NFL history arguments add pressure early for a Dallas Cowboys start

The Dallas Cowboys are already facing an uphill postseason picture after dropping three of their first five games of the 2026 season. A new piece from Yahoo Sports frames that 2-3 start as more than just a rough beginning, arguing that “history” has not been kind to teams that begin a campaign with so few wins so early.

Through five games, Dallas has turned 40 percent of its results into victories. That is not typically the kind of start that gives a team immediate margin for error, especially in a league where playoff spots often come down to tiebreakers and a late-season run. The question for the Cowboys, then, is not only whether they can improve in the weeks ahead, but whether they can do it fast enough to avoid being boxed out even if they finish respectably.

What the Yahoo Sports argument leans on, according to the setup of the article, is a pattern. The premise is that teams with early success rates as low as the Cowboys’ record after five games have historically struggled to reach the postseason. That kind of framing matters because it shifts attention from a single game outcome to cumulative trajectory, the way the NFL calendar forces teams to balance experimentation with urgency.

The Cowboys’ early record also raises the practical problem of catching up in the standings. In the NFL, the margin between competing for a playoff spot and watching it from home can be narrow, and the time to build separation is often earlier than teams would like. While a five-game sample is not enough to judge a complete season, it can determine how aggressively a team has to manage risk later on.

At the same time, “history says” narratives are best treated as context, not as certainty. NFL seasons can swing on factors outside a team’s control, including opponent difficulty, turnover variance, and key matchups that do not show up in an early record. Still, the Cowboys’ situation is clear from the numbers already on the page: with only two wins in their first five games, they would need improvement to avoid falling behind the playoff rhythm the rest of the league is building.

For Dallas, the next benchmark is whether the team can turn performance into results quickly. With the postseason picture tightening as the season progresses, each additional loss increases the burden of coming back later. The rest of the schedule will reveal whether the Cowboys can reset their trajectory, or whether the early pattern outlined by the Yahoo Sports review continues to loom over their playoff chances.