With a chance to continue building momentum after a Week 7 win over the Washington Commanders, the Dallas Cowboys have fully turned their attention to their Week 8 opponent, the Denver Broncos. 

We’ve given you players to watch on both sides of the ball, keys to victory, and injury updates so far this week. Now, let’s get to why the Cowboys could win, and what might have happened if they lose. 

Dallas will win if they continue to get improved performances from two of their defensive rookie draft picks, linebacker Shemar James and defensive end Donovan Ezeiruaku. While the Cowboys defense as a whole will need to step up, these two young players will be key. 

For the first time all season, Dallas has strung together three straight games with a PFF pass rushing grade of 60 or higher. Ezeiruaku, or EZ, has reached the same milestone in that stretch, including back-to-back performances of 70 or higher, a career-high 75.1 mark in Week 6, and his first career sack last week. 

There are obviously other components to the pass rush, and three games is a small sample size, but it seems to be that as EZ goes, so goes the pass rush.

As for James, he’s seen his week-to-week grades gradually increase from 49.8 in his Week 4 debut to a career-high 63.8 mark in Week 7. It’s no coincidence that three of the Cowboys' four highest defensive grades have come in those weeks.

While of course correlation doesn’t necessarily imply causation, these patterns are hard to ignore and, as the pass rush will be key to beating the Broncos, EZ will be key, as will the steady presence of the increasingly improving James. 

Dallas will lose if they can’t get pressure on Bo Nix. While a simple task, it had been a near impossible one for the Cowboys until recently. 

Like Jayden Daniels, the opposing quarterback from last week, Bo Nix struggles immensely while under pressure. This is evident by his 39.6 passing grade in such scenarios, which is No. 44 in the league. That grade jumps to 76.7 when facing a clean pocket, good for a 20-spot jump in the ranking to No. 24.

While that discrepancy isn’t quite as dramatic as the 28-spot difference Daniels had in such scenarios entering last week, it shows that Nix is a very different quarterback while facing pressure. If Dallas can’t consistently force him to do that, then what’s expected to be a shootout might turn into such a one-sided affair that not even Dak Prescott can outduel Nix in.