The NFL schedule made its debut last week, and it looks like the Cowboys are in for a tough start to the 2008 campaign. The road does get easier, and it can be a good thing to have the hardest games right up front so long as you have a team capable of rallying if they do suffer through a couple of defeats.

The Cowboys will play four games in the month of September, and two of them are against perhaps the hardest non-division opponents — and both of those are on the road. They open the season against the Cleveland Browns who showed last year that they know how to put up some points and recently added Donte’ Stallworth to their mix of receivers. They will also play their biggest NFC rivals in 2007, the Green Bay Packers, at Green Bay. Their other two games are against Philadelphia and Washington at home, and they’ll need to win both of those.

October should be an easier month for Dallas. They’ll start the month off at home against the Bengals who struggled last year with Chad Johnson and may not have his services in 2008. The game at Arizona should also be a win, but not quite as easy as might be expected. Arizona has some big play receivers, and Dallas hasn’t shored up their secondary quite yet. Next, there is St. Louis who will be harder than last year when Dallas faced an injury-riddled Rams team. They’ll end October by playing Tampa Bay at home, a game they should be able to win.

November opens up against the Giants in New York in game that Dallas will find difficult to pull out the ‘W’. I don’t expect the Giants to repeat, or even win the division, but I don’t think Dallas will sweep them in the regular season again. And if they are going to go 1-1, the loss will probably be in New York. After a bye week, they get a stretch of three games in eleven days: the Redskins in Washington, the 49ers at home, and then Seattle at home on Thanksgiving. All three are winnable games, but look for Julius Jones to come into Texas Stadium all fired up to play against a Dallas defense that will still be tired from the last two games. That one is going to be a tough one to get out of with a win.

December looks good except for the fact that the Cowboys have been playing poorly in December for the last few years. They start out playing the Steelers at Pittsburgh, which should be a tough game. They then come home to face the Giants and should be able to not only notch another win in their belt, but may very well clinch the division early. Next, the play Baltimore in the last regular season home game at Texas Stadium. This might be rather anti-climatic considering the Ravens don’t have a quarterback. They then end the season against the Eagles at Philadelphia, and while I think the 2008 Eagles won’t be much better than the 2007 Eagles, there’s no easy win in Philadelphia.

As always, it is a guessing game at this point. The draft is going to change the dynamics of the schedule, and we really won’t know how good these teams are going to be until well after preseason and into the first few weeks of the regular season. But, considering the Cowboys will be bringing back most of the starting squad from last year, they shouldn’t have any problem repeating as NFC East champs.

The real test will be playing tough in December, going into January with some momentum, and sealing some wins in the playoffs. Honestly, I think we are all going to be disappointed if the Cowboys don’t make it to the big game this year.