Sleepers, Busts and Bold Predictions: The 2024 Dallas Cowboys

Welcome to Sleepers, Busts and Bold Predictions for the 2024 fantasy football season. Our Chris Meaney and Daniel Kelley are going to go team-by-team around the league all summer. They’ll pick sleepers, busts and bold predictions for each team. Sometimes they’ll agree! Sometimes they will go completely opposite one another! And that’s fine, because they’ll defend their positions, and you can decide for yourself who to side with. Up today: The Dallas Cowboys.

Below, they tackle the team, starting with their picks in “The Answers,” then expanding on their picks in “The Explanation.”

2024 Sleepers, Busts & Bold Predictions: Dallas Cowboys

The Answers

Favorite Sleeper

Meaney: Ezekiel Elliott
Kelley: Ezekiel Elliott

Biggest Bust

Meaney: Dak Prescott
Kelley: CeeDee Lamb

Bold Prediction

Meaney: Jake Ferguson Leads All TEs in Touchdowns
Kelley: Jalen Tolbert Outscores Brandin Cooks

The Explanations

Sleepers

Meaney: Ezekiel Elliott

I’m a Hero RB drafter, so I’ve been selecting Zeke in the 10th round in just about every draft as my third or fourth running back. There aren’t many running backs available that late who are linked to one of the better offensive units in the game. Not only that, but also Zeke should get all the goal-line touches he can handle in Dallas, and if it’s anything like the amount Tony Pollard received last season, he’ll return value. Pollard’s 60 red zone rushing attempts in 2023 were second behind Christian McCaffrey. And unlike Pollard, Zeke can finish near the goal line. Elliott split time with Pollard two seasons ago in Dallas and still finished with over 230 carries and 12 rushing touchdowns. I don’t expect that kind of volume this time around, and he won’t be efficient between the tackles, but he’s a good bet for double-digit touchdowns. He also has at least 40 grabs in five of his past six seasons. Rico Dowdle is really the only competition for Zeke, and he won’t take over the goal-line role. 

Kelley: Ezekiel Elliott

We know a few things about Ezekiel Elliott and his 2024 situation. First, he’s not nearly as good as he used to be — his yards per carry has been in a not-quite-linear-but-kind-of-linear drop since he entered the league, from 5.1 in 2016 to 3.5 in 2023. But that might not matter that much, because second, he stays healthy — take out his six-game suspension in 2017, and he’s played 120 of 125 possible career games, and two of those were last-game-of-the-season inactives. Third, there’s not much competition behind Elliott in Dallas right now — there’s Rico Dowdle, Royce Freeman and Deuce Vaughn, three guys who might never start a game in the rest of their collective careers. And fourth:

For all Elliott lacks as a complete back these days, he’ll be on the field, and he can catch passes competently. No, he’s not ever going to contend for RB1 again, but he’ll finish as a high-end flex/low-end RB2, and you can get him at RB39 in drafts.

Busts

Meaney: Dak Prescott

Dak is fresh off a season where he led the NFL in touchdown passes (36), and his 4,516 passing yards ranked third. He only had 242 rushing yards, but his passing numbers were good enough for a QB3 finish in fantasy football. It was the second time in three years Dak has finished with at least 4,400 passing yards and 36 touchdowns. It wouldn’t be surprising to see the Cowboys’ QB finish with similar statistics again, and his draft day price isn’t awful, but I’m not counting on it. Dallas has a first-place schedule this season, and they’ll face a few tough defensive units, including the Browns, Ravens, Steelers and 49ers. Three of Dak’s first five games are against opponents from the AFC North, and two of them are on the road (@ CLE, @ PIT). On top of that, Dallas’ offensive line has been on the decline over the past couple of seasons. I could see Kyler Murray, Brock Purdy and Jared Goff having similar fantasy seasons as Dak, and they’re going later in drafts in high-stakes leagues. 

Kelley: CeeDee Lamb

No shame against CeeDee Lamb, who had a monster 2023 season that featured the third-most PPR points in a season for a receiver ever and earned every bit of it, with the third-highest PFF receiving grade and 2.78 yards per route run. But he needed a league-leading 181 targets to get there, and betting on someone to repeat something like that is a big ask — of all seasons (since tracking started in 1992) with at least 180 targets, only four names appear multiple times, and only twice (Antonio Brown in 2014-2015 and Cris Carter in 1994-1995) did someone do it in consecutive seasons. The Cowboys promise to have an elite defense in 2024, meaning gamescripts that aren’t pass-conducive, and while Ezekiel Elliott isn’t great anymore, he’s the kind of guy you can absolutely run into the ground. Lamb should comfortably be a top-10 receiver in 2024, but he’s the overall WR1 in drafts right now, and he won’t do that again.

Bold Predictions

Meaney: Jake Ferguson Leads All TEs in Touchdowns

Even though I feel Zeke will help the Cowboys in the red zone, Jake Ferguson was a big-time player for the Cowboys in that area last season. Ferguson’s 23 red zone targets ranked fifth in the NFL in 2023 and first among tight ends. He was also fifth in red zone targets inside the 10-yard line with 12, just five behind CeeDee Lamb. Ferguson is the clear No. 2 option in the passing game for Prescott, as we saw a big leap forward in Year 2 when the team parted ways with Dalton Schultz. As TE9 off the board on average, Ferguson is a strong target, and there’s a dropoff after him. 

Kelley: Jalen Tolbert Outscores Brandin Cooks

Jalen Tolbert has been essentially irrelevant so far in the NFL, with 39 total targets and 280 total yards through two seasons. But then that was already kind of the expectation for him, as a third-rounder out of small Sun Belt team South Alabama. Now, he’s entering Year Three, with Michael Gallup gone, no obvious new WR3 around, and Brandin Cooks coming off comfortably his worst season — his 1.25 yards per route run in 2023 was a career low, nearly 0.4 below his 1.64 in 2022 and 0.8 below his 2.05 in 2020. Cooks’ WR38 fantasy finish was borne largely of his 8 receiving touchdowns (one off his career high in 2015), and otherwise, a lot of signs point to him being done, or at least done-ish. Lamb is the only fantasy starter in the receiver room in Dallas, but give me Tolbert over Cooks, even if neither one is a reliable fantasy contributor.