Key Takeaways
- Final: Saints 27, Cowboys 24 on Friday, Aug. 28 at AT&T Stadium — New Orleans' only preseason win after an 0-2 start, per Saints Wire.
- Daniel Carlson, signed roughly three days earlier, hit the go-ahead 53-yarder; Isaac Yiadom broke up Sam Howell's fourth-and-10 throw to end it.
- Both rosters must be cut to 53 by Sunday's 5 p.m. CT deadline, per Saints Wire — Dallas has one cutdown day and no fourth preseason game to sort it out.
- The two stories that carry into September: Dallas' backup quarterback race, and a New Orleans backfield missing Alvin Kamara for the first month.
The New Orleans Saints beat the Dallas Cowboys 27-24 at AT&T Stadium on Friday night, winning the 2026 preseason finale on a 53-yard Daniel Carlson field goal inside the two-minute warning and a fourth-down pass breakup by cornerback Isaac Yiadom, according to Saints Wire. Neither team played its starters. Almost none of it was meaningless anyway: both clubs have to be down to 53 players by Sunday, and the men on the field Friday were the ones whose jobs are actually in doubt.
Here’s how a game between backups turned into the most consequential night of either team’s August.
The Saints were the worse team all month — and won anyway
Everything pointed the other way. Dallas came in having won its first two preseason games, most recently hanging 34 points on Arizona, while New Orleans arrived 0-2 and coming off a 34-0 shutout loss to Indianapolis, per the Covers preview published by Yahoo Sports. The prediction market Kalshi had the Cowboys at 52% to win, and the Under 38.5 at 53%. The two teams combined for 51 points.
There was also genuine bad blood. Saints Wire described the matchup as “a grudge match after a series of fights nearly derailed their joint practice session two weeks ago,” and the Cowboys’ own site was blunter, noting both clubs were fined by the NFL “for being unable to conduct a joint practice without turning it into the Royal Rumble.”
How the game actually turned
New Orleans led early and led late, with a long, ugly middle in between. Carlson opened the scoring from 38 yards on the game’s first drive — his first attempt as a Saint, per the broadcast call on the Yahoo Sports highlight package — before rookie receiver Barion Brown took a fly sweep around the right side and outran the Dallas defense to the end zone. Brown, a sixth-round pick out of LSU by way of Kentucky, finished with two carries for 19 yards and a touchdown, and the blocks came from fellow receivers Bryce Lance and Kevin Austin Jr.
The Saints’ most complete drive came next. Swing tackle Asim Richards was beaten off the snap by Cowboys outside linebacker Tyrus Wheat for an eight-yard sack of Spencer Rattler; tight end Treyton Welch then hurdled a defender for 11 yards on third-and-12, and Audric Estime bounced a run outside for 33 yards down to the Dallas 8. Rattler followed Welch into the end zone on a keeper.
Zamir White made it 24-9 with an 11-yard touchdown run on New Orleans’ first possession of the second half, after a 27-yard kick return. Then Dallas woke up.
The kicker who may have just won a job
Carlson is the tidiest roster story of the night. He signed with New Orleans days before kickoff — “just about three days,” per the broadcast — and by the end of the evening he had made a 38-yarder and the 53-yard game-winner, which Saints Wire noted “had plenty of room even with an unusually low launch angle.” Instead of going for it on fourth-and-short from the Dallas 36, the Saints simply asked their new kicker to prove he could make it. He did.
On the other sideline, Brandon Aubrey had the stranger night. He drilled a 51-yarder on fourth-and-17, pushed a 57-yard attempt wide right, then answered with a 58-yarder straight down the middle. Aubrey was 11-of-17 from 50-plus yards last season and is 35-of-44 in his career from that range, per Saints Wire — which is the whole reason a miss registered as news at all.
Sam Howell’s audition, and Jordan Hudson’s two answers
The Dallas comeback ran through one matchup: receiver Jordan Hudson against veteran cornerback David Long Jr. Howell hit Hudson for 52 yards, then went back to the same look for a 26-yard touchdown, with Long unable to stay with him either time. Saints Wire noted Hudson is six years younger than Long and has been exploring a return to college football — plays like these may be what convinces Dallas to keep him instead. (If he does go back, he’d be walking into a sport that just had its own loud opening weekend; our college football 2026 kickoff guide covers that calendar.)
Howell wasn’t done. He found tight end Mitch Van Vooren wide open in the end zone, then scrambled in for the two-point conversion to tie the game at 24. That is a real closing argument in a quarterback room where, per the Covers preview, Howell and Joe Milton III had combined for 439 yards on 36-of-50 passing with four touchdowns over the previous two games while battling for the QB2 job behind Dak Prescott.
It ended with Howell on the wrong side of the ledger anyway: on fourth-and-10 with the game on the line, Yiadom broke up his pass to force a turnover on downs.
New Orleans’ backfield is a genuine emergency
The reason a 27-yard kick return and an 11-yard touchdown from Zamir White mattered so much: the Saints barely have running backs. Ty Chandler is out for the season, rookie Devin Neal has been nursing a hamstring, and Alvin Kamara will miss the first month, per the Covers preview — which also flagged that New Orleans leaned pass-first in its first two exhibitions (77 dropbacks to 42 handoffs) despite those injuries.
White was on the San Francisco 49ers a week earlier before being traded to New Orleans for veteran linebacker Deion Jones, per Saints Wire. He scored on his first real chance. Estime’s 33-yard burst and Brown’s sweep touchdown filled in the rest. If you are drafting around a Kamara-less September, that depth chart is worth watching — our fantasy football 2026 draft cheat sheet walks through the same kind of injury-driven value.
The bubble games inside the game
Dallas’ own writers had spent the week naming the players whose seasons hung on this one night: edge rusher Sam Williams, squeezed onto the bubble by the addition of Von Miller; running back Phil Mafah, fighting for RB2/RB3 reps; receiver Anthony Smith and his track speed; defensive tackle Jay Toia; and cornerbacks Caelen Carson and Ameer Speed, both trying to force their way in behind a settled top three of Bland, Revel and Durant.
The night wasn’t kind to everyone. Linebacker Jaylan Ford went into the sideline medical tent after a stop and later exited to the locker room favoring his lower leg, per Saints Wire, and Danny Stutsman was pulled in the second quarter — which handed the fourth quarter to Isaiah Stalbird, who ended Dallas’ opening second-half drive with a looping sack. Stalbird had two sacks last season and, per Saints Wire, will have a role on Sundays this fall.
One number that did survive the night on Dallas’ side: new coordinator Christian Parker’s defense had held preseason opponents to 10-of-25 on third and fourth down (40%) coming in, per Covers, against a Saints offense converting 39% of its own.
What happens next
Sunday at 5 p.m. CT is the hard stop. Both teams go to 53 players, waiver claims move fast, and the practice squad becomes the landing spot for most of Friday’s standouts. Watch three things: whether Carlson’s 53-yarder actually locks down the New Orleans kicking job, how Dallas ranks Howell against Milton now that Howell has a comeback and a game-losing fourth down on the same tape, and how thin the Saints are willing to go at running back until Kamara returns. From there it’s straight into the regular season — our NFL 2026 season kickoff guide has the dates and matchups that follow.
Quick poll
Who made the strongest roster case Friday night?
Our take: Carlson. A 53-yard game-winner three days after signing is the loudest audition on the list.
FAQ
Who won Saints vs. Cowboys? The Saints, 27-24, at AT&T Stadium on Friday, Aug. 28. Daniel Carlson’s 53-yard field goal gave New Orleans the lead inside two minutes and Isaac Yiadom’s fourth-down pass breakup ended Dallas’ final drive, per Saints Wire.
When is the NFL roster cutdown deadline? Sunday. Saints Wire puts it at 5 p.m. CT; the Cowboys’ official site says rosters must be set at 53 players by Sunday evening. Dallas had only three preseason games and one cutdown day to sort it out.
Why is there bad blood between the Saints and Cowboys? Their joint practice two weeks earlier broke down into repeated fights, and per the Cowboys’ site both teams were fined by the NFL over it. Saints Wire called Friday’s exhibition a grudge match as a result.
How was the game broadcast? Per the Cowboys’ official site: CBS 11 in Dallas-Fort Worth, ESPN Unlimited and NFL+, with Spanish-language coverage on Televisa Univision and Telemundo 39. The NFL’s official channel has posted full highlights.
