The New York Giants open against the Dallas Cowboys on September 13 at 8:20 PM on NBC. It is a Giants home game. Dallas has owned the Ginats having won 9 of their 10 games going back to the 2021 season. However the sole Giants win in that timeframe was the last game played in January 4, 2026 and the Giants won 34-17. The Cowboys started a new head coach last season with Brian Schottenheimer. The Giants start with a new head coach this season with John Harbaugh. Today we take a look at the projected starters on these teams and how they have changed from last year.
Here is a formation of the starters with the Giants on offense and the Cowboys on defense.
On the left is the team’s 2025 record and their points either for or against and the rank that was. For each player it lists the percentage of snaps they took on offense or defense in 2025 and their Approximate Value behind that. Approximate Value is a metric that Pro Football Reference website uses to show across positions and years the value the player brought to the team for a given season. The values roughly translate to 3-5 solid backup, 6-9 high quality starter, 10+ very good Pro-Bowl worthy and 18+ elite. The AV values shown are the higher of either last season or their career AV average. A PB means they made the Pro Bowl last season. A light yellow by the player denotes that they are either a new addition to the team this season or they are returning from a drastically short season last year due to injury. A blue code for a player denotes a high quality starter and a dark blue denotes a very good Pro Bowl worthy player. For the edge rushers the AV listed has been increased to account for pressures which are not accounted for in the standard AV calculation.
I would give the Giants the edge in this matchup for the following reasons
- A weak secondary and linebacker defense of the Cowboys. For 2026 PFF ranked the Cowboys secondary at 20th and the linebackers at 27th.
- Last year the Cowboys were last in points allowed and the changes to the defense do not appear significant
- The teams played just in January and the Giants won by a significant margin
- The Giants have improved simply by the return to health of Malik Nabers and Cam Skattebo.
- The final 2025 PFF offensive line rankings had the Giants at number 9. This is the same line with the addition of first round pick Francis Mauigoa.
Here is a picture of the Giants defense and Cowboys offense.
This was a very good Dallas offense last season and shows here as ranking 7th in points scored in 2025. This starting offense is basically the same. The only exception is they have Pro-Bowl offensive lineman Tyler Smith out for up to 6 weeks with an injury. The Giants defense was not very good last year and shows as ranking 26th in points allowed in 2025. In addition they have lost Pro-Bowler DT Dexter Lawrence. The interior defensive line will miss him. The Giants ranked last in rushing yards per attempt allowed last year and second to last in rushing yards/game allowed. On a plus they have improved their linebacker corp with free agent Tremaine Edmunds and first round pick Arvell Reese. The Giants secondary has not seen much change. However they were in the third quartile in passing plays allowed for 10+, 20+ and 1st down. But they will be sorely tested as Dallas was 1st in passing plays of 10+ yards and 1st downs. The Giants will need to rely heavily on their pass rush to pressure Prescott. However this is what PFF had to say about Dak Prescott‘s 2025 season – his 77.3 PFF grade under pressure led the NFL. The Giants and the Steelers are the only NFL teams that PFF had 2+ edge rushers in their top twenty. It should be an interesting matchup.
I would give the Dallas offense the edge in this matchup for the following reasons
- Continuity – this is basically the same team offense as last year
- High power – with Prescott and two great receivers this offense in 2025 ranked second in passing yards and fifth in passing touchdowns.
- In 2025 Dallas ranked seventh in rushing yards per attempt
- Dak Prescott is rated high by PFF as a quarterback under pressure.
- The Giants secondary is in the bottom half of the league in terms of ranking.
Overall this should be a high scoring shootout. Last year the Cowboys had four 4th quarter comebacks and three game winning drives. The Giants had none and the Harbaugh’s Baltimore Ravens had one even though they lost nine games. In a shootout the edge would go to Dak Prescott. Both teams had eerily similar point differentials in their games. Dallas just happened to win three more close ones that the Giants lost. In that last game that the Giants won by a large margin, Dak Prescott played only the first half and then sat in a meaningless game. The score at the half was 16-10 Giants with both teams scoring one touchdown. I predict a Dallas win with a score like 31 – 24.
Featured image: Billy Bob Bain, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
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