Cowboys vs. Giants: Three Bold Predictions for Sunday Night’s NFC East Battle

The NFL’s Sunday schedule of Week 1 games ends in East Rutherford, N.J., with an intradivision battle between the Cowboys and Giants.

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Dallas enters this one coming off a 7-9-1 season, second to the Eagles in the NFC East and missing the playoffs for a second consecutive year. They now enter Year 2 of Brian Schottenheimer’s reign as head coach, having traded for outside linebacker Rashan Gary, franchise-tagging wide receiver George Pickens and re-signing defensive tackle Quinnen Williams to a monster extension. As they do every year that quarterback Dak Prescott is healthy, expectations are again high for the Cowboys heading into 2026.

New York, meanwhile, begins its first season under head coach John Harbaugh after parting ways with Brian Daboll. They’ll do so with plenty of young talent on the offensive side of the ball in quarterback Jaxson Dart, running back Cam Skattebo and wide receiver Malik Nabers, as well as a trio of edge defenders in Brian Burns, Abdul Carter and Kayvon Thibodeaux.

For the eighth time since 2012, it’s Cowboys vs. Giants in Week 1. Here are three bold predictions for the matchup.

KaVontae Turpin will score the 2026 season’s first kickoff return touchdown

Undrafted out of TCU in 2019, Turpin logged stints in the IFL, FCF, TSL, ELF and USFL before finally getting his NFL shot with the Cowboys in 2022. Since then, he’s become one of the league’s top return specialists, leading the NFL in kick return yards in each of the past two seasons-with his 1,814 yards in 2025 ranking as the second-most in a season in NFL history-and has earned Pro Bowl nods in 2022, ’24 and ’25, along with first-team All-Pro honors in ’24 and a second-team selection in ’25.

The 30-year-old is pretty good with the ball in his hands.

Since the introduction of the dynamic kickoff rules two seasons ago, the NFL has seen seven kicks returned for touchdowns in 2024 and six in ’25-up from four in ’23, and two in both ’22 and ’21. The third phase of the game is back, and with one of the league’s best returners taking center stage on Sunday night, I’m predicting he’ll house one against the Giants.

Jaxson Dart will score two rushing touchdowns

Dart took over New York’s starting quarterback job in Week 4 of last season, starting 12 games and posting a 4–8 record. Over that span, he underwent five(!) concussion tests and was also evaluated for one during the Giants’ first preseason game this summer. The 23-year-old plays the game hard-and is unapologetic about it.

“This is football,” Dart said last season when asked about his style of play. “Like, I’m going to get hit if I’m in the pocket or outside the pocket. I feel like I played this way my whole life. It shouldn’t be any shocker to anybody if you followed along with my career. We’re not playing soccer out here. You’re going to get hit. Things happen. It’s just part of the game.”

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Dart’s style of play helped him log nine rushing touchdowns as a rookie, which was tied for second among quarterbacks behind only Josh Allen, and given his comments, it’s hard to believe he’s going to change in 2026.

That’s why, with his Giants going up against the Cowboys-who allowed 24 rushing touchdowns last season, the most in the NFL-I’m predicting that Dart will find the end zone not once, but twice with his legs on Sunday night.

Cowboys will mount a comeback win over the Giants

Perhaps this isn’t all that bold, considering Harbaugh’s track record of fourth-quarter collapses, but after Dart & Co. take an early lead in this one, I’m predicting the second half will be all Cowboys.

Dallas’s relentlessness was put on full display twice last season, once against the Giants in Week 2-its back-and-forth bout saw them score 10 points in the game’s final 53 seconds before winning in overtime-and again in Week 12, when it mounted a 21-point comeback over the Eagles, thanks to Prescott’s 354-yard passing performance.

There isn’t any quit in the Cowboys, which is why I’m predicting that they’ll find a way to rally from an early New York lead and walk away with a Week 1 victory at MetLife, 24–21.

This article was originally published on www.si.com as Cowboys vs. Giants: Three Bold Predictions for Sunday Night’s NFC East Battle.

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This story was originally published September 13, 2026 at 11:11 AM.