Dak Prescott is a quarterback that you can win with. Operating as if this is the case, the current Dallas Cowboys head coach is proving to be the outlier in that respect. Brian Schottenheimer is the third head coach that Prescott has had in his now 11-year career, and he is far and away the one getting the least wins out of him.
This is striking when you really think about it. Whatever your thoughts are/were on Jason Garrett and/or Mike McCarthy, the 2026 version of Prescott is more advanced than
any that either had to work with. Schottenheimer has at the very least one of the best versions of Dak and he is somehow, some way, converting that into fewer wins than either of his predecessors.
It is striking how similar the win rates were between Garrett and McCarthy when Prescott was under center. Obviously the full iterations of their Cowboys teams were different, and McCarthy had some incredible defenses on the other side of the ball to balance things out. That is clearly where Schottenheimer is at the biggest disadvantage.
How big of a disadvantage is that? Schottenheimer is an offensive guy and the offensive play-caller, but his responsibilities don’t end on the offensive side of the ball. Matt Eberflus was essentially chosen for him to be his first defensive coordinator, but he hand-picked Christian Parker and that hasn’t looked better so far.
Football is a game of balance so the defenses matter here, but it remains true that Schottenheimer is so far proving to be the least able to convert Prescott-led teams into wins at the same rate as either of the other coaches who Prescott played for. This is a serious problem.
What is particularly difficult to take is that Prescott has had full health in the Schottenheimer era. He had full health for his days with Jason Garrett too, Garrett struggled without Tony Romo when he was the starting quarterback, and Mike McCarthy famously made things work with Cooper Rush. We can point at the very least to that as something that separates McCarthy from Garrett and specifically Schottenheimer in this particular conversation.
It is all frustrating. And it is admittedly a little bit of cherry-picking. But these conversations are ringing louder than ever on the heels of Thursday night’s loss. The demerits are the only things that people see and right now they are hovering around Brian Schottenheimer. That’s what comes with the territory.
