Cowboys player projections for Thanksgiving call for solid offensive outing

The Dallas Cowboys are coming off of a win for the first time in forever, and as a result morale is obviously a bit boosted around these parts. Winning, as they say, cures all.

Up next for Dallas is a Thanksgiving Day date against another division rival with the New York Giants coming to town. Back-to-back divisional games is never an easy thing and that they are occurring over five total days certainly makes matters more interesting. Dallas surprised many during their win against the Commanders, it was the largest point spread overcome by Dallas as an underdog in over 14 years, and did so because they outperformed plenty of expectations.

Relative to outperforming projections though the Cowboys fared well in that capacity as well. Here is how the Cowboys did relative to what NFL Pro saw for them last week.

Projected Cooper Rush at Washington: 209.2 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT, 12.6 rush yards
Actual: 247 yards, 2 TDs, 0 INT, 1 rush yard

Projected Rico Dowdle at Washington: 44.6 yards, 0.3 rush TD, 2 rec, 14.5 rec yards, 0.1 rec TD
Actual: 86 yards, 3 rec, 12 rec yards

Projected CeeDee Lamb at Washington: 5.1 rec, 64.2 yards, 0.4 TD
Actual: 10 rec, 67 yards

Projected Jalen Tolbert at Washington: 2.5 rec, 29.4 yards, 0.2 TD
Actual: 2 rec, 22 yards, 1 TD

Projected Luke Schoonmaker at Washington: 3.5 rec, 34.2 yards, 0.3 TD
Actual: 3 rec, 55 yards, 1 TD

For the most part, it feels safe to say that everybody outperformed what they were projected. We can quibble about a line or two but if you took any of these props then odds are you had success.

What about this week on Thanksgiving Day, though? How does NFL Pro see the game unfolding? You will be happy to know there is a slight uptick in most areas here.

It should be noted that NFL Pro provided projections for Jake Ferguson and that it is unclear if he will play. The same is also true for Giants quarterback Tommy DeVito as he had an injury status pop up on Tuesday.

But from a props standpoint if feels fair to lean into what you can get on CeeDee Lamb at the very least, and certainly Luke Schoonmaker if his numbers are close to Ferguson. Consider that Schoonmaker has 56 and 55, respectively, receiving yards in his last two games.

Also of note for this game is that the Cowboys are finally projected to have an advantage or two! This exercise has been pretty one-sided here lately, so seeing the Cowboys logo a few times was quite the change of pace.

A win on Thanksgiving would certainly send the “this is sort of possible…” crowd into a hysteria with a lot of time and idle hands to sit with before the Cowboys play again as the final game in Week 14.