Cowboys Pregame Three Thoughts: Week 2
The Home Opening visitor: our old friends the Saints who are still running it back.
The Cowboys will open the home portion of their 2024 campaign as a pretty significant favorite over a team that shares a fair amount of memories over the years, the New Orleans Saints.
This time, however, the Saints won’t have Sean Payton or Drew Brees to deal with as that franchise seems stuck in the middle. Are they contending? Well, not really. Are they rebuilding? No, not really. In fact, the average age of the Saints is dead-bang average and ranked 16th in the league. They are neither old, nor young. Are they moving on from the past? No. Are staying the course? I guess, but we aren’t sure what that is except a team that has no cap room as usual (they are projected to be $81 million over the cap in 2025…again).
It is sort of difficult to see the overall vision of these New Orleans Saints other than the fact that they are pot-committed to many players that do go back to Payton and Brees. Maybe, they just realize they play in a division where there might be several versions of this last paragraph and as we always point out; someone has to win this division. When that someone does, they will host a playoff game and if they win that they would be one win from a NFC Championship Game. So why not?
Maybe the truth is they have indifferent ownership right now – they do – and are just not too worried about the future at the moment.
It is against that backdrop that we consider the team that is coming to town full of confidence after destroying Carolina. We have a pretty good idea of what the Panthers are all about, but what we don’t know is whether the Saints have a team that can go on the road to a place like Dallas and stand toe-to-toe with a strong side.
We are about to find out.
There are a few traps for Dallas out there including the inevitable let down between showdown games vs Cleveland and Baltimore and the dreaded noon start in a home game. But, it is also the home opener and Mike McCarthy has certainly done a better job of avoiding those flat home games than his predecessor.
So, can Dallas maintain the good vibes of Week 1 and punch through a Saints side that we certainly feel they should? Or is this the week that we start to see some issues with the offense that were covered over in Cleveland by Browns incompetence?
Let’s dive in.
These are my Cowboys PreGame Three Thoughts:
– This is a spot where we need to see the Cowboys offense leading the dance. We need to see the ideal balanced attack to show what they are capable of. Sunday will be a great time to see if Dallas can go get a touchdown per quarter and start to produce.