FRISCO, Texas — Andy Dalton is expected to make his third start of the season for the Cowboys on Sunday at Minnesota. The previous two resulted in Dallas’ most lopsided losses of the season — 38-10 to Arizona and 25-3 at Washington.

The veteran quarterback hopes to bounce back after what he calls a “crazy three weeks.” A week after suffering the first concussion of his football career, the 33-year-old tested positive for COVID-19.

“The COVID, it hit me hard the first day I had it,” Dalton said, “then I gradually started feeling better.”

The headaches he experienced from the concussion began to go away, only to come back once he tested positive for the coronavirus. Dalton eventually lost his sense of smell and taste, which he still has not fully regained.

“You can tell things are sweet,” he explained. “You can tell things are salty. You just don’t get the flavor with it. So I can eat really healthy right now and it doesn’t matter, because I can’t taste it.”

Dalton has been a full participant in practice all week. This will be his third time facing the Vikings. The first meeting came in 2013, a 42-14 win for Dalton and the Bengals. The second time, Week 15 in 2017, resulted in the Vikings beating Dalton and the Bengals 34-7.

In the first game, Mike Zimmer was Cincinnati’s defensive coordinator. In the second, Zimmer was in his current position, head coach of the Vikings. Dalton’s statistics in his only start against a Zimmer-led team: 11 of 22 passing, 113 yards, no touchdowns, two interceptions and a 27.3 passer rating, the second-worst mark of his career.

“I have some familiarity with him,” Dalton said. “But things change and adapt over time. These last seven years, there’s been some changes in different things. I definitely know him from my early time in Cincinnati.”

The only chance Dalton and the Cowboys have against Minnesota is if they take care of the ball on offense. The Vikings have won all four games this season when winning or at least being even in the turnover differential. They’ve lost the turnover battle in all five of their losses. The Cowboys have finished only two games this season with more defensive takeaways than offensive turnovers: the Week 1 loss at the Los Angeles Rams and the Week 8 loss at Philadelphia.

Here are 14 other notes to get you ready for Sunday’s 3:25 CT game between the Cowboys and Vikings.

1. Injury updates. Rookie center Tyler Biadasz (hamstring) is the only player on the active roster who has been ruled out for Sunday’s game. Veteran cornerback Chidobe Awuzie is expected to be back in the starting lineup after missing the previous seven games with a hamstring injury. Running back Ezekiel Elliott (hamstring) has been a full participant in practice all week.

“It’s a little tight,” Elliott said Wednesday. “It’s a little stiff. It’s just something that I’m working on day to day and getting a lot of extra (physical therapy) and work on it just so I can have it ready for Sunday.”

Edge rushers Randy Gregory and DeMarcus Lawrence missed practices this week because of illnesses. Neither was believed to be COVID-19-related. Both are listed as questionable for Sunday but are expected to play.

Right guard Zack Martin was limited on Wednesday because of a calf strain. He spent some extra time working on the resistance cords before practice. He’s expected to start Sunday.

Second-year offensive tackle Brandon Knight returned to practice after missing the previous three games with a knee injury. Although Knight was starting at left tackle when he suffered the injury, veteran Cameron Erving is expected to continue starting at the position.

2. Better than their record? The Cowboys deserve their 2-7 record. They’re actually closer to being 0-9 than 3-6 or 4-5. But DeMarcus Lawrence thinks they deserve their chance to win the NFC East and make the playoffs. Dallas is a game and a half back of first place in easily the NFL’s worst division.

“First things first, don’t ever get this twisted, we’re a good team,” Lawrence said Wednesday. “And it’s all about winning games at the end of the day. But we’re a good team. Seeing how other people are playing and stuff, I don’t think we’re far behind at all. I feel like we deserve to still be in this thing, and we can make a pretty good run.”

3. Stopping the run. No team in the NFC allows more rushing yards per game than the Cowboys’ 157. The Vikings have the NFL’s fifth-best rushing attack, averaging 153.6 yards per game. Minnesota star running back Dalvin Cook, who had 183 all-purpose yards and a touchdown last year against the Cowboys, is leading the NFL in rushing with 954 yards in eight games. He also has an NFL-best 12 rushing touchdowns.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the Vikings have a similar run scheme to the Cleveland Browns, who are coached by Kevin Stefanski, Minnesota’s offensive coordinator last season. Against the Browns in Week 4, the Cowboys allowed 307 rushing yards.

“I feel like we’re a different team,” Lawrence said when asked about the Vikings potentially having a similar result Sunday. “We’re playing totally different, energy is totally different and this will not be a repeat of the Browns game. I feel like our feet are underneath us, we’re starting to play with more of a football IQ and understand more of what our coaches want from us and we’re going out there and playing hard.”

4. Where has the defense improved? Although the Cowboys lost to the Eagles and Steelers, the Dallas defense clearly played better than it had in previous losses to Washington and Arizona. Players have seemed to be more on the same page, and their effort hasn’t been in question. Chidobe Awuzie points to when defensive tackle Antwaun Woods was inserted into the starting lineup in Week 8, replacing Dontari Poe, who had been released. Woods played a season-high 73 percent of the defensive snaps in Week 8. He played 55 percent of the defensive snaps in Week 9.

“When he came into that (starting lineup) and started communicating and bringing his energy,” Awuzie said. “Players like Sean (Lee) came back. It’s just a different energy now. Antwaun is doing a great job stopping the run, making it easier on the DBs. We got our edge rushers and our great linebackers. I feel like with that and everything we are starting to click together. Everybody’s momentum is starting to go good, and we are feeling good, too.”

5. Interesting quote. Lawrence when asked about his game being about more than just sacks: “I’m not here for numbers. I’m here to win a Super Bowl.”

Has he always had that mindset?

“Most definitely,” Lawrence said. “I feel like once you get that ring, then you can start chasing other dreams. Until you’ve got that ring, you can’t even mention nothing about being a Hall of Famer or anything.”

6. Mike McCarthy’s breakdown. The Cowboys head coach said he was being “way too detailed and informative” in this response on Thursday. McCarthy was breaking down where the team stood coming out of the bye week on offense, defense and special teams. If you’ve watched every game this season, this won’t come as much of a surprise, but here’s how the head coach evaluates the team.

“I felt that the offense really coming out of training camp was clearly ahead of the other two phases,” McCarthy said. “I would say that now, probably our special teams has been the most in-sync unit of our team. I think defensively, we have come on here of late these last couple of weeks.

“It’s understandable the offense is going back and forth a little bit. It’s only natural because of the different combinations of lineups that we’ve been playing with. That’s normal and that’s part of our flight with our self-scout and, frankly, the things we’re focused on.”

The Dallas offense would clearly still be the team’s strength if Dak Prescott, Tyron Smith, La’el Collins and Blake Jarwin were healthy. Heck, it would probably be there with just Prescott and one of those offensive linemen. The special-teams improvements have been especially noteworthy considering how bad the unit was a year ago. The defense needs to continue building on the past two games before anyone should believe it has really turned the corner.

7. Jerry Jones’ assessment. Here’s why the team’s owner and general manager thinks the Cowboys are improving.

“It just makes all the sense in the world that those, especially those younger guys, would be better,” Jones said on 105.3 The Fan. “It makes a lot of sense that (Leighton) Vander Esch, who was limited early, now is better physically. And so I go to that availability thing and things are getting better there. You take the fact that we got the veteran quarterback in Andy Dalton out there. So if you just analyze it from the normal course of things, it ought to be better.

“New coaching staff has had more time with these players. And now then the kinds of things they want them to do technique-wise are really coming to bear. So it just makes all the sense in the world. We ought to be better. Now, we are a little less healthy. That’s more concerning than we started obviously without Dak to start with. But still, I see it. You can just walk out there and look and see that you’re a better team.”

8. The Cowboys’ best player. If all were healthy, the ranking of the team’s best players would probably feature Zack Martin at the top, followed by a group that includes Tyron Smith, Prescott and Lawrence, then maybe Elliott or Amari Cooper or Collins somewhere after that.

Jerry Jones has Elliott at the top.

“He’s our best football player,” Jones said Friday on The Fan. “He’s our best one. And having said that, we just got to have more chances to expose him to the defense and we’re going to do that.”

When asked to clarify, Jones responded: “In my mind, he’s our best player.”

Statistics would not back up that argument. The two-time rushing champion hasn’t put together a 100-yard game this season, and he’s averaging less than 4 yards per carry in each of the past three games, something that has never happened at any other point in his career. Now, Elliott obviously hasn’t had Smith and Collins in front of him and Prescott keeping defenses on their heels, but that’s still a pretty strong statement from Jones.

“When we were full-blown on offense, he was making some things happen,” Jones said. “Got those turnovers early that put a lot of focus on what he was doing. But still, I know the impact he has on opposing defenses. I know what I see him do relative to the kind of thing he brings to football. His physicalness, his enthusiasm, his ability.”

He didn’t really answer the question, but here’s what McCarthy had to say when asked about Elliott this week.

Mike McCarthy when asked today about Ezekiel Elliott having fewer than 4 yards per carry in three straight games, the longest streak of his career: pic.twitter.com/4BArOFZerr

— Jon Machota (@jonmachota) November 18, 2020

9. Zeke thoughts. This was Elliott’s response this week when asked about his frustration about not having a 100-yard game.

“My frustration is that we’re 2-7, not that I haven’t had a 100-yard game,” he said. “We’re just trying to come together as a team and find a way to win a football game.”

10. Prescott injury update. Everything is on track for the Cowboys quarterback to make a complete recovery from the gruesome ankle injury he suffered against the Giants in Week 5. Cowboys executive vice president Stephen Jones said Friday that he has been getting “amazing reports” on how Prescott has been progressing.

“Shouldn’t come as any surprise,” Jones said on The Fan. “He does everything to the nines and the 10s and he just does it the very best. He’s been so diligent in his rehab and that shouldn’t surprise anybody. They said if anything he’s ahead of schedule and rolling. That should come as no surprise. So we expect him to have a full recovery.

“We avoided any of the complications that come anytime you have a bone that breaks the skin. You worry about infection. He certainly avoided any of that. We’re just fortunate to have a guy like Dak and, certainly, it’s been tough not having him out there, because his leadership certainly is right there at the top with his skill and what he brings to the table as a quarterback in the National Football League.”

11. Dalton on Jon Bostic’s fine. The Washington linebacker who knocked Dalton out of the Week 7 game was not suspended for the illegal hit. Bostic was fined $12,000. It was pretty clear this week that Dalton was disappointed by the punishment.

“You know, with that whole thing, just looking at some of the fines and different things that other people got, I was a little surprised by the number,” Dalton said. “But it is what it is.”

12. Not much juice. During the early portions of practice, while the team is stretching, music plays over the speakers inside the Ford Center or outside on the practice fields at The Star. Players are upbeat, and some dance briefly. There’s energy among the group. As soon as practice starts, the music is off and the energy level drops. There’s a lot of standing around.

Granted, reporters get to see only about the first 30 minutes of practice. Things could pick up later as they go live in 11-on-11. But the early portions are much different than Cowboys practices in the past. Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe it’s not. Just an observation.

13. Across the hall. This is something new McCarthy and his coaching staff have brought to the team this year. During the bye week, position coaches from the defensive side of the ball worked with offensive players, and offensive coaches worked with defensive players. It gave players an opportunity to get some coaching from a different perspective.

For example, the tight ends spent some time with senior defensive assistant George Edwards.

“He was able to talk about some of the scout stuff that he kind of saw on us,” tight end Dalton Schultz said, “whether that be alignments that we have that might tip off exactly what we’re doing, our route concepts and how to disguise those a little better or how to attack a certain guy and who’s playing a certain coverage a certain way.

“I don’t want to go too far into it, but it was really helpful and a great defensive mind to have those conversations with to better your game. I think that’s extremely valuable, and I’ve never done that at any level, high school, college, or here. I think that stuff has been super helpful for us and we gained a lot of it this week, and I hope we continue to do it a little more.”

Schultz later added: “It was just a little more specific in terms of our mannerisms. He kind of dove into what he expected us to do in certain down and distances, which, for me, it was pretty in-depth and enlightening just to see how a defensive mind thinks. That’s something that I haven’t had a lot of experience with.

“I’ve been kind of an offensive guy my whole life. I played a little bit of defense in little league, but that was little league. I’ve been one-sided in my early years, freshman in high school. And so, learning a little bit more about their perspectives on defense and how they think about guarding routes and guys is interesting to me, and I think that benefits everybody.”

14. COVID-19 changes. Some of the NFL’s elevated COVID-19 protocols were noticeable at The Star this week. A concourse area inside the Ford Center has been turned into a large classroom with roughly 30 tables set apart so only one player can sit at each table. Because of the great distance between the front of the makeshift classroom and the last row of tables, several TV monitors are set up to the right, for players who can’t see the monitor all the way up front.

“If you haven’t grown up here, it’s true, everything is bigger in Texas,” McCarthy said. “We have plenty of room in the Ford Center. We’re very fortunate.”

McCarthy said the entire coaching staff has created its own bubble-like atmosphere by staying at the Omni Hotel next to the team’s practice facility.

He added: “We’re doing everything we can to make our workplace as safe as possible.”

(Photo: Richard Rodriguez / Getty Images)