The Dallas Cowboys are 2-4 after another loss to the Green Bay Packers. Coach Brian Schottenheimer has repeatedly said they aren't playing to their standards, but at what point does their performance become the standard?
Dallas has been poor on defense throughout Schottenheimer’s tenure as the head coach. The team has only one win when they don't score 30 points, and now in the last two games, the offense has been as much of a problem as the defense, scoring just 16 and 13 points. Schottenheimer has become the storyline for Dallas, 23 games into his tenure as head coach.
He hasn't won three straight games in his career, has been over .500 just once, and his success has been almost exclusively against the NFC East. His four wins outside the NFC East have come against AFC teams, only one of which had an over-.500 record at 6-5. Two of the teams were winless. The front office has allowed the coach to pick his fellow coaches and has brought in plenty of new talent, while paying a lot to keep the offense intact, but it hasn't led to positive results. The Cowboys have to make changes, ranging from cleaning up penalties to changing play callers on a struggling offense.
Brian Schottenheimer might need to hand off play calling
At the micro level in this game, Schottenheimer was poor. They were playing one of the worst-run defenses in the league and were only down two scores in the second half, and 37 of the final 38 plays were passes. When asked about the lack of rushing attempts, Schottenheimer shifted to the offense's ability to score throwing the ball, but the run game and play-action were significant keys to last season's success. In 2026, the Cowboys are last in the NFL in run rate percentage. The regression on offense has a lot to do with the play calling. In 2025, the Cowboys offense was an under-center, motion-led, play-action team that needed more explosive runs to take it to the next level. They aren’t near that now. Their motion rate went from 13th in the NFL in 2025 to last. Play-action percentage was top 10, but it’s down to 20th this year. They went from under-center 11th in the league and in shotgun at the 22nd rate to fifth in shotgun rate this season and 28th under center. This offense isn’t the same as the one Dallas ran in 2025. Schottenheimer might need to focus on his head-coaching duties and let the offensive coordinator call plays.
The Cowboys have eliminated Javonte Williams from the game plan
The Cowboys made one of the steals of the 2025 season by signing Javonte Williams to a one-year, $3 million deal. He ran the ball 252 times for over 1,200 yards, 11 touchdowns, and an average of nearly 5 yards per attempt. They ran the ball 41.5% of the offensive snaps in 2025, but this year it’s down almost 10% to 32.5%. Dallas needs their run game to help the offense run smoothly. Prescott is 11-22-1 when he throws the ball 40 times or more in a game. It’s time to get back to handing off to the bell cow running back. Only one game saw Williams average over 3.8 yards per carry, with four games under 50 total rushing yards, and he hasn’t had a single 100-yard contest. He is on pace for 240 rushes for under 900 yards. The only saving grace is that Williams is finding the end zone. He is on pace for nearly 20 rushing touchdowns on the season. Dallas has an excellent quarterback and a monster set of receivers, but defenses are showing how to take those things away without the ability to run the football.
Penalties are killing the team
Penalties have been an issue in Dallas for a very long time. They are near the bottom of the league almost every season. This year they are 15th in total penalties with 45, but sixth in penalty yards with 422. It's not only how many penalties, but when they occur. The team reaches the five-yard line, but someone gets a false start penalty. The defense gets a third-down stop, but someone commits an illegal hands-to-the-face penalty for an automatic first down. The special teams unit returns a kick across midfield only for a holding penalty to send it back inside the 20. The team is playing too poorly play-to-play, exacerbating their issues with penalties. It's not easy to fix all the problems on a 2-4 team, but self-inflicted issues like penalties are where Dallas should start.
This article originally appeared on Cowboys Wire: Schottenheimer's failures are the only Week 7 storyline that matters