The Dallas Cowboys are coming off their most disappointing healthy Dak Prescott season of his career. A large reason for that was because of the struggles on the defensive side of the ball. While the Cowboys offense was still very good in 2025 (fifth in EPA/play, sixth in success rate, second in yards per game, and seventh in points per game), there are a few areas they could improve in 2026.
Here are three ways the Cowboys offense can be even better in 2026 to hopefully get them back into the playoffs.
A fully healthy George Pickens and CeeDee Lamb
The first-year of George Pickens was as eventful as anyone could have hoped. Pickens addition to the offense added an explosive element to the Cowboys’ passing attack that we haven’t seen in a few years. But CeeDee Lamb missed multiple games in 2025 with a high-ankle sprain and a concussion suffered in the Detroit Lions loss. With Lamb missing time throughout the season, George Pickens was asked to carry a heavy workload as the teams WR1 for parts of the season. Pickens shined for the most part in those games, but keeping both Lamb and Pickens healthy and on the field together for all 17 games would help the Cowboys offense be even more efficient, put up more yards and points in 2026.
More aggression on fourth down
Despite the team having a very disappointing year record-wise, first year head coach Brian Schottenheimer did a very nice job of running the offense in 2025. It’s easy to forget now, but there were some serious concerns with how this offense would look under Schottenheimer after how things ended in Seattle as the team’s play-caller. Overall, there were few complaints regarding the play-calling and play design, but one thing that will need to improve moving forward is Schottenheimer’s aggressiveness on fourth down.
The Cowboys offense had the sixth-highest fourth-down conversion rate in the NFL last season, but they often settled for long field goals attempts with Brandon Aubrey in their back pocket. Given how poorly their defense played last season, Schottenheimer should have come to terms with the fact that in 2025. Instead, he put way too much trust in his defense to get stops and keep games close. While you never want to leave points on the field, the defense in 2025 could not stop teams from scoring touchdowns, which led the Cowboys offense to play a lot of catchup. While we expect the defense to be better in 2026, electing to be more aggressive on fourth down could have the Cowboys playing from ahead more than they did in 2025.
Development in pass protection
One of the only areas the Cowboys struggled in last season of offense was their ability to pass protect on the edges. Tyler Guyton, Terence Steele, and Nathan Thomas all had their struggles in pass protection over the course of the 2025 season. While quarterback Dak Prescott did a excellent job of dealing with pressure by getting the football out, there are even more explosive plays left to be had if the tackles can hold up better in 2026.
Guyton’s year-two development was stunted by injuries for most of the season, but year three will be a big season for Guyton to prove he’s ready to take the starting left tackle job and run with it. If the tackles are able to improve on their pass protection from 2025 to 2026, the Cowboys passing game has another level it can get to, despite already performing well in dropback EPA and dropback success rate.
