The Dallas Cowboys may not care about their 2025 draft position, but their fans do. As the team continues to play for honor, dignity, and job security, we’ve watched them move out of a potential top-10 pick into the middle portion of the draft order. Now with two playoff-bound teams on the remaining schedule, how else might the Week 17 lineup help move Dallas down the standings and up the draft board?
If the season had ended after last week’s games, the Cowboys would have gone into the offseason with the 14th pick in the 2025 NFL Draft. Here’s the full board for current non-playoff teams. Once teams are in the playoffs, their draft position can change depending on where they finish.
- New York Giants (2-13)
- New England Patriots (3-12)
- Jacksonville Jaguars (3-12)
- Cleveland Browns (3-12)
- Tennessee Titans (3-12)
- Las Vegas Raiders (3-12)
- New York Jets (4-11)
- Carolina Panthers (4-11)
- Chicago Bears (4-11)
- New Orleans Saints (5-10)
- San Francisco 49ers (6-9)
- Miami Dolphins (7-8)
- Cincinnati Bengals (7-8)
- Dallas Cowboys (7-8)
- Indianapolis Colts (7-8)
- Arizona Cardinals (7-8)
- Seattle Seahawks (8-7)
- Tampa Bay Buccaneers (8-7)
The key tiebreaker in draft order is a team’s current-year strength of schedule (the average win percentage of opponents faced), which isn’t finalized until the end of the regular season. Right now, Cincinnati and Miami have lower SOS figures than the Cowboys while the Colts’ and Cardinals’ are higher, hence the ordering among all of the 7-8 teams. But depending on wins and losses throughout the league over these final two weeks, SOS numbers will change and so might the beneficiaries of the tiebreakers.
For now, Dallas’ best chance of moving up the draft board is to lose its upcoming games to the Eagles and Commanders. But with QB Jalen Hurts potentially missing this Sunday’s contest with a concussion, and the Cowboys already winning against Washington once this year, it’s not crazy to see Dallas actually winning both games to finish 9-8. That would likely put them on the back end of the non-playoff teams, drafting somewhere in the 16th-18th range.
Still, Philly and Washington could be far more motivated in these rematches. The Eagles would love to stay in the mix for the number-one seed in the NFC. Washington still has to secure its wild card berth, and could even move up to the sixth seed if Green Bay falters.
So, for the sake of our draft-day prospects, let’s work with the assumption that the Cowboys lose out and finish 7-10 on the year. What else needs to happen for Dallas to move up the board and potentially get as high as the 10th overall pick?
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Saints over Raiders
New Orleans’ SOS is currently .524 while Dallas’ is only .484, so if the Cowboys can match the Saints in overall record then there’s a chance we’d also have the tiebreaker. It would mean New Orleans winning out (next week @ Tampa Bay) and Dallas losing out, but that’s far from impossible based on both teams’ remaining schedules.
49ers over Lions
San Francisco is only a game back in the standings so not as hard to deal with as the Saints. This week’s matchup won’t be much help against Detroit, but their finale against the eliminated Arizona Cardinals could be.
Dolphins over Browns
Bengals over Broncos
Colts over Giants
Cardinals over Rams
The best way for Dallas to stay ahead of these other 7-8 teams in the draft order is to avoid the tiebreaker altogether. The good news is that Cincinnati, Indianapolis, and Miami are all still vying for wild card spots in the AFC, so for at least one more week they’ll be motivated to win.
Bucs over Panthers
Falcons over Commanders
We don’t really care who wins the NFC South, so long as the runner-up still has a better record than Dallas.
Seahawks over Bears
We don’t want Seattle sliding down into the jumble of teams with the Cowboys. Also, they’re still alive for the playoffs and could potentially steal Washington’s spot. That’d be fun.
