The Dallas Cowboys' Early-Season Mirage and Why Patience Remains Football's Greatest Virtue

We are four weeks into the NFL season, and if there's one thing I've learned in more than two decades of watching this league, it's that September and October football can be the cruelest deceiver in sports. The games count on the scoreboard, absolutely, but the narrative arc they create for franchises often tells a story that the final sixteen games will spend the remainder of the season rewriting. This year, the Dallas Cowboys find themselves at the center of what might be the most dangerous overreaction of the young 2024 season, and it's worth taking a measured step back to understand why their early success, while real and impressive, should not yet convert us into believers that they're suddenly the team to beat in the NFC East.

Before we go further, let's establish what the Cowboys have actually accomplished through four weeks. They're sitting at 3 and 1, which is respectable. They're in the conversation. But let's also establish what they've done to get there. Their victories have come against the Cleveland Browns, a team that looks increasingly like they might be in the second tier of the AFC; against the New Orleans Saints, a franchise clearly in rebuild mode with no margin for error in a salary cap nightmare; and against the Jacksonville Jaguars, a team whose Super Bowl window is apparently closing faster than expected. That's not an indictment necessarily, because you can only play the teams on your schedule, but it's important context when we're talking about whether the Cowboys have truly arrived as East Division favorites.

The one loss came to the Atlanta Falcons, a team that looked surprisingly competent in that matchup and has proven through four games that they might be better than we thought entering the season. That particular loss stung because it wasn't a blowout, and it revealed something troubling about the Cowboys' ability to close games against teams that have legitimate speed and athleticism on the perimeter. But one loss in four games doesn't define a season. What concerns me more is the underlying metrics and the composition of those victories.

Let me talk for a moment about what actually matters in sustaining success in the NFL. I've watched enough draft classes come and go, studied enough combine tape, analyzed enough film to understand that the teams that win in December and January are built on three fundamental pillars: elite quarterback play, a dominant front seven on defense, and the ability to move the football consistently against quality opponents. The Cowboys have demonstrated competent quarterback play from Dak Prescott so far this season. He's not making catastrophic mistakes, he's moving the ball, and he's managed the offense in a way that's been functional. But "functional" is not the same as "elite," and if we're going to seriously discuss the Cowboys as NFC East favorites, we need Prescott to elevate his play significantly from what we saw in Week 1 against Cleveland all the way through Week 4 against Jacksonville.

The Dallas offense, built around the vision of offensive coordinator Ben Johnson, has shown flashes but also significant inconsistency. Johnson came to Dallas with enormous fanfare, a coordinator who had proven his chops with the Detroit Lions and earned the kind of capital that made every team in the league take notice. Through four weeks, he's orchestrated an offense that ranks in the middle of the pack in total yards and efficiency metrics. That's not catastrophic, but it's also not the kind of elite offensive efficiency that should make NFC East rivals nervous. Johnson is a brilliant mind in football, genuinely one of the smarter coordinators in the league, but he's also human, and it takes time for any coordinator to fully integrate a new team, new personnel, and new systematic concepts.

Here's where the Coach of the Year question becomes relevant to this broader discussion about Dallas's place in the NFC East hierarchy. Ben Johnson will not win Coach of the Year this season, and I say that with the kind of certainty that comes from understanding how the award works. Coach of the Year typically goes to a coach who exceeded expectations significantly or took a team that was previously dysfunctional and made them winners. Mike Vrabel in Tennessee is doing exactly that. Bill Belichick in Cleveland, while the Browns have stumbled a bit, is still commanding attention because of how much intrigue his return to the league generates. What Johnson is doing in Dallas is essentially what was expected when he was hired. He was supposed to make this offense better. He was supposed to elevate the play of the skill position players. That's the job description, not an overachievement worthy of major award consideration.

Meanwhile, let's talk about the Rams for a moment, because they've gotten swept up in this same kind of early-season narrative adjustment. The Los Angeles Rams, after some rough performances to start the season, are still not Super Bowl favorites in any reasonable assessment. They're a well-coached team under Sean McVay with talented skill position players, but they've shown concerning defensive vulnerabilities, their pass rush has been inconsistent, and Matthew Stafford, while still capable of stretching the field, hasn't demonstrated the kind of dominant efficiency needed to carry a team through a sixteen-game grind. The Rams remain a playoff team that could make noise, but the notion that they should still be viewed as favorites over teams like Kansas City, Buffalo, or even the Houston Texans is misguided.

Back to Dallas though, because this is the heart of the matter. The Cowboys have a real problem that extends beyond coaching changes or offensive innovation. Their secondary has shown vulnerability against speed receivers and sophisticated offensive schemes. Their pass rush, while adequately stocked with talent, hasn't generated consistent pressure on opposing quarterbacks. These are structural issues that don't get resolved in four weeks of football. When you're playing the Jaguars and the Saints, you're not going to be tested the way you'll be tested when you play opponents with legitimate playoff aspirations. The schedule shapes narratives just as much as actual performance does, and the Cowboys' early strength of schedule has been favorable.

What I'm suggesting is that Dallas is a respectable 3 and 1 team with some positive momentum and a coordinator who will eventually get his offense operating at a higher level. But they are not the NFC East favorites yet, and the Philadelphia Eagles, despite their early stumbles, remain the division's most threatening team because of their elite defense, their ability to run the football, and their deep, talented secondary. Washington is improving and might be better than we thought. New York remains New York. But Dallas, despite their current record, is still a team being defined by its upside rather than its current output.

The wisdom in football is always the same: it's a long season, and September performance has limited predictive value for January outcomes. The Cowboys will likely make the playoffs and might win the East yet, but four weeks in is far too early to declare that either of those things is inevitable. That's not pessimism about Dallas. It's simply clarity about what we've actually seen so far.