The Dallas Cowboys are back at AT&T Stadium on Sunday, Sept. 20, and this time the stakes are plain: beat the Washington Commanders or risk starting 0-2. The Week 2 NFC East game kicks off at 3:25 p.m. CT and is being billed as America's Game of the Week.
That search traffic around Cobie Durant is easy to understand now. In his Cowboys debut, he was credited with two tackles, lined up in the slot and on the outside, and held up in coverage while limiting big plays to his side of the field. For a defense looking for something stable after a rough opening week, that kind of debut stands out.
The timing matters because both teams are already carrying a loss into Sunday. Dallas opened the 2026 season with a 28-20 loss to the New York Giants, while the Commanders narrowly lost to the Philadelphia Eagles. A home divisional game in Week 2 does not leave much room for either side to settle in.
That is where the Cowboys' problem gets sharper. Christian Parker's debut was marred by a series of errors throughout, which leaves Dallas trying to turn a bounce-back message into something more concrete on the field. Parker's line about golf and a mulligan captures the mood, but it does not fix the mistakes that showed up in the opener.
So Sunday becomes more than a schedule item. It is the first real chance for Dallas to show that the opener was the outlier and not the shape of things to come, with Cobie Durant one of the few defenders who gave the team a clean answer in Week 1. If the Cowboys want to avoid falling behind in the NFC East, they need that answer to travel from debut to divisional game.
