Cowboys Coach Responds to Mike Tomlin's Comments on Players-Only Meeting

After last Thursday night's horrific loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Dallas Cowboys defense held a players-only meeting. This fact alone has caused an uproar amongst the NFL community as fans think coach Brian Schottenheimer's job could be in danger.

Former Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin chimed into the conversation and went viral this week for giving his opinion on players-only meetings.

"I think you're dead," Tomlin said on the "New Heights" podcast. "If it did occur, I'd like to not hear about it. The fact that you hear about it is what makes it B.S."

Well, Schottenheimer responded to Tomlin's critique when speaking on "105.3 The Fan" on Friday, via Jon Machota. He doesn't see a players-only meeting as a negative, like Tomlin does.

“I think they’re very, very different. I’ve been around the league a long time. I have great respect for Mike. It depends on the type of meeting. If you go into a meeting and the players-only meeting is a [expletive]-session, I don’t think that that’s a good thing. Matter of fact, I know it’s not a good thing," Schottenheimer said.

“But when you’ve got leaders like Quinnen Williams and Kenny Clark and guys like that that are driving the meeting with a purpose and they’re talking about the things they talked about in that meeting, I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I think it shows ownership on their part."

Schottenheimer views the players-only meeting as a good driver for increasing his team's motivation to compete better moving forward. He believes the meeting his players held was a productive one.

“Their pride is real. They want to be great. They want to win," Schottenheimer continued. "There’s a couple different types of meetings that I’ve been around. I certainly wasn’t in the meeting, but I’ve talked to the guys that kind of led it, and it sounds like it was a very, very productive meeting with solution-oriented conversations.”

There's no bad blood from Schottenheimer's side, at least. We'll see if the meeting actually does improve the Cowboys' defensive struggles this weekend when they face the Green Bay Packers. The defense ranks 31st in the league as they've allowed 395.4 yards per game. Something definitely needs to change.