Week 7 Preview - Washington Commanders at Dallas Cowboys

By: Sam Myer 10/15/2025

In week 7, the Washington Commanders will travel to face the Dallas Cowboys for their second divisional matchup of the season. Fresh off a self-inflicted loss at home on Monday Night Football against the Bears, Washington will be looking to bounce back against their eternal rival in Dallas. Unfortunately for them, this will be a challenge given the firepower that the Cowboys have on offense. On the bright side, the Cowboys have a defense with as many holes as Swiss cheese so Washington should be able to exploit them in the pass game. It will likely be a high scoring affair with over 30 points scored from both sides, so it will come down to turnovers for Washington once again.

The Cowboys have one of the most prolific offenses in the NFL and will give Washington all kinds of trouble in the pass game. Dak Prescott is playing at an MVP level despite being without his top receiver for the last three and a half games. The Commander’s defense has had an up and down start to the season on all three levels, but the secondary has improved each week. Marshon Lattimore and Trey Amos are coming off their best game as an outside corner duo, but the middle of the field continues to get exposed on a consistent basis. Mike Sainristil and Bobby Wagner have struggled in pass coverage all season and this trend continued against Chicago.

Dallas is expected to get star wideout CeeDee Lamb back from injury on Sunday and supposedly without a snap count. It’s likely that the Brian Schottenheimer and Dak Prescott will be moving him all over the field to get favorable matchups against Sainristil and Wagner. In addition to the struggles in the secondary is Quan Martin, who has statistically been the worst safety in the league while in primary coverage. Martin has made good plays in the run game but needs to step up in pass coverage for Washington to make stops against Dallas on Sunday. Another thing to pay attention to in the pass game is going to be the potential absence of Washington’s best pass rusher Dorance Armstrong. Armstrong has 5.5 sacks through six games which leads the Commanders defense by a wide margin. If he’s unable to go against the Cowboys, it will be critical that Washington schemes up blitzes with linebackers and defensive backs to get pressure on Prescott. In each game where Washington has been unable to generate a consistent pass rush, they’ve been gashed through the air.

On the other side of the ball, there has been much more consistent success for the Washington offense. While they struggled on the ground against Chicago, coming into the game they had the #1 rushing offense in the league. They’ll need to get back to their dominant ways on the ground in order to control the game in Dallas. As for the Commanders pass offense, they’ve never truly been able to get into a rhythm with Jayden Daniels missing two games and their top 2 outside receivers in Noah Brown and Terry McLaurin being out for the last month. With that being said, Daniels had his best passing game of the season on Monday against Chicago as he threw for three touchdowns. As Washington starts to get healthy with Cosmi and McLaurin set to return soon, the passing game should take a big step up in the next four games.

Luckily for the Commanders, the Cowboys have the worst defense in the entire NFL giving up over 30 points and 400 yards per game. This should make easy pickings for the Commanders offense even if McLaurin and Samuel are unable to go. The linebackers for the Cowboys have particularly struggled in the run game which should be a welcome sight for the Washington offensive linemen and tight ends after the struggle against Chicago.

Regardless of if Deebo Samuel and Terry McLaurin are able to suit up on Sunday, it should be very high scoring affair given the two struggling defenses. Dak Prescott and George Pickens are playing some of the best ball of their careers while CeeDee Lamb has been recovering. With his inevitable return, Dallas should take their offense to the next level and hopefully make up for their horrendous defense. Meanwhile Washington’s passing offense is starting to hit its stride even without many of their top weapons. With two lackluster defenses and explosive offenses, the fireworks will be flying in Dallas on Sunday.