Brian Schottenheimer likes tempo. Keeping a quick pace on offense is important to him, and having a quick-thinking quarterback like Dak Prescott makes such a philosophy possible. Getting to the line and snapping a quick ball keeps defenses on their heels, so it’s understandable the Dallas Cowboys’ head coach actively pursues quick tempo.
But tempo comes at a cost and in 2026, that cost is play-calling and play-design. Tricks of the trade that made Schottenheimer’s offense great a season before have all but been abandoned, and it’s had an impact – a negative impact – on the Cowboys' offense.
Garrett Podell at CBS Sports pointed out that one season ago, the Cowboys were 13th in motion rate. This season, they’re dead last. Last year they were top
10 in play action rate. This season, they’re 20th. In 2025 they were 11th in under center rate. Here in 2026, they are bottom five.
All of these wrinkles have been known to boost offensive output. They are staples of the highly successful Shannahan coaching tree and compatible with nearly every offensive system in the league. Just one year ago Schottenheimer fully integrated them into his system, but this year he’s all but abandoned the many tricks of the trade that once made Dallas successful.
When questioned on the matter earlier in the week he blamed game circumstances and tempo as his top reasons for the change.
“But again, I will say this in terms of how much we’re playing from under center and how much motion we’re using,” Schottenheimer said. “Those numbers are affected because some of these games we’ve been playing behind the eight-ball and having to go two-minute or uptempo to try to get back into games.”
It’s true, playing with one of the worst defenses in the NFL will force an offense to play from behind more than they’d like to. But the Cowboys had a historically poor defense in 2025 and still found a way to use motion, play-action, and under center snaps on offense. They also still found a way to be the fastest tempo offense in the NFL.
In 2026, the Cowboys are still the fastest tempo offense in the NFL so it’s not like they’re running the risk of being slow, or even average for that matter. To purposely remove helpful wrinkles from the offense all for the sake of tempo seems like a case misplaced priority. But it does explain the recent scoring slump this Cowboys offense suddenly finds themselves in.
The Cowboys can and should strive to be as uptempo as possible, but it should never get in the way of being the best as it can be. Getting the right play with the right design is more important and very rarely will an offense working at maximum efficiency be the reason the team lost.
There’s a better than zero chance Schottenheimer strayed from motion, play-action and under-center plays because he got caught up in the flow of the game and simply lost sight of them. In fact, longer sustained drives through the first three quarters are often seen as optimal for a team trying to protect and rest its struggling defense so a case can be made, they should slow the tempo.
Hopefully all the attention this has been getting this week is enough to put these wrinkles at the forefront of Schottenheimer’s mind heading into Week 7. They are part of what made the Dallas offense great last season and the likely pathway to improvement going forward.
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This article originally appeared on Cowboys Wire: Schotty's reasons motion, play-action gone from Cowboys offense can't stand
