Sunday Night Football Preview: Giants vs. Cowboys – Week 1

A divisional matchup marks the end of the first Sunday of the 2026 NFL Season. The New York Giants may have found their QB of the future, but injuries have plagued the roster. The Dallas Cowboys missed the playoffs under Head Coach Brian Schottenheimer but boast a strong offense. Who can you trust in your fantasy lineups in Week 1?

Make sure to check out all of our Week 1 Fantasy Football Rankings and Analysis!

Sunday Night Football Preview

Dallas Cowboys (-3) at New York Giants O/U: 48.5

Clear Starts: Dak Prescott, Javonte Williams, CeeDee Lamb, George Pickens, Jaxson Dart, Cam Skattebo

Malik Nabers – WR, New York Giants

Most weeks, you start Malik Nabers with confidence. However, Nabers is currently questionable despite practicing in full all week. Nabers’ sophomore season was cut short after tearing his ACL in Week 4. While getting an injury like that early in the season helps your timeline for the following year, we don’t know how long it will take for Nabers to return to elite form. The 2024 6th overall pick had a stellar rookie year, drawing 170 targets and finishing with the 7th most receiving yards.

Monitoring injury news all Sunday is the best we can do right now. Nabers, at his healthiest, is a top-10 WR both in real life and in fantasy football. The risk coming off an ACL tear is that we don’t know how much he will play. Nabers might be used as a decoy, or he might only get a handful of snaps. Your individual team matters a lot. While we can’t predict what will happen on Sunday, does your fantasy team’s chance of success rest on someone like Nabers going off? If that’s the case, you may have to take the risk. If you’re pretty strong everywhere and have a decent backup, you might be better off taking a solid floor and letting your other studs do the work.

Ultimately, if you have a choice between Malik Nabers and a WR4, I would rather take the shot on Nabers. If you’re deciding between him and a high-end WR3, low-end WR2, you may have to bench Nabers if we don’t get clarity early on Sunday. If you can afford it, try stashing Malachi Fields as a backup option. He’s a 6’4 3rd-round rookie WR generating buzz in recent weeks. Darnell Mooney is the only other real WR competition in New York.

Jake Ferguson – TE, Dallas Cowboys

Fantrax is projecting 9.69 PPR fantasy points for Ferguson, the 13th highest amongst TEs after Wednesday and Thursday’s games. That’s reasonable for a player who averaged over 11 points last year and finished as the TE10 in PPG. However, Ferguson had an abysmal second half of the season.

After averaging 17.2 PPR points per game for the first 7 games of the season – good for the TE1 overall in that span – he dropped to just 6.97 PPG in the remaining weeks, making him the TE30 on a per-game basis. There were a few reasons for that. Ferguson scored six TDs in a four-game span while also averaging over 8 targets per game. Following Week 7, Ferguson only scored two more TDs and averaged only 4.4 targets per game.

The obvious explanation is that Ferguson was getting significantly more work when CeeDee Lamb was out from Week 3 to Week 6. To be fair to Ferguson, this offense is very concentrated. CeeDee Lamb, George Pickens, and Jake Ferguson each had 100+ targets this year. The next highest target earner was WR Ryan Flournoy with 56. Most of those targets came either while Lamb was still out or at the very end of the season. Perhaps Flournoy can become someone, but it’s going to be hard to avoid targeting Lamb and Pickens.

The Giants allowed the 8th fewest points to opposing TEs, though that may be because they allowed the 6th most fantasy points to RBs and 9th most points to WRs. That makes Lamb, Pickens, and RB Javonte Williams even clearer starts. However, Ferguson could be the odd man out. With Lamb healthy, Ferguson could easily be the odd man out. I’d rather play someone like Juwan Johnson, Michael Mayer, or Kenyon Sadiq.

Isaiah Likely – TE, New York Giants

Back in March, the Giants signed Isaiah Likely to a contract that made him the third-highest paid player at the position. Even more interesting, former Ravens HC John Harbaugh became head coach for the Giants this past January. Perhaps Harbaugh saw something in Likely during his tenure in Baltimore.

Likely enters his 5th year never exceeding 60 targets, 500 yards, or 6 TDs in a single season. However, he had to play behind and alongside veteran TE Mark Andrews. Even as he got older and regressed, Andrews continued to play like one of the league’s best at the position. Unless he was gone from the team, Likely had almost no chance to fully surpass him. Now on a Giants team itching for weapons, he has the opportunity to explode.

Theo Johnson is the biggest threat to Likely. Johnson is massive, standing at 6’6 and weighing in at 264 pounds. The problem is that his size has not translated into NFL success. Johnson struggled with drops in his rookie year, ranking 7th in the league in drop percentage per Pro Football Reference. That improved in 2025, but it was still above league average. Johnson also finished second on the team in targets with 74, but part of that is because of Nabers’ early injury and a lack of receiving weapons behind him.

Likely was paid big bucks for a reason. If the team just wanted depth, they could have gotten that elsewhere while making Theo Johnson the TE1. The reality is that Isaiah Likely plays more like a receiver and joins a team desperate for more options. Former Steelers WR Calvin Austin III joined the team in the off-season, but will miss the entire year with a torn ACL. Malik Nabers is now also in danger of missing this game with a questionable tag, making Likely an even more intriguing option. We don’t have much information on how the Giants intend to use Likely, but he is a risky option that can pay off. Unless you have a clear-cut TE1 on your roster, Likely is better than most waiver options and the typical TD-or-bust plays at the position. He could legitimately lead the team in targets on Sunday.