Mile High in each season under Sean Payton, going 5-4 in his first season, 6-3 last year, and off to a 3-0 start this year with wins against the Titans, and Bengals, and Giants. If all the talk around the Cowboys leading into this game is going to prove true, that of renewed hope to win the NFC East or at least make the playoffs, they need to prove themselves as the best team the Broncos have faced at home in 2025 over those other three, and then do something the Giants were unable to and finish if they have a late lead.
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