The Dallas Cowboys completed their second practice of training camp on Thursday afternoon, still without the pads on which will have to wait. Unpadded practices always sway in favor of the offense in general and particularly the pass-catching skill position players, and this was mostly the case on Thursday.
With so much discussion about fixing the defense and the star power in the passing game on offense, the running game has gone under the radar. Even from a franchise that has prided itself on running backs
for nearly as long as they’ve existed, and with a head coach that came out of the gates in his debut season last year talking about wanting to run the football. The team returns a starting running back that just set career highs in carries, yards, touchdowns, yards per attempt, and rushing success rate, but the superstar-fueled passing game is still overshadowing the ground attack.
Day two of practice showed some of the specific areas the team’s running back usage can improve in year two of Brian Schottenheimer calling plays and Klayton Adams as OC. The surprise of the day from the opening practice was second-year draft pick Phil Mafah getting RB2 carries, and this continued on Thursday with Mafah hitting this home run off-tackle.
Mafah is competing with another second-year player in Jaydon Blue for the RB2 role, and also for the second day in a row, Blue had a big run through the defense.
It remains to be seen just how many reps there will be for Blue, Mafah, or even a dark horse candidate that can emerge behind Williams as the starter. Last season, the Cowboys had 362 total carries from four running backs in Williams, Malik Davis, Blue, and Miles Sanders. Williams accounted for 69% of these carries as the lead back.
Interestingly enough, that stat is incredibly telling when it comes to how Schotty wants to scheme his backfield over a larger sample size as well. In his first year as offensive coordinator back in 2023, the Cowboys had nearly the same number of RB carries at 364, and Tony Pollard came in at 69% of the share as well with 252 of them. The 2024 season is a slight outlier with a lower total carry total of 326, and a higher lead-back percentage use of 72% for Rico Dowdle, but among a lot of reasons this was the case, Ezekiel Elliott not being a viable option as the RB2 with his 74 carries was a main one.
While dominating almost 70% of a team’s season-long carries is a big deal, 30% of a full season’s work out of the backfield is no laughing matter either. Very early on in camp, the Cowboys are seeing positive signs from the players they can use in this 30% space, but also are looking at expanding even more areas for the ultra-reliable Williams to do even more.
Williams left a lot of opportunity in the pass game on the field a year ago, and the Cowboys short passing game as a whole suffered because of it. With the amount of deep coverage attention that Pickens and Lamb should draw, as well as their increasing ability to win in the short pass game themselves, spreading the ball around to running backs through the air truly could be the last element that makes the Cowboys offense nearly unstoppable in 2026.
Another thing to love about the screen play above to Williams is that Tyler Booker is the one out in front to block for it. When it comes to under the radar things concerning the Cowboys run game, having a right guard going into year two as the first-round pick tasked with the unenviable job of replacing Zack Martin as a rookie is a massive one, and continuing to keep an eye on how much Booker has improved as a road-grader for these backs will be especially fun once padded practices begin.
The path of least resistance for any team in the NFL to win games is with a dominant run game. All four teams around the NFC East have their own reasons to believe in what they’re doing out of the backfield heavily for 2026, but the Cowboys have wasted no time showing off their balance as well as RB depth in Oxnard.
