Free agency and the NFL Draft have come and gone. It’s time to fully embrace the 2023 offseason by breaking down the fantasy football aspirations of each and every team before fantasy draft season truly gets underway.
You can find our team previews for all 32 NFL teams here.
What follows is a fantasy-focused breakdown of the Dallas Cowboys, focusing on key questions like:
- Is Dak Prescott arguably fantasy football’s most-consistent QB?
- Does Tony Pollard deserve to be a top-five fantasy RB?
- Will CeeDee Lamb maintain top-10 fantasy goodness despite the offense adding Brandin Cooks to the WR room?
Every fantasy-relevant player from the Cowboys will be covered. Make sure to check out the Fantasy Life Team Preview Landing Page through the end of June for more all-encompassing fantasy football coverage.
Notable offseason moves
From the front office, to the coaching staff, to the roster: Every 2023 NFL team will be different than its 2022 version.
Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy enters his fourth year in Dallas – but this time he’ll be calling plays. Don’t expect the absence of offensive coordinator Kellen Moore to result in wholesale changes; McCarthy himself said it’ll be around a 30-35% difference.
Blame Moore all you want for the Cowboys’ back-to-back season-ending losses to the 49ers, but it’s tough to be overly critical about the man partially responsible for leading this offense to so much regular season success in recent years.
- 2020 points per game pre-Dak injury: 32.6 (No. 2)
- 2021: 31.2 (No. 1)
- 2022 post-Dak injury: 32.5 (No. 1)
Slant-flat jokes aside: McCarthy deserves credit for calling plays well enough to help lead Aaron Rodgers and company to a Super Bowl once upon a time. The question is just how serious he is about wanting to further run the damn ball:
You see, McCarthy’s desire to establish the run is concerning because the Cowboys already run the ball at a high rate. Overall, Prescott and company ranked 20th (-1.6%), 9th (+1.2%), and most recently 25th (-6%) in pass rate over expected.
Failure to maintain their status as a top-two offense in the fastest situation neutral pace could make it awfully difficult for this passing game to enable more than one high-end option due to the lack of available volume.
Additionally, the Cowboys have made plenty of changes to their roster. The following QBs, RBs, WRs and TEs have either joined or left Dallas in some way, shape or form this offseason:
- QB: None.
- RB: Longtime workhorse RB Ezekiel Elliott was released after scoring more TDs and gaining more total yards than any Cowboys RB ever not named Emmitt Smith or Tony Dorsett. So far, the Cowboys have only added Ronald Jones as a replacement, but rumors have continued to swirl about Zeke eventually making his way back home.
- WR: The Cowboys replaced complementary WRs Noah Brown and T.Y. Hilton in a major way by trading for Cooks. The trade only cost the Cowboys 2023 fifth- and 2024 sixth-round selections. Is anyone else still wondering why they had to trade Amari Cooper away in the first place?
- TE: The Cowboys declined to bring back TE Dalton Schultz on a big-money deal, leading to the veteran signing a one-year contract with the Texans.
Dallas added three additional skill-position talents in the draft: Michigan TE Luke Schoonmaker (Round 2), Kansas State RB Deuce Vaughn (Round 6) and South Carolina WR Jalen Brooks (Round 7). The history of draft capital tells us to not set expectations too high for Day 3 selections Vaughn and Brooks, while Schoonmaker profiles as a committee piece in Year 1 alongside incumbent backups Jake Ferguson and Peyton Hendershot.
QBs
Dak Prescott (QB11) | Cooper Rush (QB50)
Death, taxes and Prescott putting up good to great fantasy production.
- 2016: 17.9 fantasy points per game (QB9)
- 2017: 16.3 (QB14)
- 2018: 17.9 (QB13)
- 2019: 21.1 (QB3)
- 2020: 26.9 (QB1)
- 2021: 20 (QB8)
- 2022: 16.6 (QB14)
However, the highs of 2020 and 2021 haven’t been replicated over the past two seasons, in large part due to the reality that Prescott hasn’t been quite so willing to run following his ankle break. Overall, Prescott has posted back-to-back career-low marks in rushing yards per game (9.1, 15.2) while accounting for just two rushing scores since 2021 – he had 24 rushing TDs from 2016 to 2020.
Dak averaged four fantasy points per game from purely rushing production before his devastating 2020 injury, but just 1.6 after. Perhaps the upward trend from 2022 persists, but historically QBs do run less as they get older (makes sense).
High-volume dual-threat QBs like Josh Allen and Jalen Hurts join receiving RBs as the closest things that fantasy football has to cheat codes; that hasn’t been Prescott’s game over the past two seasons. Thirty in July and facing life inside of an offense wanting to run the ball more than ever, it’s far from a guarantee that Prescott’s 2022 status as the QB12 in expected fantasy points per game improves for the better.
Perhaps PFF’s reigning 12th-ranked offensive line and skill-position additions are enough to help Prescott post top-tier efficiency numbers as a passer, but he simply wasn’t that guy in 2022.
- Completion percentage over expected: 0% (18th among qualified QBs)
- Yards per attempt: 7.3 (13th)
- QBR: 58.3 (12th)
- EPA per dropback: +0.15 (9th)
The discrepancy between fantasy’s QB1-6 and QB7-12 bucket was a decade-high 4.9 fantasy points per game in 2022, while the industry has done an excellent job identifying the position’s most fantasy-friendly options in terms of preseason ADP meeting end-of-season finishes. Drafting the position’s dual-threat aliens in the second or third round is warranted, but it’s risky business to accordingly raise the ADP of the position’s less fantasy-friendly talents occupying the middle rounds.
I’m basically in line with Prescott’s current Underdog ADP (QB10); it’s his status as the 82nd player off the board that draws a pause. Don’t overestimate our ability to discern the fantasy difference between pocket-passer types; I’d rather draft guys like Russell Wilson, Derek Carr and Jordan Love four-plus rounds later when not accounting for a best-ball stack.
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RBs
Tony Pollard (RB5) | Malik Davis (RB61) | Deuce Vaughn (RB63) | Ronald Jones (RB100)
Pollard’s recovery from leg and ankle surgery isn’t expected to impact his training camp availability. It’s uncertain if the Cowboys will sign him long-term after the season, but, for meow, he’s locked in as the RB1 after signing the franchise tag.
The Cowboys have only asked Pollard to play more than 60% of the offense’s snaps on three occasions since drafting him in the fourth round of the 2019 NFL Draft:
- Week 15, 2020: 12-69-2 rushing, 6-63-0 receiving, 90% snaps
- Week 7, 2022: 12-83-0 rushing, 2-26-0 receiving, 87%
- Week 10, 2022: 22-115-1 rushing, 3-13-0 receiving, 65%
It’s not a coincidence that free agent Ezekiel Elliott was injured or ruled out in all three instances. Dallas has been reluctant to fully feature Pollard over the years, but they were far more willing to give him a true every-down role when Zeke was out of the picture.
Oct 16, 2022; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; Dallas Cowboys running back Tony Pollard (20) in the tunnel against the Philadelphia Eagles at Lincoln Financial Field. Mandatory Credit: Eric Hartline-USA TODAY Sports
The Cowboys might not quite view Pollard as the sort of grinder worth feeding 20-plus carries up the middle every week, but that sort of role isn’t as valuable as one featuring the soon-to-be 26-year-old’s rather awesome talents in the passing game anyway.
Last year, Pollard’s average TD length was 25.1 yards — easily the longest of 13 RBs who scored 10-plus TDs. As you might expect, Zeke (3.6) had the shortest average length of the group. The rising fifth-year back did so in style: Pollard was one of the game’s best RBs in terms of racking up yards after contact and forcing missed tackles.
You don’t need more than one hand to count the number of RBs better at picking up yards after contact and creating explosive plays than Pollard since he entered the league in 2019.
This has also been a top-12 offense in terms of expected backfield PPR points over the past three years. Pollard combines elite talent with plenty of fantasy-friendly opportunity. The only RBs I have ranked ahead of him, at the moment, are Christian McCaffrey, Austin Ekeler, Bijan Robinson and Saquon Barkley.
I’m mostly out on the backup RBs due to the uncertainty that any of them would receive a fantasy-viable handcuff role should Pollard miss time. Bringing Zeke back into the fold would render him more of a TD-dependent FLEX play with injury-induced RB2 potential; he’s the best late-round dart of the group at the moment.
WRs
CeeDee Lamb (WR8) | Brandin Cooks (WR51) | Michael Gallup (WR63) | KaVontae Turpin (WR127)
On the one hand, Cowboys WRs have had some rather great fantasy-friendly opportunities in terms of expected PPR points per game over the past three years.
- Bills (45.7 expected PPR points per game)
- Buccaneers (46.6)
- Rams (41.3)
- Cardinals (41.1)
- Steelers (40.2)
- Cowboys (39.6)
On the other, their per-game average dipped to 33.6 last season after clearing the 40-point threshold in both 2020 and 2021. It’s not a coincidence that this occurred during a year in which the Cowboys got back to running the damn ball at their highest rate yet under McCarthy.
And yet, it’s tough to be overly pessimistic about Lamb. His breakout 2022 campaign happened even with Prescott missing five games. The 24-year-old WR was deployed all over the formation and regularly found ways to individually make big-time plays through both YAC goodness and exceptional hands.
Jan 16, 2023; Tampa, Florida, USA; Dallas Cowboys wide receiver CeeDee Lamb (88) makes a touchdown catch against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the second half during the wild card game at Raymond James Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports
Lamb’s 17.7 PPR points per game ranked seventh at the position last year. The 24-year-old stud is the heart and soul of this passing game and once again profiles as someone likely to see 150-plus targets thanks to the Cowboys’ willingness to force-feed him the ball.
Just nine WRs ranked among the league’s top-15 options in both target share and air yard share last season:
- Davante Adams (31% target share, 40% air yard share)
- Tyreek Hill (29%, 40%)
- Ja’Marr Chase (29%, 38%)
- DeAndre Hopkins (28%, 41%)
- Justin Jefferson (28%, 37%)
- CeeDee Lamb (28%, 35%)
- Chris Olave (27%, 43%)
- A.J. Brown (27%, 39%)
- D.J. Moore (26%, 46%)
The larger concern is whether or not you should go out of your way to land this offense’s complementary WRs.
Cooks is coming off the second least-productive season of his career and will be 30 in September, which historically is when WRs start breaking bad. Gallup is still just 27, although career-low marks in yards per reception (10.9) and yards per target (5.7) reflected the reality that he looked like a shell of his former self in his first year back from injury in 2022.
The Cowboys profile as a run-first offense that didn’t exactly work among the league’s leaders in passing efficiency last season. Barring major bounce-back campaigns from Cooks and Gallup, they don’t profile as the sort of mid-to-late round darts capable of ascending into must-start territory. I’d rather take rookies like Jordan Addison, Quentin Johnston and Zay Flowers at a similar ADP to Cooks; Gallup’s reduced cost is easier to stomach and a better target considering the injury context surrounding last season.
TEs
TE: Luke Schoonmaker (TE31) | Jake Ferguson (TE32) | Peyton Hendershot (TE42)
While it’s not a guarantee that McCarthy will involve the TE position as much as Moore did, even 90% of Schultz’s expected PPR points over the years would still be pretty good for fantasy purposes:
- 2020: 9.6 expected PPR PPG (TE14)
- 2021: 10.8 expected PPR PPG (TE9)
- 2022: 11.0 expected PPR PPG (TE5)
Schoonmaker profiles as the best candidate to assume Schultz’s role, although it’s hardly a given that he works that far ahead of Ferguson and Hendershot. The Cowboys leaned on both Ferguson (83% snaps, 51%) and Hendershot (59%, 61%) in their two games without Schultz last season.
The larger issue facing Schoonmaker is the reality that rookie TEs almost never boom in fantasy land. Only three first-year TEs have finished as top-12 fantasy scorers over the past 10 years:
- 2013 Jordan Reed (TE7)
- 2017 Evan Engram (TE4)
- 2021 Kyle Pitts (TE11)
The latter two performers also greatly benefited from Odell Beckham Jr. and Calvin Ridley missing most of those seasons due to injury.
No position has been more difficult for rookies to crack. Such is life for young TEs who must either 1.) Master the nuances of both receiving AND blocking, or 2.) Land in an offense happy to let them work as a bona fide WR.
Smart people were awfully high on Schoonmaker before the draft. He could surprise early if given a featured every-down role, but that seems unlikely to come to fruition due to the offense’s competent-enough incumbent backups. Don’t be afraid to throw a dart at the Michigan product in 3-4 TE builds in best ball land, otherwise, no parties involved have a clear enough role to warrant being drafted in traditional one-TE re-draft formats.
Win Total Prediction
2023 Win Total: 9.5
The Cowboys made some splashy offseason moves by trading for Cooks and CB Stephon Gilmore. Throw in the decision to seemingly move on from Zeke, and maybe just maybe all the stars are aligning for 2023 to finally be the year Cowboys fans get back to seeing a true contender.
There hasn’t been a repeat NFC East champion in 18 years. Perhaps the Cowboys are able to ride their reigning top-five scoring offense and defense back to the top of the division … but I’m not so sure.
McCarthy taking on play-calling duties sure seems like more of a “let me take matters into my own hands to save my job” move as opposed to a coherent decision to provide something better than Moore, who regularly helped the Cowboys produce a top-tier regular season scoring offense.
There aren’t many holes in this Cowboys roster, but their elderly offseason additions are perhaps being overrated, and I have a hard time paying the juice for double-digit wins under a new play-caller who will have a hard time replicating the success from past years … because it’s tough for this offense to get much better.
I’d prefer to stay away from this one, but if you insist: Give me under 9.5 wins for a team that might be relying a bit too much on players and coaches who were far closer to their primes five years ago.
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