Six Storylines Brewing Ahead of Cowboys-Giants on Sunday Night

By Jesse Worrell

Dallas Cowboys at New York Giants | Sunday, September 13, 2026 | 7:20 p.m. CT, NBC

When the Cowboys and Giants open the season together on Sunday Night Football at MetLife Stadium, it will mark the first Week 1 meeting between these two NFC East rivals since 2023 — and neither team looks much like it did the last time they played. Dallas leads the all-time series 78-48-2, and Dak Prescott is 14-3 as a starter against New York, but recent history hasn't consistently pointed that way: the two teams split their 2025 series, with Dallas surviving an overtime thriller in Week 2 before New York got its revenge later in the year. Here's what's actually driving the buzz heading into kickoff.

A Tale of Two New Regimes

Both sidelines will be led by coaches trying to build something new. Brian Schottenheimer enters his second season as Cowboys head coach, and he's said the roster decisions were tougher this time around because Dallas is now “a deeper, better, more talented football team” than the one he inherited. Across the field, John Harbaugh makes his debut as Giants head coach after New York fired Brian Daboll and brought in the longtime Ravens boss, along with roughly a dozen assistants from his Baltimore staff, including offensive coordinator Matt Nagy and defensive coordinator Dennard Wilson. A primetime, division-rival opener is about as loud a proving ground as a first-year coach can ask for.

Can Christian Parker Actually Fix This Defense?

This is the storyline that matters most for Dallas. The Cowboys' 2025 defense wasn't just bad — it allowed a league-worst 30.1 points per game, the second-worst mark in the 66-year history of the franchise, and finished last in the NFL in passing yards allowed. That collapse, which accelerated after Micah Parsons was traded to Green Bay before the season, cost coordinator Matt Eberflus his job after a single year. Owner Jerry Jones didn't dodge it: “We all take it, and that's no kidding.”

The fix is 34-year-old Christian Parker, hired off the Eagles' staff and a product of the Vic Fangio coaching tree. He's installed a two-high shell built around disguise and post-snap rotation — a real departure from the predictable Cover 1/Cover 3 looks that got picked apart a year ago. The early reviews out of camp have been notably upbeat, less about scheme than about buy-in: reports describe players lining up outside Parker's office to talk football, a sharp contrast to last season's complaints about coaches tuning out player feedback. Quinnen Williams, who arrived via midseason trade in 2025 and watched the unit bottom out, said “90% of this whole entire defensive staff is turned over” and that he's reworking his own pass-rush technique to fit it.

The names around him have changed too. Kenny Clark came over from Green Bay to anchor the interior. Rashan Gary arrived by trade, also from the Packers. And in the most sentimental move of the offseason, Dallas signed 37-year-old Von Miller — a DeSoto, Texas native — to a modest one-year deal, bringing the future Hall of Famer home for his 15th NFL season after he posted nine sacks in Washington a year ago. Add second-year edge rusher Donovan Ezeiruaku and a healthier Year 2 version of cornerback Shavon Revel Jr., and Dallas is betting an almost entirely new defensive identity is ready on Day 1. New York, notably, will be the first real test of whether any of it holds up against live bullets.

Caleb Downs Debuts Against the Team That Passed on Him Twice

Buried in the draft-class subplot is a pointed one: Dallas traded up to take Ohio State safety Caleb Downs 11th overall in April, and the Giants — by their own beat coverage's account — passed on him twice in that same draft. He'll make his NFL debut lining up against the team that had two cracks at him and chose otherwise, in front of a national audience.

Jaxson Dart's Sophomore Test, and Is Malik Nabers Back?

New York's season runs through second-year quarterback Jaxson Dart, who took over as the starter in Week 4 of his rookie year and graded out as PFF's second-best rookie passer, leading all first-year quarterbacks with 100-plus dropbacks in big-time-throw rate. Jameis Winston is the backup after Russell Wilson's release. The bigger variable is whether Dart gets his top target back: Malik Nabers tore his ACL in Week 4 last season, and while the Giants notably kept him off the PUP list to open camp — a good sign — his exact Week 1 status wasn't yet locked in as of the most recent reporting. If he's active, it changes the calculus on New York's offense considerably; if not, Dart will be leaning on a thinner receiver room after Calvin Austin III also landed on injured reserve with a torn ACL suffered in practice.

The Offense Dallas Is Building Around Dak

On the other side of the ball, Dallas is leaning into what looks like its most complete offensive personnel group in years. CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens headline the receiver room, and Javonte Williams — who signed with Dallas as a free agent in March 2025, promptly turned in a 1,200-yard breakout season for the Cowboys, and then re-signed on a three-year, $24 million extension this offseason rather than testing free agency again — gives Dallas a run game with real continuity behind it. Pickens has been characteristically blunt about the goal: “Just trying to be through the roof.” NFL.com's Bucky Brooks has floated Prescott as an “underrated MVP candidate,” pointing to a 77:27 touchdown-to-interception ratio across his three seasons under Schottenheimer. The offensive line — anchored by the “Great Wall of Tyler” trio of Tyler Guyton, Tyler Smith and second-year Tyler Booker — is still young, and Schottenheimer flagged run-blocking efficiency and special teams as specific areas the team needed to clean up coming out of the preseason. One lineup question remains unresolved publicly: whether Terence Steele or newly acquired Broderick Jones wins the starting right tackle job by kickoff.

The Market's Take

As of the start of September, oddsmakers had Dallas favored by roughly 2.5 to 3 points on the road, with a total near 48.5 — numbers that reflect a game expected to be closer than the outright talent gap might suggest, largely because of how much both rosters have turned over. New York's best path to the upset, according to several previews, runs through its pass rush: Brian Burns, Kayvon Thibodeaux and rookie standout Abdul Carter all have a chance to make Dak Prescott's night uncomfortable, much as the Giants' front did in their Week 18 meeting last season.

Whatever else changes between now and kickoff, this much is settled: a Cowboys team betting its season on a defensive overhaul opens on the road, at night, against a rebuilding division rival trying to prove its own new coach was the right hire. Something will get answered early.

Note: A handful of details — the Giants' final Week 1 injury report, the Steele-vs-Jones right tackle decision, and Malik Nabers' final active/inactive status — typically aren't confirmed until practice reports post the week of the game (around September 9-10, 2026). Worth a final check before kickoff.

Photo: MetLife Stadium, aerial view — Anthony Quintano / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0