Dallas Cowboys 2022 schedule: 4 positive takeaways from Dallas’ regular-season schedule

Yesterday the NFL released the 2022 regular season schedule. Naturally, we’re here to break down how things shook out for the Dallas Cowboys, and take a look at four positive takeaways from their slate of games.

In case you missed it, here’s the Cowboys' full regular season schedule.

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1) Two home games to start the season

It’s hard to believe, but the Cowboys have not opened the season up with two home games since 2001. That long streak will come to an end this year as Dallas gets to open up at home against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and then host the defending AFC Champion Cincinnati Bengals.

While the Buccaneers and Bengals are both challenging opponents, it certainly makes things much easier facing both of them at home instead of on the road. If you look at last season’s schedule, Dallas had to travel to Tampa and to Los Angeles to take on the Buccaneers and Chargers in the first two weeks. Compared to that, this season’s first two games should be less fraught.

Dallas is also at home in Week 4 against the Commanders, so they start the season with three of their first four games at home. This will give the Cowboys a chance to defend their home field and get off to a good start.

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2) Timely bye week before trip to Green Bay

Every year when the schedule is released one of the more interesting things to look at is every team’s bye week. It seemed like for years the Cowboys would be given the short end of the stick with a badly placed bye week, but over the past couple of seasons that has seemed to change.

This year, Dallas gets their bye week in a perfect spot, coming in Week 9 before they travel to Green Bay to take on the Packers. The Cowboys also have two extremely winnable games before the bye week as they host two NFC North teams in the Detroit Lions and Chicago Bears.

If Dallas plays up to their ability, they should be able to stack up two wins against the Lions and Bears and go into the bye week with some momentum before playing one of the tougher games on their schedule against Green Bay.

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3) Three straight home games starting with Thanksgiving

Just like they did in 2017 and 2018, the Cowboys will be home for three straight games in late November/early December, starting with the Thanksgiving Day matchup against the Giants. One difference this year from years past is the Cowboys will not have their usual Thursday to Thursday matchup after Thanksgiving.

After their Turkey Day game, Dallas will get nine days of rest before taking on the Indianapolis Colts at home on December 4th, followed by taking on the Houston Texans the following Sunday.

These three home games are all matchups the Cowboys will likely be favored in and should win. If they are able to take advantage of this as they did in 2018 and reel off three straight victories, it could set them up nicely to finish the season hot.

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4 ) Very winnable final seven games

There are the three home games starting with Thanksgiving above, but here are Dallas’ seven final games of the regular season.

• 1 - NY Giants
• 2- Indianapolis Colts
• 3 - Houston Texans
• 4 - @ Jacksonville Jaguars
• 5 - Philadelphia Eagles
• 6 - @ Tennessee Titans
• 7 - @ Washington Commanders

Realistically, if the Cowboys are a true playoff contender, they should be able to win five or more of these games. Obviously a ton can change from now until these games take place, but if a line had to be made today for all these matchups Dallas likely would be favored in at least six of the seven.

If Dallas can take care of business and win three of their final four home games and take two of three on the road, they should be able to offset a potentially rocky start to the season.