Dallas Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer knows the statistics. Most NFL teams that start 0-2 do not make the playoffs. Last season, 10 teams started 0-2. Only the Chicago Bears and the Houston Texans made the playoffs, both as wildcards; but Schottenheimer is not nervous yet.
“I understand everybody thought we’d go in there and, you know, hang 50 on New York and whatnot. It’s a good football team we played,” Schottenheimer said. “They had a very specific game plan. They wanted to pound the rock. You know, I love Matt Nagy (the Giants new offensive coordinator). (Sunday) looked a lot like Greg Roman. You know, they just got real physical. And they wanted to run the football on us and great misdirection. And you definitely saw some of the, you know, run-read-option stuff, which is a Matt Nagy scheme. So again, you know, we didn’t perform well enough. But in terms of, you know, this weekend’s game, we got to get better, and we’re going to focus on us. And Washington is a good team. And it’s just another championship opportunity.”
The New York Giants ran for 165 yards in their 28-20 win on Sunday Night Football. Schottenheimer said their scheme was a big reason why.
“It starts with us, you know. I mean, when you have guys that have eye discipline problems, there are different drills that you can do,” Schottenheimer said. “You’re creating cross actions and jet motions and shifting backs. And you know, I call it kind of changing the math. You know, the defense isn’t the only one that can change the math. You know, give them some credit. You know, they change the math on us. They motion receivers across and kind of mess with our eyes. And they force communication, which I said we didn’t do a great job of communicating in some of those areas. And when you look back on that, if there are 5 or 6 plays like that, that, that we can clean up, you know, maybe it’s a drive down and need to kick a field goal to tie the game.
Schottenheimer is not ready to reset expectations after one loss.
“You stand up here, and you talk about winning Super Bowls, and it doesn’t change because we lost the game. That’s what our goals are. You know, there’s some youth on defense. There’s some inexperience on defense. Christian Parker, I remember my first game or second game, actually, as a coordinator. It’s kind of an interesting story, but we were playing New England. I was with the Jets and Bill Belichick’s defense, three-four. They’re kicking our butts in the first half. I mean, just kicking our butts. And I went in at halftime, and I made some of the greatest changes you’ve ever seen. I really did,” Schottenheimer said. “I had all the three-four runs; I was ready to go. And sure enough, what did Bill Belichick do? He played four-three, and they shoved it up our — I swore last night. So I’m not going to swear again today. But you know it’s part of the learning curve, you know. And we have to get better. But we’re going to make mistakes. And, you know, I see this defense every day, and we did not perform well enough as a football team last night. Coaching and playing. It’s certainly not the standard, but I’m also not ready to say the expectations for where we think we’re going to get to, as a defense and as a football team, are not accurate.”
Schottenheimer also did not question the team’s preseason preparation plan, which included most starters skipping out on preseason game action.
“It’s a philosophy, and it’s a, you know, catch-22, man. You know, if you put a player out there and all of a sudden someone comes, and they get dinged up and they’re out for the year, you know, you’re damned if you do, you damned if you don’t. I felt really, really good about our work in training camp. I felt really good about the work in the two (joint practices). There was plenty of padded work. We just, you know, we did not, you know, perform to the level that we should perform to last night, and we own that. I’m always going to be, you know, first one off the bus and taking responsibility and accountability for that. But we’ll get back to work, and we’ve got the right guys in this locker room to fix it,” Schottenheimer said.
The Giants were able to hold on to the ball for much of the second half, keeping the Cowboys’ much-hyped offense off the field and unable to stage a comeback. Schottenheimer said the Cowboys tried some different things in response, but to no avail.
“We had a second and 16, and that four-minute drive, we’re trying to get the ball back, and they popped an explosive run. It’s a bad time for that to happen. But at the end of the day, I think it just comes down to team defense and being able to get off the field. And that’s sometimes they make plays too. But we certainly felt like there were some (opportunities) where we had a chance to get off the field and we didn’t,” Schottenheimer said.
“We did do some things different. You know, we fired some linebackers. We fired Caleb (Downs) off the edge. We did some different things. I did think (Christian Parker) mixed his coverages pretty well. Unfortunately, they made plays in timely situations. And that’s what the NFL comes down to,” Schottenheimer said. “That’s why we love this game. That’s why this game is so popular because there is a back-and-forth element to it. And so, you know, as I, as I look at this game as a whole, disappointed in the self-inflicted wounds, you know, the offsides, you know, on defense, uncharacteristic of us doing that. The taunting. We talked about that. Like we just got to be better than that as coaches and players. And it starts with me.”
Schottenheimer expects Parker to grow from his first game calling plays.
“I’m around him every day. You know, there’s adversity all the time in what we do. You guys don’t hear about all of it. You guys don’t see all of it. You don’t deal with all of it. But whether it’s the things we deal with off the field, whether it’s the things we deal with, you know, in coaching meetings and discussions that we have from a strategy standpoint, from a personnel standpoint, and until you go through all those things, you know, you don’t really know. But I have no question Christian Parker is the right guy for this job. He’s an outstanding coach. He will learn from this. Just like our young players are going to learn from this. We’re going to play our young players this weekend, too, and they’re going to play better. And Christian’s going to call a better game, you know, this week and feel better about it. So, experiences gained by making mistakes. And unfortunately we made too many mistakes last night. And that’s why we came up on the short end of the stick,” Schottenheimer said. “(Parker’s) been great. You know, he came into my locker room last night. He and I talked at length last night in my locker room, and just talked about his exposures and some of the things that he learned and some of the things that we wanted to do differently, looking back and again, very methodical, as you would imagine. You know, just like what we’ve seen with every experience and exposure to him, very methodical, very convicted, didn’t make excuses. Need to be better. We’ll be better starting with XYZ. And he and I were on the same page with that, which is a good thing. And then this morning he was amazing, you know, with the staff and, you know, having hard conversations and real conversations. And this is not just the players. This is us as a staff, and that’s a leader. That’s a leader of men.”
Schottenheimer said a key focus this week will be being more physical.
“Our guys know that they need to play lower. They need to play better. But I would assume that Thursday’s practice is going to be pretty, pretty physical. And, understand we got another physical opponent coming in here,” Schottenheimer said. “Give Denard Wilson and his staff some credit. They surprised us with some of the techniques and things that they were doing. But again, to me, it’s early-season football, and it’s not the standard. It’s not who we are. From a block destruction standpoint, we have to be better. I do think that, you know, the way the linebackers fit was a little bit, you know, passive at times. And whether that was the cross actions with the ball handling and things like that, the misdirection maybe. But we’re better than that. And we need to shore that up this week.”
Jaxson Dart ran for 54 yards on the Cowboys’ defense, which is a troubling sign with dual-threat quarterbacks Jayden Daniels and Lamar Jackson next up on the schedule.
“I’ve seen it and watched it and sat with the coaches, but to lose contain on a guy like Jaxson who’s that athletic, you know, and it was multiple guys at multiple times. Heck, one was just a fake toss naked. They’re trying to run a tight end on a shallow cross. And the end closed. And he just went take off running. And you know, we got Jayden this week, and then, you guys maybe have heard of Lamar Jackson, coming in a couple of weeks. So we certainly have to get better with our discipline,” Schottenheimer said. “Communication is something that, you know, we pride ourselves in and started day one. Communication is two parts. It’s the person that gives it, and the person that receives it has to acknowledge it. And so some of the things that we did in the red zone there late, you know, where we didn’t have anybody accounting for (Devin Singletary), who’s a pretty dynamic player. Those were communication issues. And, you know, that can’t happen because those are self-inflicted wounds that get you beat, and those are self-inflicted wounds that we have to be better at coaching them and then communicating on the field with the players.”
Penalties also killed the Cowboys’ efforts to come back and keep the Giants off the field. The Cowboys gave up 8 penalties for 85 yards, not counting an early intentional delay of game. Javonte Williams’ taunting penalty on his touchdown to cut the lead to 28-20 proved costly immediately, when Brandon Aubrey missed the ensuing PAT. Schottenheimer said the Cowboys had planned to go for 2-points had Williams not pushed them back 15 yards.
“Javonte knows better. I mean, here’s a guy that is maybe the, you know, most professional guy in the world. And it’s very uncharacteristic for him to do that. And you’ve got to understand, we don’t ever want those. But you certainly don’t want those in a one-score game, you know? And we get a chance. We’re going for two. I mean, we’re going to go make it a six-point game with whatever, 5.5 minutes left. But no one’s more sick about that than Javonte. You know, he was beating himself up about it last night. And, you know, at the end of the day, as I look back on this game, the game should have been 7 to 7 at the end of the first half. It was a slugfest. You know, Dak’s got to throw the ball away. You know, there were some play calls there I could have had that would have been better in that situation. They take it, they score, make it 14 seven and then we battle back, just like you do in most NFL games. And we make it a one-score game with five minutes to go. And you know, I bet on our defense being able to give us the ball back and give us a chance,” Schottenheimer said.
Schottenheimer also said the Cowboys could help out their kicker.
“The same thing happened against the (New York) Jets last year. You know, I had unsportsmanlike conduct, back this up, and we missed it. So again, that falls on number one: let’s not do stupid things as an offense when we score, and then Brandon needs to find another way to settle himself down and, you know, get back to neutral and go and make it. He can make those in his sleep. But it’s happened on two different occasions. So let’s stop putting him in those situations. But if we ever do again, he needs to find a better way to deal with it,” Schottenheimer said.
NBC 5 sports director Newy Scruggs shares his thoughts on the Dallas Cowboys’ season-opening loss to the New York Giants.
The Cowboys lost two defensive starters to injuries during the game; DeMarvion Overshown and Malik Hooker will likely miss a couple of weeks each. Overshown injured his hamstring; Hooker fractured his arm. Schottenheimer expects more playtime for veteran linebacker Dee Winters and rookie Jaishawn Barham. Barham’s effort on Sunday was questioned by some on social media; Schottenheimer was not hearing any of it.
“There are situations in the game where, you know, you would say, you know, hey, guy wasn’t maybe running 100 miles an hour. But I thought overall, I don’t worry about this group with their ability to run to the football. I think that was more a young player, dejected that, you know, he had made a mistake that turned a guy free. And that’s the intensity that he plays with. But, you know, Jaishawn made some really good plays, and he had some plays he’d like to have back. Just like there’s a lot of calls I’d like to have back from yesterday’s game and some good calls,” Schottenheimer said.
Hooker will have surgery Tuesday, according to Schottenheimer. While the Cowboys drafted safety Caleb Downs in the first round, Schottenheimer wants to keep him close to the line of scrimmage and replace Hooker with veteran PJ Locke.
“We love PJ Locke, you know? I mean, I think Caleb, you know, played really, really well. I mean, the, you know, Jaxson Dart never saw him on the on the blitz. You know, he gets a, you know, a free run; the ball goes spiraling through the air. And the 320-pound guard catches it and rumbles for five yards. I mean, it’s kind of the way the night went for us. You know, I think that’s one of the positives of what we did on defense. We attacked the ball. We had four forced fumbles. Kobe Durant’s going to make that play. You know, 99 times out of 100. On (Malik) Nabers for the interception. But you know, again, you know, Caleb is a guy that can move around, but we like him down near the line of scrimmage,” Schottenheimer said.
Schottenheimer said he expects improvement from the Cowboys’ defensive line, including star defensive tackle tandem, Quinnen Williams and Kenny Clark,
“You know, they didn’t play to the dominant ability that they have. You know, I think there’ll be two of the guys that are going to be self-critical, so I don’t have to worry about them. But, overall, I thought they were solid, but again, we expect more from them,” Schottenheimer said. “If you watch their snap to throw, it was pretty quick. You know, Jaxson was getting it out of his hand pretty quick. I thought Donovan Ezeiruaku actually had some really beautiful, beautiful rushes. And then when they tried to throw it down the field, they took a couple double moves and stuff. Cobie Durant had a nice (pass break up) on one. They kept seven guys in. It’s going to be hard. So they had a plan against us. And that was to try to beat us up in the running game and then to try to get the ball his hand fast. So I think it was more of that than, you know, us, that we can’t rush the passer. I feel very confident that we can rush the passer, and I think we’ll show that, but we need to be in more advantageous down-and-distances to do that.”
Schottenheimer thinks communication can clean up a lot of the mistakes seen Sunday.
“It goes back to us drilling it, and it goes back to us emphasizing that just because I say something to you, you have to receive it. And when you receive it, you have to cosign to me that you’ve heard it. Because if a safety makes a call to a linebacker and the linebacker doesn’t hear it and doesn’t confirm it, then the safety knows. Okay, well, then I need to say it again. And that’s where we need to be better,” Schottenheimer said. “The communication on defense surprised me a little bit because I think we take a lot of pride in it, babe. And I think we’ve actually done a really good job of it. I thought our, I thought we would move them better offensively in the running game early. You know, I thought we made some nice adjustments at halftime. You know, they were kind of doing some things, like I said, different. So we made some adjustments at halftime that allowed us to move the ball. But you know, overall I just think that, you know, I felt like when we made it a one-score game there late, I really did. I believed and still do that when we get in that situation this week and beyond, the defense is going to find a way to get a stop and give us the ball back. We would still have to go down and score. But, you know, overall it was, you know, not our best performance. And one we need to get better.”
The Cowboys offense did not struggle as badly as the defense, but Dak Prescott was under constant pressure, and Javonte Williams struggled to find room behind an offensive line missing its best player: Pro Bowl Guard Tyler Smith, who is out a month with a thumb injury. Schottenheimer was fine with their performance as a whole.
“(The Giants) played very different than we thought they would. They played very thick, you know, through the tackles and tight ends. You know, but I thought, you know, from a pass protection standpoint, I thought we did a really nice job. I do think there was too much penetration in the run game, especially early on. But overall, I thought it was solid. I mean, that’s a really, really good front. I think, you know, people probably underestimate that group. You know, I don’t know how many first-round draft picks they have over there (3, Brian Burns, Kayvon Thiboeaux, Abdul Carter),” Schottenheimer said. “Abdul Carter’s become a really explosive player. You can see that he’s definitely more comfortable in year two. You know, Thibodeau, you know, and then our Reese is going to be a terrific player as well. So I thought our guys battled in pass protection. But I do think, you know, some of the areas of the running game early on specifically, we have to be better.”
Schottenheimer mentioned there were play calls he’d like back, but he did not regret punting on fourth and short to open the game, a hot topic of debate among NFL analysts.
“I was not going to put the defense out there in their very first drive, on our side of the field. I wasn’t going to do it. I want to make them have to go the long, hard road. And each week that’s going to be a little bit different. But I literally had that situation come up, and I don’t second-guess at all. Try to get him to jump. If anything, the after-action report for us was because it was close. We have abilities of changing tempos and going up on the ball and snapping it quick before it goes to replay assist. But in terms of the decision to do that, absolutely not,” Schottenheimer said.
Schottenheimer said he factors in game situation, analytics, and intangible factors like feel.
“I’m not cavalier. I think there probably are some coaches that are, you know, cavalier that say fourth and six, fourth and five, fourth and seven, that they’re just going to go for it. I do trust our players’ side. I’m not saying I don’t, but I’m also a big believer in field position. This was a situation that was different because it was the first game of the year, and I did not want to put the defense out there, potentially. I did like the chance of trying to get them to jump, but they were disciplined enough to not jump offsides,” Schottenheimer said. “Some of it’s what do you like to call, you know, fourth and one. If I was playing that over and let’s say I hadn’t had that decision made up my mind and the first run for the game, there were three guys deep in the backfield. I might have thought about punting as well, because they kind of controlled the line of scrimmage on that first play call. I hated that first play call, by the way. That was a s***** play call. There I go again. Two days in a row. Sorry. But no, there’s, you know, there’s a lot of things that go into it, but it’s very methodical. It’s very well thought out. Sometimes it’s gut instinct as well.”
Schottenheimer said they’ll learn from the loss, especially the young players.
“I wish we were one and oh, today, but we’re not. And again, I’ve given them credit. But I also know that we didn’t play to the standards and capabilities that we’re capable of. I think you saw that from us offensively, you know, in the first half, not, you know, doing enough good things, drops, things like that that are uncharacteristic for us. But, yeah, I mean, adversity is part of the game. And, you know, there’ll be more. I wish there wasn’t, but there’s going to be more adversity,” Schottenheimer said. “Anxiety is real. I think it’s a powerful thing though, too. You know, I do think that, you know, I’m 25 years, I still get anxious, I still get butterflies, I still get excited. So I think it’s more that, you know, but these guys, most of these guys have played football their whole lives. And what we try to get them to understand is, you know, it’s the same game; field dimensions are pretty much the same. And the hashes and stuff are a little bit different, but it’s part of it. And, you know, they’ll, they’ll lean on some of the older guys as well. And I think that’s what’s so cool about our locker room.”
Schottenheimer said he does not doubt the team’s resolve.
“We had a very real conversation after the game, and I shared my feelings with them. It was not the standard. It was not the way we expect to perform when we step out there on the white lines. We had our chances, and we didn’t make the plays that we needed to, but these guys are great with getting held accountable. And I put myself in that situation as well, you know, how can I be better? Well, I call better plays in the first half. You know, I can make those adjustments in the second quarter, not the third quarter, not at halftime. So we’re all in this thing together. But I don’t worry about the make of this room. And you know, sometimes people, you know, they’d say, ” Hey, culture, this culture that that’s what’s going to allow you to handle the adversity. That’s part of this game. It’s a great game, by the way, but the adversity is hard to go through; I won’t lie,” Schottenheimer said.
NBC 5’s Katy Blakey is is at Texas Live! with reaction from Cowboys faithful.