DALLAS — With a schedule that was going to be challenging no matter how the league laid it out, the Cowboys were hoping for a few breaks. They didn’t get any. The NFL’s bloated schedule release finally arrived Thursday night and, yes, the Cowboys got their six prime-time games, which is what we have come to expect. I mean the team won seven out of 17 games each of the last two seasons, so why ...

Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott throws a deep pass to wide receiver CeeDee Lamb during the third quarter against the Philadelphia Eagles at AT&T Stadium on Sunday, Nov. 23, 2025, in Arlington, Texas.

Smiley N. Pool/The Dallas Morning News/TNS

DALLAS — With a schedule that was going to be challenging no matter how the league laid it out, the Cowboys were hoping for a few breaks.

They didn’t get any.

The NFL’s bloated schedule release finally arrived Thursday night and, yes, the Cowboys got their six prime-time games, which is what we have come to expect. I mean the team won seven out of 17 games each of the last two seasons, so why not?

But while I’m sure head coach Brian Schottenheimer will take it one game at a time and avoid any grumbling about the times and dates for 2026, the Cowboys found no friends in the league office on this front. We already knew they had abandoned a home game for a trip to Brazil against the Baltimore Ravens in Week 3. There were a lot of whispers that the Cowboys had an agreement to get a Monday Night Football game in Houston following the long trip to South America.

Well, they got the Texans in Week 4, but it’s a noon kickoff in Houston, so forget about any extra time to get ready for one of eight games against 2025 playoff teams. That’s to be quickly followed by a Thursday night home game against the Tampa Bay Bucs prior to their first of two really brutal two-game road tests. The Cowboys play at Green Bay and at Philadelphia in Weeks 6 and 7. At least they avoid a cold weather date at Lambeau Field by playing on Oct. 18, but I suspect the media, pondering long walks from the parking lot to the press box, cares more about that than the players.

So after a potentially soft open against New York and Washington the first two weeks, the Cowboys get the Ravens, Texans, Bucs, Packers and Eagles in a five-week stretch where only one game is played at AT&T Stadium. That’s three playoff teams plus a Baltimore club that has lower Super Bowl odds (+950) than any other AFC team. I guess the signing of pass rusher Trey Hendrickson, the healthy return of Lamar Jackson (he missed four games as Baltimore missed the playoffs) and the canning of John Harbaugh has everyone awfully excited about the Ravens.

The other brutal stretch starts on Thanksgiving Day with the Eagles in town. Dallas has been known to beat their new NFC East masters in Arlington, but you know it’s a tough test with 20,000 green-jerseyed fans chanting E-A-G-L-E-S way too often for anyone’s taste.

The Cowboys get to catch their breath after that one, but the next game is a Monday night affair in Seattle. It’s bad enough going up there to play in the chill and the rain at night with the crowd going nuts, but, yeah, they’re also the Super Bowl champs. And the only team with better DraftKings odds for this year’s Super Bowl is on deck. The Cowboys get a late-season bye before traveling back to the West Coast to engage the LA Rams on Dec. 20.

No Christmas present there.

The same can be said — perhaps — for the home game that follows with Jacksonville. I feel like that is the key game to the entire season, if such a thing can be picked.

There were moments late last season where the Jaguars looked like the best team in the AFC. In November and December, the Jags destroyed the playoff-bound Chargers 35-6, they blew out Indy 36-19 when the Colts came into that game with an 8-4 record and they whipped up on the Broncos in Denver 34-20. If Trevor Lawrence has Jacksonville playing at that level again, this could be the game that wrecks the Dallas season before the Cowboys even partake in what they hope is a soft finish with the Giants at home and at Washington.

There are some that will tell you the Cowboys’ schedule ranks 20th in difficulty, softer than most. But that’s based solely on last year’s records. If you go by Vegas projected win totals, the Cowboys play the fourth-toughest schedule in the league.

Do any of these rankings matter if the Cowboys can’t beat Arizona here in midseason? It happened last year, and the Cardinals didn’t win a game in the second half of the season.

Has the defense improved enough to keep some of these more arduous stretches from wearing the team down and prompting a third straight losing season? Perhaps. But the Cowboys would have liked an earlier bye than Dec. 13 and they would have hoped for an extra day to get ready for Houston after flying back from Brazil.

The schedule didn’t roll out that way. Blame it on Rio. But maybe that very winnable center of the schedule —Cardinals, Colts, 49ers (not as scary any more?), Titans — will allow Dallas to load up and survive the before and after that look daunting as we sit here in mid-May.

No one looked at the 2025 schedule and predicted a loss to the Cardinals, a win over the Chiefs and a tie with the Packers. At least we know what lies ahead. Looks like a 9-8 season that just misses the playoffs to me, but it’s entirely possible my crystal ball is off by a game here.