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Head coach John Harbaugh of the New York Giants is focused on beating the Dallas Cowboys.

Coming off two seasons that produced only seven wins each, the Dallas Cowboys are not all that accustomed to being used as a measuring stick for greatness these days. But when you’re the New York Giants, well, you don’t have much choice. That’s because, even with the way things went sideways in Dallas in 2024 and again in 2025, the Cowboys still continued what had been a nine-game winning streak against New York, before a meaningless loss in last year’s finale.

If a division rival wants to get measured up by America’s Team, then have at it. The Cowboys do have bigger fish to fry as they seek to get back to qualifying as a true Super Bowl contender, but part of that will involve getting hold of the NFC East division again.

The division has been won by either the Cowboys or the Eagles for every season going back to 2020, when Washington won it with a 7-9 record.

John Harbaugh Wants to ‘Kick the Cowboys’ (Expletive)’

The Giants, for the record, have not won the NFC East since 2011, and the team has gone 2-16 against the Cowboys since 2017. In that same span, the Giants have a record of 44-104-1, and thus it is difficult to take the franchise too seriously. But new Giants coach John Harbaugh is talking a big game, and he has taken clear aim at the Cowboys heading into his team’s OTAs this week.

Said Harbaugh at a town hall event in Manhattan: “I’m going to be nice and politically correct. I could care less about what happened last year or the year before that or 10 years before that. Honestly, I don’t give a crap about any of it. Not one bit.

“All I care about is tomorrow’s practice. Because if tomorrow’s practice is the way it’s supposed to be, that’ll be one more step in the direction of being a good enough football team to kick the Cowboys’ ass. … That’s our job — to be good enough to do that. We’ve got to make ourselves good enough to do that. That’s our responsibility.”

NFC East Getting Tighter

The Cowboys will open the 2026 season on the road against the Giants on September 13 at MetLife Stadium, on “Thursday Night Football.”  Given the difficulty of Dallas’s early slate, getting a win in that game is important.

It will also be important for the Cowboys to maintain pace with the rest of the division. Certainly, it’s easy to poke fun at the Giants’ ineptitude in recent years, but Harbaugh is a Super Bowl coach who is taking over what could be an excellent defense and a fast-improving offense behind second-year man Jaxson Dart.

The Giants’ DraftKings over/under is set at 7.5 wins for 2026, an indication the sports book thinks the team will win seven or eight games, a big improvement over last year’s 4-13 record. The Commanders, who were 5-12 last season, are also at 7.5 wins for an over/under.

The Cowboys’ number is set at 9.5 wins, while the Eagles–who won the NFC the past two seasons–are at 10.5 wins.