Looking at the Dallas Cowboys remaining schedule offers a lot of hope for the rest of the season

Even though it doesn’t feel like it, life is still relatively good for the Dallas Cowboys. They are 4-2, near the top of things in their conference (although the division is surprisingly tight at the top), and are set to get back their franchise quarterback sooner rather than later.

One of the big reasons why hope should be percolating throughout the confines of Cowboys Nation right now actually has nothing to do with the team themselves but the teams that they will be facing off against.

You may have seen that the Cowboys opened up as 7-point favorites for their home game against the Detroit Lions this week which suggests that they may be favored by a similar margin the following week against the Chicago Bears.

In looking at the 11 remaining games on the Cowboys schedule there are not exactly a ton of contenders. Sure there are the same Eagles who just beat Dallas and there are also the 5-1 Minnesota Vikings, but how many teams there actually make you nervous?

To be fair this has been a somewhat down NFL season and you could look at a lot of schedules and feel optimistic about teams, but right now the Cowboys are currently ranked fourth overall in DVOA (before Monday night’s game). This isn’t to say that they are automatically going to beat everyone else but what weighs them down from a DVOA perspective is their offense (which ranks 17th) and that is going to improve significantly once Dak Prescott does return.

In looking at the remaining games on the team’s schedule, only five are against teams with records currently above .500. Of those five one is the Indianapolis Colts who have mostly looked lifeless on offense this season, and another is the New York Giants who the Cowboys already beat this season and will face on Thanksgiving Day when the G-Men are traveling for a short week game.

There are no guarantees in the world of professional football but it is difficult to look at the current state of the Dallas Cowboys and not feel pretty good about things.