The Dallas Cowboys simply refuse to perform under pressure, be it mental or whatever as they had no answers for from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers defense on Thursday night. Any type of pressure is too much for this team, and 2026 is looking no different after a 24-16 loss that sinks the Cowboys to 2-3 with alternating wins and losses through five weeks.
The Bucs came in on a short week and managed to get themselves into another one-score game, their fifth straight to start the year, and rallied to beat
the Cowboys with QB Jalon Daniels looking like a seasoned vet. On the other hand, the Cowboys did not learn their lesson about the dangers of starting slow against a winless team from their game in Houston, in fact starting even slower. Their second-half comeback fell short, and arguably makes this loss feel even worse in hindsight. All it did was shine a brighter light on the things this football team is supposed to prioritize doing well, but isn’t right now.
Just hours before kickoff, we took our routine weekly look at what the Cowboys needed to do to win this game, and what they couldn’t let happen to avoid being upset. Giving Dak Prescott time to throw was the top priority, and although he wasn’t sacked, the Cowboys did not achieve this.
Not letting Bucky Irving beat them was the key to avoiding a loss, and they certainly did not achieve this either. The Cowboys ended this game with the highest percentage of passes compared to runs in their run/pass split of any game under Brian Schottenheimer so far, and conceding 165 yards to Bucky Irving and always chasing this game as a result was the reason why.
The Cowboys are now 4-6-1 in one score games under Brian Schottenheimer. With that, let’s get to some notes on Thursday’s action.
Turned on it’s head
Back at home for the first time since week two, the Cowboys went right down the field for an opening drive touchdown and immediate 7-0 lead. Instead of following this with a three and out on defense, the Cowboys gave up a methodical drive to let the Bucs tie the game. Jalon Daniels and the Tampa offense picked up a pair of third-down conversions before the rookie passer was sacked on the ensuing third down, but a DaRon Bland holding penalty bailed them out.
Bland would give up yet another third down in the red zone, and when it looked like Christian Parker’s defense had a chance to dig in and at come up with a red zone stop, Rashan Gary was drawn offsides. This turned a 2nd-and-10 into second and manageable, creating a layup throw from Daniels to Irving for his first touchdown of the night.
Daniels went eight for eight passing on this drive. The only possible positive thing to take away from the Cowboys defense at this moment in the game was they kept a lid on the Bucs offense and didn’t allow a play longer than 14 yards on this scoring drive. In theory only, this is a bit of how the Parker scheme that’s derived from Vic Fangio’s should play, and the Cowboys are built to invite teams to take such a long way down the field if they choose, knowing their offense is built to score quickly, and consistently.
From this point on though, none of these things happened. A Cowboys offense that came into this game having not punted more than twice in an entire game at any point in their last ten games punted three straight times after their opening touchdown. They possessed the ball for only a combined 4:51 over these three drives, the last one being a 37 second three and out.
Amazingly, the defense forced three punts of their own in response to this. What the Bucs did do in this stretch was hold onto the ball for over eight minutes, nearly double the amount of time it took the Cowboys to get the same three drive endings. The seed was planted for the Buccaneers to play this game on their terms by absolutely dominating time of possession.
The Cowboys lost time of possession in this game 39:21 to 20:39, a differential of minus 18:42. It is the worst differential Dallas has had in this stat since Week 9 of 2021, that infamous 30-16 home loss to the Denver Broncos. Denver held the ball for 24:41 more than Dallas did in that game.
The breaking points came on both sides of the ball. Schottenheimer said going into the locker room at halftime that everything going wrong in this game was about him “calling better plays”. Christian Parker must not have gotten this message to start the second half either, as the Cowboys suddenly couldn’t limit big plays. They gave up a two-play touchdown drive to start the third quarter, also allowed a Tez Johnson 64-yard catch and a 3rd-and-21 conversion, and allowed Irving to run out the clock and end the game on 2nd-and-12 with a 22-yard blast up the middle.
Always behind the trend
Another truth about the NFL is that it is a copycat league, and perhaps more accurately, there are trends every year that winning teams take to, and those that can’t follow along simply don’t win come the stretch run and playoffs.
One of the things being heavily discussed this year as making a difference in wins and losses is which quarterbacks (and play callers) can best attack the middle of the field. There are good offenses that don’t major in doing so, but the separation point to great offenses that stress defenses the most are the ones that aren’t afraid to really open up the whole field.
It took until the Cowboys were literally within a few blades of grass of having no hope at all in this game, about to go down 31-10, for the offense to unlock this part of the pass game consistently. With 99 yards to go in a hurry down two scores, the Cowboys went into Madden mode and spammed the slant route to get downfield in three minutes and change for a George Pickens acrobatic touchdown. Three straight passes went for at least 13 yards to ignite the drive, to three different receivers in Ryan Flournoy, KaVontae Turpin, and Pickens.
A heavy, heavy focus by the Buccaneers defensively in this game was to play outside leverage against the Cowboys receivers and force them back over the middle into more coverage. The touchdown drive was the highlight of how the Cowboys took advantage of this, but there were too many lowlights in this area that cost them the game as well.
A few plays before Prescott’s first interception, he hit Pickens for a 27-yard slant on third down out of the condensed formation that Dallas needs to use more often, but isn’t. On the next third down, in the exact same down and distance, they spread it out more, targeted Flournoy in traffic instead, and the pass was intercepted.
Jake Ferguson is another player holding the Cowboys back from being on the right side of another winning trend around football right now. Not only are tight ends supposed to have a significant role in the middle of the field passing game, but being a reliable checkdown option against pressure looks is valuable as well. Ferguson is neither of these things right now.
The Cowboys proved they can get the easy yards that the best offenses are getting with ease right now by simply scheming touches for their most dynamic skill players in this game, but also that they just won’t do so consistently enough to be taken seriously, or avoid the game-losing plays in between the positive ones even against bad opponents.
No Schott?
With the Cowboys having an extended period of time off before their next game, coming out of a stretch of three games in 12 days, now is as good a time as ever to check in on how well this team is taking to the identity of how Brian Schottenheimer very publicly told the world he wants his team to look and feel.
Winning the line of scrimmage was supposed to be priority one. Aside from another splash play late in the game by Quinnen Williams, this was an embarrassing game from the Cowboys interior defenders getting pushed around, not tackling Bucky Irving, and letting Daniels escape the pocket with ease. On offense, Tyler Guyton and Tyler Smith paved the way for Williams to move the Cowboys right down the field on the first drive, and then nothing at all resembling this style of physical offense came out the rest of the night.
How about the Cowboys going with a somewhat unknown, unproven, offensive play-calling head coach with Schottenheimer? Would this give them the boost similar hires have for other teams where the offense presents hard looks to the defense and keeps them on their heels?
It sure didn’t against the Buccaneers, as the fifth straight defensive-minded head coach on the Cowboys schedule marked yet another game where Schotty’s offense looked unprepared. Todd Bowles’ entire coaching career has been around pressure defenses, yet Dallas was not prepared for the head coach of an 0-4 team needing to win with defense thanks to the starting QB being out, and using these pressure to do so.
Lastly, how about any other tangible game day advantages the Cowboys should feel like they have because of Schottenheimer on the sidelines? Schotty didn’t even wait until being at a press conference podium this game to say he needed to be better, doing so at halftime this time, yet it didn’t get better enough to win back-to-back games – something the Cowboys still haven’t managed to do since last November.
The “on the job training” portion of Schottenheimer’s tenure needs to come to an end by the time this team suits up again for Sunday Night Football on October 18th, at the Green Bay Packers, or things stand to get really ugly in Dallas. Even the next game after this remains in primetime, still on the road for Dallas at Philadelphia on a Monday night.
Cowboys opponents have committed 27 combined penalties in the last two weeks, and the team is 1-1 with a point differential of minus four. That is hard to fathom, and not something that bodes well for this next stretch of games either.
