Every year, much gets made of the perceived difficulty of a team’s schedule based on the won-loss records of its opponent from the prior year. But so much changes from year to year; it’s far more relevant to assess the quality of the schedule based on what the opponents do in the current year, not the prior year.
Through 10 weeks, the Cowboys haven’t faced a murderer’s row, based on 2016 performance. In all, they’ve played two teams currently above .500: The Giants in Week One, and Washington in Week Two.
Since then, the Cowboys have faced (and vanquished) eight straight opponents who are each currently 5-5 or worse. Of course, the 5-5 teams they’ve beaten (Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Baltimore) are otherwise 5-4. Still, the Cowboys also have fattened up against the 2-8 Bears, the 1-9 49ers, the 0-11 Browns, the 3-6-1 Bengals, and 4-6 Packers.
Dallas gets a team on the right side of .500 today, and the next five games are against teams current at or above .500 -- including the 7-3 Giants, the 6-4 Vikings, the 6-4 Lions.
None of this means the Cowboys aren’t worthy of their 9-1 record. The point is that we’ll learn a lot more about Dallas as it finishes with six games that won’t go as smoothly as games against clearly inferior foes they faced earlier this year.
Whoever they play, they can’t afford to stumble. The Giants can secure the head-to-head tiebreaker with a Week 14 win over Dallas, and if New York otherwise picks up one game down the stretch, the Giants not the Cowboys will be NFC East champions.