Photo by Cooper Neill/Getty Images Here is all of the information you need on how to watch this week’s Dallas Cowboys game. The Dallas Cowboys are finally going to play a game that means something. After all the wait, it’s an opportunity to get rid of the playoff trouncing that ended last season and look forward to a new season. The Cowboys will visit the Cleveland Browns in an intra-conference game. The Cowboys offense will be breaking in two new linemen in Tyler Guyton and Cooper Beebe. On defense, they will be without DaRon Bland because of injury. The Browns get Deshaun Watson back after he missed much of last year with injury. But they will be without left tackle Jedrick Wills Jr. The offseason is over, let the games begin. Let’s go! Cowboys at Browns game info Important links: Cowboys depth chart | Roster Date: Sept. 8, 2024 Game time: 4:25 PM EST Location: Huntington Bank Field – Cleveland, OH TV channel: FOX Coverage Map: 506 Sports Radio: 105.3 The Fan | SXM Streaming: FOX Sports, Sling Cowboys record: (0-0) Browns record: (0-0) Odds: Dallas +2.5, courtesy of FanDuel Prediction: Cowboys 24 – Browns 17 Enemy blog: Dawgs By Nature Twitter: @BloggingTheBoys Facebook: Please Like us!

Photo by Harry How/Getty Images There is reportedly a ‘small chance’ that Dak Prescott and the Dallas Cowboys get a deal done before the season starts. The Dallas Cowboys begin their season on Sunday afternoon and when they do it could change the nature of contract negotiations between the team and Dak Prescott. It is well within the realm of possibility that Dak and the Cowboys could agree to terms at some point during the season, but history tells us that the season’s start means that talks have a lesser chance of reaching fruition. Given that Prescott will, at least as of things at this moment, be an unrestricted free agent in the offseason, much stands to change. Obviously we have made it this far without a deal coming together, but we are basically in the eleventh hour of things and according to ProFootballTalk there is a “small chance” that something gets done before kickoff in Cleveland. Now, a night before the Week 1 game between Dallas and Cleveland, there’s a “small chance” it gets done. That’s the latest word from a source with knowledge of the situation. And if it’s going to be officially done before 4:25 p.m. ET on Sunday, they’ll need to get an agreement in principle ASAFP, work out the language, type up the paperwork, and get Dak’s signature on the bottom line before he pivots to football mode. Week 1 isn’t a real deadline. But if the two parties regard it that way, it is. The Cowboys are obviously well in game mode so if a deal is going to happen it would stand to reason that the majority of work is done with some final touches being put in place. For what it’s worth, on Saturday morning ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler noted there was still a “gap”, but perhaps the day bridged it.

Madden believes the Dallas Cowboys are going to start the season off with a loss. The Dallas Cowboys begin their season on Sunday afternoon against the Cleveland Browns and if oddsmakers are correct then they are going to lose. This game is tied for (at the time of this writing at least) the lowest over/under of the Week 1 slate so it is not expected to produce a ton of points. Within that, the Browns are technically favored to produce more as they are the favorites. We all know how poorly the Cowboys have done in season openers in recent memory that were not against the New York Giants. This Browns team boasts one of the better defenses in the NFL, so does Dallas for what it’s worth, so it does feel a bit like a coin flip proposition. As we do every week around here we have run a simulation in the latest installment of the popular Madden franchise, this year’s is Madden 25, to see how the video game believes the Cowboys will do. This week Madden has Dallas losing 18-17. If this simulation were to play out in actuality then we would be in for quite the long week as Dak Prescott threw a critical interception late in the game that set Cleveland up with what ultimately became winning momentum. While Prescott did get the Cowboys in field goal range for a last-second victory, Madden had Brandon Aubrey miss a 59-yarder as time expired. In the past we have had Madden results that were all over the place relative to what actually happened with the Cowboys themselves. We have had the game correctly predict things down to the exact score and also be totally wrong. We’ll see what this week brings.

Photo by Michael Owens/Getty Images What are your expectations for Sunday? At long last, it’s finally here: the 2024 NFL season has arrived, and with it, another year of Dallas Cowboys football. It’s that magical time of year where Cowboys fans convince themselves that this will be the year, that things won’t end in heartbreak like they have the last 20 some years. How this season goes for the Cowboys still remains a mystery, but one thing is for sure: this season does feel different already. Fan confidence is way down after an offseason that saw very few moves to upgrade the team and, as of publication, Dak Prescott is primed to play the season out on the final year of his contract. So we might not be entering this new season with the same ol’ attitude, preemptively planning the Super Bowl parade routes, but it seems as if sentiment has swung to the opposite extreme. This begs the question: what are some realistic expectations for this year’s Cowboys team as they gear up to face the Browns? Our own Tom Ryle and David Howman weigh in. Tom: Well, I’m going to be one of the Grinches today. I’m rather pessimistic, for two reasons. One is internal, and I’ll get to that later, but the first one to discuss is about the league overall. Every year, about half of the teams that made the playoffs the previous season come up short. Based on that, at least three of last year’s NFC playoff teams are not going to make it, and I have a strong feeling that it is the Cowboys’ turn in the barrel this year. They have made the postseason three years in a row. Not many seem to think they are one of the elite teams that should cruise into January with a playoff berth. I’m one of the doubters, and looking at the schedule, I’m not confident they can get over .500. We still don’t know what any team really is at this point, of course, but there are other signs that 2024 is going to be a struggle for Dallas. David: You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch. Who hurt you? Obviously, this offseason hasn’t been one to write home about for the Cowboys, but it certainly hasn’t been the disaster some seem to think it is. The team once again appears to have aced the draft – they have four rookies listed as starters on the depth chart, which would be a franchise first in the common era – and they made some savvy additions in Eric Kendricks, Linval Joseph, Jordan Phillips, and even Dalvin Cook, who offers some value as a practice squad player. Dallas has never started 4 rookies in game 1 of a season (since 1970 merger). Unofficial depth chart lists 4 rookie starters (Guyton, Beebe, Liufau, Carson). Each will play a key role. Dallas has only started 3 rookies twice (’20: Lamb/Steele/Diggs; ’02: Williams/Gurode/Bryant). — Derek Eagleton (@derekeagleton) September 4, 2024 All of that is added to a team that returns the vast majority of their players from last year’s team, which was pretty darn good in their own right and cruised to the playoffs. I’m a little skeptical that the Cowboys can be the first team in nearly two decades to win the NFC East in consecutive seasons, but that’s mostly because I’m superstitious about these things. But this remains a two team race between the Cowboys and Eagles – the Commanders are in Year 1 of a totally new regime, and the Giants appear to be heading for a regime change too – and both of those teams have cruised to the postseason each of the last three years. I’m not sure why this year should be any different. Tom: Well, let’s start with that tidbit of rookies starting. It is highly improbable that they are all going to come out of the gate looking ready to go, and with them being at left tackle, center, and corner, and linebacker, that could make for a very long game. The big matchup is Tyler Guyton against Myles Garrett, and Dak Prescott better have eyes in the back of his head while there better be a tight end out there to help on most plays. They also look to be leaning a lot on Marshawn Kneeland and Marist Liafu, and don’t forget that DeMarvion Overshown is going to see his first NFL action after missing last season with an injury. It also doesn’t help that CeeDee Lamb just got his extension done and missed all of camp. They need him and Prescott to click right away. Meanwhile, we have a running back by committee situation, with Ezekiel Elliott listed as the starter. Shades of 2016! For the team to do well, almost everything has to go just right. And that is not something to pin our hopes on. David: Is that not how every NFL team feels right now, save for maybe the Chiefs? Everything has to go just right for any team to win, and luck absolutely plays a factor in winning, not just on a week-to-week basis but the whole enchilada. I’m not sure that’s a reason to discount the Cowboys, especially when they’ve got one of the more talented rosters in the league. In a roundabout way, you actually brought up one thing that gives me plenty of hope heading into Week 1: Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb. Sure, Lamb hasn’t been with the team until very recently, but we’ve heard all camp how he’s been working out and staying in contact with his quarterback, and those two have been on the same page for a minute now. I have zero concern about that connection not being in sync right from the jump. In the meantime, Lamb’s absence allowed Prescott to further deepen his connections with other receivers like Brandin Cooks, Jalen Tolbert, and Jalen Brooks, all of whom turned heads at various points in camp. As for

Photo by Nick Cammett/Diamond Images via Getty Images It is important for the Cowboys to use Cleveland’s defensive aggression against them. One of the best parts about the SB Nation network is the friendships that we have across it all with folks who cover the other 31 teams in the National Football League. For years we have generated all sorts of content around back and forth discussions with these people, all obviously in the name of garnering as much information that we can for the sake of the Dallas Cowboys. Gaining an understanding about opposing teams from those who know them best is invaluable. Thankfully we will be continuing that tradition this season here on the blog in a number of ways and one of them is the weekly conversations that I will have with people around those parts. This week I spoke to Jared Mueller from Dawgs By Nature, a conversation that you can watch below. It is Week 1 so we admittedly don’t know a ton about any team as the season has yet to officially begin. We obviously have all of last year to go off of and everything that we learned throughout training camp and the preseason, but all of the pages of 2024 are blank. Despite this being the case, one thing I wanted to know from Jared was what the Cowboys could do that he would find to be impressive. As an example if an opposing offense mitigated Micah Parsons then I think it is fair to say we would all walk away thinking highly of that team/player. I wanted to know that answer. Jared was kind enough to provide it. It will be important for Dallas to use Cleveland’s aggression on defense against them We are all well aware of the fact that the Browns boast one of the best defenses in the NFL at the outset of the season. Their entire group is stout, but they also happen to employ the reigning Defensive Player of the Year in Myles Garrett. So what the Cowboys could do to impress Mueller? He didn’t answer anything about Garrett specifically but he sort of included him. Mueller noted that the Browns are an incredibly aggressive defense and if the Cowboys are able to use that against them then he would walk away thinking highly of the group. According to NFL Next Gen Stats the Browns had the 14th-highest blitz rate in 2023 which is obviously not incredibly high; however, Mueller certainly knows the group better than we do. Despite such an almost average blitz rate the Browns were second in the NFL last year as far as quarterback pressure percentage was concerned (the Cowboys were first). They are very good at putting heat on things and to Jared’s point (which can be specifically viewed/heard at the 25-minute mark of the conversation) if Dallas is able to steer into the ice, so to speak, they may be able to weaponize it and turn it into gains while on offense. It is important for an offense to not get too far ahead of themselves and if the Cowboys do then they may get set up for a costly mistake. Patience is difficult to maintain sometimes, but it will be important on Sunday afternoon.