The Dallas Cowboys get Washington on Sunday at 3:25 p.m. at AT&T Stadium, and the stakes are already sharp in Week 2. Both teams are 0-1, which means Dallas can either steady itself or fall into an 0-2 start and an 0-2 mark in the NFC East before September is over.
That is why Dak Prescott’s start against the Giants matters now. He completed 22 of 34 passes for 175 yards, but the offense managed only 37 total yards on its first two possessions and picked up just two first downs in that stretch. The Cowboys were limited to six full offensive possessions and had only two in the second half, a pace that left little room to recover after an uneven opening.
The numbers from that loss show why the game against Washington is being searched as a reset point. Dallas turned the ball over once in four full first-half possessions, and the Giants ran for 171 yards before kneeling out the victory three times for minus-2 yards each. Washington has also had its own problems on the ground, with eight of its past 18 opponents allowing more than 150 rushing yards, so Sunday offers a direct test of whether Dallas can make the kind of defensive adjustments it needs to make the opener look like a one-off.
That is the part the Cowboys must prove. Christian Parker has tried to draw a line between this season and what came before, saying, “That’s really not our business. You know, we weren’t here,” and adding, “This is the 2026 defense, and it’s our responsibility to fix our performance on Sunday, not the performances from 2025, 2024.” He also said, “Our preparation has to pick up in terms of having urgency to get those things fixed.”
The problem is that the old problems still sit in the background. Dallas allowed 511 points last season and finished 30th overall and 32nd against the pass, and the team has eight new defensive starters trying to change that story in one shot. If the defense looks too much like last year’s unit, Washington can keep the pressure on Prescott and force Dallas to play from behind again.
So Sunday is more than a Week 2 meeting. It is the first real chance for the Cowboys to show that the opener was an aberration, not a preview. If they do not, the next conversation will not be about a single bad night against the Giants. It will be about an early hole that grew deeper at home against Washington.
