So five prime-time games in the 2009 season, beginning with a Sunday night stadium opener against the New York Giants, hardly comes as a surprise.

You also get the suspicion that someone in the NFL office really wouldn't mind seeing Dallas deliver another December collapse.

After their traditional Thanksgiving Day game, this time against the Oakland Raiders, the Cowboys have three road games, all with chances of being tough. They play the Giants, New Orleans and Washington on the road.

And the last two home games are against teams that won playoff games last year, San Diego and Philadelphia. That has a chance to cause problems for a team that hasn't produced a playoff victory since the 1996 season.

This has the look of a 10-6 ride to me, which might get the Cowboys into the playoff mix as a wild-card team or it might not.

The good news for Cowboys fans is that the record could turn out better than that because the Cowboys have a real chance to gain some early momentum.

On paper, what appear to be the team's three easiest road games come in the first five weeks. That's true in part because all three opponents will be going with new quarterbacks.

They start out at Tampa Bay, where the defense might be facing Byron Leftwich or it might be facing Luke McCown or it might be facing Brian Griese. No matter the case, the Cowboys' defense will not be facing a dynamic offense right out of the gate.

The next two road games are their AFC West trips to Denver (Kyle Orton or Chris Simms?) and Kansas City, where former Patriot Matt Cassel may still be learning the playbook for the league's youngest team.

The home games in September are against NFC teams that were better than Dallas in 2008 - the Giants and Carolina Panthers. But if the team avoids stumbling at home, the Cowboys have a chance to get off to one of the fastest starts in the league.

That's a good thing because the Cowboys' schedule gets considerably tougher, whereas the Giants look to be starting with a more difficult slate, then finishing on a high. The Giants' last three road trips are to Denver, Washington and Minnesota.

But with the draft still to come, and with as many changes as teams make each off-season now, you can never be exactly sure what the toughest part of a schedule is going to be.

In fact, although I think the end of the Cowboys' schedule is more demanding than the start, Dallas plays four teams that made the playoffs in the first half of the schedule and just three in the second half.

But Cowboys fans have long memories, and they know this team hasn't been good in December for a long time. The Cowboys might come out of the Oakland Thanksgiving Day game 10-1 and still find a way to stagger to an 11-5 finish.

The Cowboys are being asked to play some good defenses early and some good quarterbacks late.

A fast start wouldn't guarantee a strong finish. Since 1997, the season that began this stretch of 12 years without a playoff victory, the Cowboys have gone 15-33 in their last four games of seasons.

They have managed as much as a 2-2 split in only five of those 12 seasons and have never finished better than that.

The schedule the NFL released Tuesday has a real chance to cause Dallas to continue that trend.