Brian Schottenheimer Names 2 Goals Ahead of Second Season as Cowboys Head coach – Mike Moraitis, Sports Illustrated
The 2026 season inches closer.
So much of Schottenheimer’s attention has been on the offense, seeing as how he’s the play-caller. But the Cowboys head coach wants to be more involved with the defense and special teams following a season in which Dallas struggled in both areas.
“Schottenheimer was not only the head coach but the offensive play-caller last year. That’s not changing in 2026. However, he’s spending more time in defensive and special teams meetings,” Calvin Watkins of the Dallas Morning
News said.
“Schottenheimer trusts the coordinators for those units, but he plans on being around to lend his voice in meetings,” Watkins added.
“Being really the head coach and in charge of all three phases and having a handle of that,” Schottenheimer said to reporters. “I think the personnel side of it has been good for me to dive back into the 3-4 world and then shoot, practice schedules, meetings.”
According to Bill Huber of Green Bay Packers On SI, the Cowboys sported the sixth-worst special teams in the NFL last season, and we know their defense was one of the league’s worst.
It certainly wouldn’t hurt to have an experienced coach like Schotty more involved as Dallas looks to improve.
Schottenheimer building relationships
Another goal for Schottenheimer is to build better relationships with his players, something he’s accomplishing over dinner. The ultimate goal is to sit down with each and every player on the roster through the offseason.
“My hope would be that these guys know I love them and care about them, and my door is always open. I remember last year, at different points throughout the season, a guy or two would pop in and close the door. We’d sit down and talk about things outside of football, anything messy in their world that they need help with,” Schottenheimer said.
“I think that’s what gives you the ability to have them trust you, love you, care about you, you love and care about them back and then at the same time we’re able to have hard conversations and tell them things they don’t necessarily want to hear,” he added.
Charity work in Aldon Smith’s final hours offers no answers in ex-Cowboy’s tragic death – Todd Brock, Cowboys Wire
RIP Aldon.
Smith passed away Saturday at the age of 36, his death called “sudden and tragic” in a statement by the 49ers, the team that drafted Smith seventh overall in 2011.
Now a friend of Smith’s has shed some light on Smith’s final hours, including the charitable kindness that would prove to be his final act, even amid his own continued personal struggles.
Bay Area resident and businessman Amir Shirazi had befriended Smith as part of a larger group of 49ers players. On Saturday, he and Smith delivered pizzas to a local charity that works to feed the homeless.
The charity’s co-founder, Scott Wagers, a pastor who had never previously met Smith, would later say he noticed that Smith “looked maybe kind of tired” and even “lethargic,” as reported by the San Francisco Chronicle.Expert NFL picks: Exclusive betting insights only at USA TODAY.
A photo taken moments later shows Smith, Shirazi, and Wagers posing with the pizzas. Smith is wearing a New York Knicks jersey, as he had reportedly planned to watch Game 5 of the NBA Finals later that evening.
“My impression was that this is a young man that wanted to help the homeless, which was great,” Wagers said.
Cowboys have every reason to believe Ryan Flournoy is ready for more – Marcus Mosher, The Landry Hat
If Dallas could add another reliable weapon, the ceiling is the limit for the offense.
Flournoy played 479 snaps during the 2025 season, but it is worth noting that he played just 51 snaps in the first four weeks of the year. His snaps started to elevate after Week 5 while CeeDee Lamb was still out with an ankle injury. Against the Jets and Panthers (both games Lamb missed), we saw Flournoy play 72 snaps, and he caught nine passes for 144 yards.
But once Lamb returned to the field in Week 7, Flournoy played just 19 snaps against the Commanders and did not see a single target. The trend of limited production continued for the next month as Flournoy saw just nine targets from Weeks 7-13. It wasn’t until Week 14, when Lamb left with another injury against the Lions for Flournoy to see more snaps and targets (13 against Detroit).
If the following pattern continues into 2026, we shouldn’t expect Flournoy to see more than two targets a game when both CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens are on the field. However, it’s the same to assume that won’t be the case this year as Flournoy has earned the trust of the coaching staff and, maybe more importantly, Dak Prescott.
So, how do the Cowboys get Flournoy more involved? The obvious answer is to play more 11 personnel. In a recent article by ESPN, they wrote about how often each team used different personnel groupings and they found that no team in the NFL used 11 personnel more than Dallas. And maybe not-so-coincidently, no franchise in the league ran it better than Dallas:
“(Dallas) led the NFL with a 101.80 EPA on 11 personnel snaps, averaging 6.6 yards per play. Quarterback Dak Prescott helped the offense produce a league-best 206.7 passing yards per game; running back Javonte Williams and the team also saw high-level rushing production at a league-best 80.8 yards per game.”
The Cowboys Aren’t Cheap—Their Spending Problem Is Worse – Cody Warren, Inside The Star
It’s not a money problem, it’s a mindset problem.
Cowboys fans call Dallas cheap because they rarely act aggressive when big-name free agents are available.
We know they don’t chase the expensive outside players, and don’t normally make the kind of move in March that tells the fan base they are all-in. Most years, Dallas watches the top of the market from the porch, waits for the price drop, and then tries to sell everyone on value.
I get the plan in theory.
You can’t build the whole roster through free agency. That’s how teams get old, expensive, and stuck. Good organizations draft well, develop their own talent, and use free agency to fill holes.
The problem I see is Dallas doesn’t use free agency enough to finish the job. Instead, we hear the same line every year, “We like our guys.”
That sounds fine until those same guys are part of the reason the roster keeps coming up short.
I don’t think the Cowboys are cheap. I think they are stubborn. They spend plenty of money, but too much of it goes to familiar players, risky projections, and second contracts that get uncomfortable before the ink dries.
Daily discussion question: What is the farthest you have ever gone to watch a Cowboys game?
