We’re approximately a week away from the NBA Finals which means one thing as far as football is concerned... it’s projection time.

Projections are all the rage in the month of May as we’re fresh off of the draft and free agency juices have started to cool. We know the nuts and bolts of who is going to play for every team, but how they fare is obviously what matters most.

ESPN’s Mike Clay does a lot of work in projections (also fantasy football if you want to win your league) and he recently released projections for all 256 games in the 2019 regular season. Clay provided scores for every single contest, and the result of the Cowboys season (especially the start to it) will likely make you happy.

Mike Clay’s projections for 2019 Dallas Cowboys

Clay has the Cowboys getting off to as hot as an 8-1 start before things get a little bumpy. If things were to go as well as he predicted they would win eight of their first nine games and drop five of their final seven. That would be... bad.

The six losses here are to New Orleans, Detroit, New England, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia. Five of those were playoff teams last year and a loss against them is certainly possible. While football is a strange game where unpredictable things happen, it’s quite difficult to imagine the Cowboys losing to the Detroit Lions (although it took a last-second field goal for them to beat Detroit last season, albeit without Amari Cooper).

Double-digit wins is generally enough to be playing in January so this scenario likely has the Cowboys in the playoffs for consecutive years. It would also give them four straight winning seasons which would be quite impressive and likely lead to a contract extension for Jason Garrett.

Unless something went terribly wrong in the playoffs. There’s always that.