Outside of Dallas Cowboys fans — and maybe not even them — nobody was clamoring for the Cowboys to be in the first game of the NFL regular season.
Maybe we should have predicted the NFL picking the Cowboys for its kickoff game. The NFL loves to spotlight NFC East teams in prime spots, and Dallas was the pick to face the Philadelphia Eagles in the league’s traditional Thursday night Week 1 opener. In the history of the kickoff game, the NFL has picked a divisional opponent to face the reigning Super Bowl champion only three times, and all three times it was an NFC East matchup.
While Cowboys at Eagles wasn’t the best matchup the NFL could have picked, or even in the top three, the final result will be what the league was looking for: It’s going to draw a massive audience, perhaps the highest in the history of the kickoff game.
NFL chooses Cowboys vs. Eagles to open season
It’s hard to predict what will happen in a season opener, especially after big offseason changes, but Cowboys vs. Eagles isn’t expected to be one of the more competitive games of Week 1.
Once it was announced that the Cowboys would face the Eagles, BetMGM released a line that had the Eagles as a 7-point favorite over Dallas. That will end up being one of the larger point spreads of Week 1.
The Cowboys, who were 7-10 last season, likely wanted to ease into the season with a different opponent. Instead, they get an Eagles team that lost just once after September last season. The Eagles beat the Cowboys 34-6 and 41-7 last season. And yet, this was the NFL’s pick to open the season at Philadelphia.
The NFL could have taken the Detroit Lions, who went 15-2 last season, or a Los Angeles Rams team that gave the Eagles a scare in a snowy NFC divisional round game. If the NFL wanted to satisfy its NFC East infatuation, the opponent could have been a Washington Commanders team that was the only team to beat the Eagles from October on last season.
But the NFL also knew that no team draws like the Cowboys.
Cowboys are NFL’s biggest draw
Good or bad, the Cowboys always get attention. That’ll be the case again this season, with Brian Schottenheimer taking over after he was a surprising choice to be Dallas’ next head coach, with Dak Prescott returning from injury and receiver George Pickens joining the offense after a big trade with the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Last season the NFL set a kickoff game record with 28.9 million viewers for a close game between the Baltimore Ravens and Kansas City Chiefs. That matchup, which was a rematch of the AFC championship game the season before, was the best possible matchup the NFL could have scheduled for the first game of the season.
This isn’t the best matchup, but it might draw comparable or better ratings. The NFL knew that, and had the added bonus of saving good matchups against the Lions, Rams and Commanders for later in the season.
We’ll complain about the Cowboys being chosen as the Eagles’ opponent for Week 1, especially if Dallas doesn’t keep the game competitive. But millions of people are going to watch.
