Alrighty, folks. After seven long months, the time has come for the Dallas Cowboys to put their money where their mouth is. This team has not shied away from expectations, as many franchise leaders fully expect a return to the playoffs.
While Dallas is returning plenty of talent, the biggest reason expectations are higher than usual is the work it did this offseason.
Between hiring Christian Parker, pairing him with Caleb Downs, and making a host of defensive upgrades that fit Parker's vision, you can finally associate the word "serious" with America's Team. It truly felt like a franchise-altering offseason.
With opening week finally here, let's zoom out and analyze the Cowboys' biggest winners and losers from the last several months.
Biggest winners and losers from Dallas Cowboys offseason
Winner: The front office & Brian Schottenheimer
Seriously, when was the last time the Cowboys had a drama-free offseason? No contract nonsense. No shameless negotiating through the media. No isolating star players. No stirring the pot just to get people talking about the team. All business.
Normalcy and seriousness are all Cowboys fans have been asking for. Not only did the front office (Jerry Jones and Stephen Jones) deliver on both fronts, but they also helmed a defensive overhaul, beginning with the hiring of Christian Parker, that's positioned the team to win a lot of games.
Stepping out of their free-agency shell to sign Jalen Thompson. Trading for Rashan Gary. Drafting Caleb Downs. Adding players for depth who would have started last season.
The Cowboys have been behind the coaching curve for years, and it has reared its ugly head in the playoffs. They may need another offseason before the defense is ready to win deep into January, but with Schottenheimer, Parker, and Klayton Adams running the show, Dallas won't be starting every big game at an obvious disadvantage on the sidelines.
Schottenheimer is the reason Parker and Adams are here. He deserves as much credit as anyone in the building for the Cowboys' 180-degree shift in philosophy.
Loser: Terence Steele - RT
Terence Steele probably takes more criticism than he deserves, but it's hard to deny that this offseason was a disappointing one for the veteran right tackle.
Training camp started with the spotlight on Tyler Guyton, but within a couple of weeks, it had turned to Steele. Both Schottenheimer and Adams told the media they needed Steele to be more consistent.
It's never ideal when a coaching staff feels it has to take that conversation public. That suggests the message wasn't getting through behind closed doors and that putting Steele on notice publicly was the next step in trying to light a fire under him.
Schottenheimer said he called Steele after the Cowboys traded for Broderick Jones to inform him that he'd be competing with the former first-round pick. He also called Guyton, but with a very different message: The trade had nothing to do with him.
Jones may not push for Steele's job right away, but it's disappointing regardless that we're even having this conversation.
Winner: Dak Prescott - QB
Did Dak Prescott play well in training camp before sitting out the preseason? Duh. But that's not why he won the offseason. That distinction belongs to Dallas' seismic changes on the other side of the ball.
At the risk of opening a traumatic wound, let's rewind the clock to last season. Prescott had zero margin for error every single Sunday. Any drive that didn't come away with points felt like a kill shot to the Cowboys' chances of winning. The defense was that helpless.
Prescott played out of his mind for 90 percent of the year, and Dallas only won seven games; another reason why "wins" are not a quarterback stat, but that's neither here nor there. Even if Prescott had the support of the 20th-best defense in the NFL, the Cowboys probably make the playoffs.
Thanks to the aforementioned hiring of Christian Parker and sweeping personnel changes, Prescott should finally have enough support to lead America's Team back to the postseason while potentially thrusting himself into the MVP conversation.
Loser: Jaydon Blue - RB
Jaydon Blue had everything in front of him this offseason: A chance to become not just the backup running back behind Javonte Williams, but to carve out a meaningful role in a video-game offense.
By the time August ended, the Cowboys had seen enough from Blue that they didn't even play him in the preseason finale. That looks so much worse when you consider how well he played the previous game.
Even his strongest performance in Dallas wasn't enough to turn the tide, proving that any talk of a maturity leap was blown out of proportion. Bobby Belt of 105.3 The Fan did some digging and stumbled upon some pretty damning intel.
"I was talking to somebody yesterday, they were like, 'His maturity went from maybe like an F to a D,'" Belt said. "It wasn't this crazy improvement that people think it was."
Not a huge surprise given how Blue's rookie year unfolded, but it's still incredibly disappointing that he couldn't flip a switch.
Fumbling on his first touch in the joint practice against the LA Rams likely carried more weight than anything Blue did in the preseason.
Blue is a blur in open space, but an impatient running style and persistent fumbling issues -- paired with a shaky grasp of the playbook and poor pass protection -- explain why Dallas was ready to move on.
Winner: George Pickens - WR
Almost 1,000 words in, and we're just getting to George Pickens. Did any player on the team improve their stock this summer more than Pickens? He'd be our first pick.
The national media made a pretty big deal of Pickens' franchise tag and whether he'd show up for mandatory minicamp and training camp. And even if he did, many speculated about what kind of attitude he'd bring with him.
Not only did Pickens report for both, but he was unstoppable this summer. You can make a strong case that he had the best camp of any Cowboy on either side of the ball. Dak Prescott. Quinnen Williams. Rashan Gary. Tyler Smith. Shavon Revel. Pickens was better than all of them.
Even though Pickens is coming off a 94-1429-9 campaign, folks are still underestimating the season he's about to have. He's as locked in as ever, has the same starting QB for the first time, and the Cowboys plan to move him around the formation.
He's about to go nuclear.
Loser: Cowboys haters
Flip on ESPN, FS1, or NFL Network, and you'll be hard-pressed to find a segment that isn't waxing poetic about the Cowboys' chances to make a deep playoff run. They're a trendy Super Bowl pick. That is terrifying, but also liberating, if that makes any sense.
Stephen A. Smith (ESPN) and Chris Broussard (FS1) both exaggerate their critiques of Jerry Jones' squad for entertainment purposes. They're singing a different tune this year.
Smith picked Dallas as one of his top five teams in the NFL, while Broussard picked the Cowboys to make it all the way to the Super Bowl.
Make no mistake: They'll be the first to call Dallas choke artists and revel in their shortcomings, but you know it's crushing them that they can't lead every show by mocking the Cowboys' dysfunction or poking holes in their playoff hopes.
It's been a tough offseason to be a Cowboys hater.
Winner: Shavon Revel - CB
If you think the Cowboys have already given you enough trust issues, definitely don't think about Shavon Revel's training camp turning out to be fake. And by fake, we mean failing to carry over into the regular season. Just don't think about. Think about literally anything else.
Oxnard has produced many a training camp darling who went on to be useless when the football started to matter, but Revel's case feels different.
Confident in his body again now that he's shed the knee brace, Revel was neck and neck with Cobie Durant for the Best Defensive Back of the Summer award. He and Pickens had excellent battles, and Revel more than held his own against a WR who was virtually uncoverable.
He seemingly had a pass breakup in every practice, with his best coming against Puka Nacua on a fade route during the joint practice with the Rams.
Revel's stock was down entering the offseason. But in terms of resetting expectations and simply playing at a high level day in and day out, few Cowboys did more for themselves this summer. He went from a major question mark to looking every bit like a starting cornerback.
Winner: Camden Brown - WR
This article wouldn't be whole if Camden Brown got snubbed.
It's always special when an undrafted rookie makes the 53-man roster, but Brown defied the odds in arguably the best wide receiver room in football. Everyone expected the Cowboys to keep five receivers, but Brown forced them to carry a sixth in addition to Jonathan Mingo.
Brown burst onto the scene in Oxnard by making a habit of catching acrobatic touchdowns. It took a minute, but his summer eventually morphed from a feel-good story into a 'How the heck do we keep this guy off the team?' situation.
In his first preseason game, he caught two touchdowns, including a spectacular one-hander on a fade route. He led the Cowboys with six catches for 166 yards and two scores in three games, and ranked third among all WRs (minimum seven targets) with 4.74 yards per route run, per PFF.
Brown may be inactive for most of his rookie year because Dallas has an embarrassment of riches at WR, but the fact that he's even in that position is nothing short of incredible.
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