Dallas Cowboys Head Coach Brian Schottenheimer answers questions from the media during the 2025 Oxnard Training Camp opening press conference in Oxnard, California, July 21, 2025.
Tom Fox/Staff Photographer
The Cowboys enter their 67th training camp Monday as a franchise on the verge of a reckoning, based on expectations that may or may not be realistic.
When team owner and general manager Jerry Jones makes his first statements for the season at a news conference Tuesday in Oxnard, Calif., he will be presented questions about ending a playoff absence, a Super Bowl drought and whether he believes he’s put together a title-contending team.
In reality, the Cowboys are coming off consecutive seasons without making the postseason. It’s unknown if changes to the defensive personnel and defensive coaching staff will be enough to make the playoffs. Coach Brian Schottenheimer enters the second year of a four-year contract, and if he fails to push the Cowboys into the postseason, it would create speculation about his job status in Year 3.
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“I mean, it’s obviously going to start with more wins,” Schottenheimer said this offseason. “Getting the culture to continue to grow. Like I said, I think one of the deals this year, the culture has been really fun to create because you’ve got a lot of new faces. We certainly weren’t expecting as many changes on the defensive staff that we ended up making, but [we’re] excited about the culture. But at the end of the day, it’s going to come down to wins and losses.”
While the Cowboys have filled some holes, they’ve also eliminated the potential drama of a contract dispute with star receiver George Pickens. In past years, the Cowboys encountered contract issues with star players such as CeeDee Lamb, Dak Prescott, Micah Parsons and Zack Martin.
There was a thought the same thing would happen with Pickens when the organization placed a $27.2 million franchise tag on him. Pickens said he appreciated the front office being up front with him about not offering a contract extension. So this summer there will be no hold-in or hold-out as Pickens is expected to report for training camp.
One potential distraction has been avoided, but it doesn’t eliminate the issues surrounding the club.
There’s competition for a starter at left tackle, a search for the No. 2 corner, and the need to find a middle linebacker. There are also questions about whether the pass rush has enough personnel to create problems for opposing quarterbacks, and whether new defensive coordinator Christian Parker can elevate a defense that was the worst in the NFL last season.
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“We’ve addressed our defense significantly,” Jones said back in March. “Going in, I thought that if we can pick that up, sustain the level that we played at on offense last year (seventh overall), always looking to improve, specifically with the depth of our roster, special teams. The fact that we have no reason to think we can’t be as good as we were last year on special teams. With all of that in mind, then when you are almost dead last you can anticipate some improvement and got pretty good odds you’ll get some.”
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones (left) visits with his son Stephen Jones in their training camp tower as they watch practice in Oxnard, California, July 30, 2025.
Tom Fox/Staff Photographer
Win or lose, a draw
Nationally, the Cowboys are a featured team whether it’s on national talk shows or with the NFL schedule. In 2026, the Cowboys will be featured on six prime time games, including three consecutive contests in Weeks 6 to 8.
The Cowboys won’t have an early kickoff (noon local time) until Week 5.
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Traditionally, the Cowboys are a ratings winner.
Last season, according to Nielsen’s Big Data-Panel, the NFL averaged 18.7 million viewers, the second-highest mark on record. The Cowboys were featured on the most-watched game of the season (Week 13 against Kansas City at 57.3 million) and the most-watched Sunday Night Football contest on NBC (28.3 million despite an hour-long weather delay at Philadelphia).
The Cowboys also had the fifth-most-watched game (Sept. 28 against former teammate Micah Parsons and the Green Bay Packers) that drew 26.9 million. An early-season contest at Chicago drew 25.5 million viewers.
All for a franchise that hasn’t won a Super Bowl title or reached the NFC Championship Game since the 1995 season.
The 30-year drought is the longest between titles in franchise history. The second-longest is 14 years, which prompted the sale of the team to the Jones family and the eventual firing of legendary coach Tom Landry.
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The marketing of the franchise, particularly from Jones’ ability to connect with fans and media, has kept the Cowboys as a featured team, which also makes it one of the most valued in sports at $13 billion according to Forbes.
However, the team’s inability to win a title has caused some fans to lash out publicly, yet not enough to hurt the Cowboys financially.
The lack of playoff success prompted questions to Jones this offseason about if the Cowboys have lost their luster.
“I don’t think we’ve lost any luster,” he said. “No, I don’t think that is the case. I think there are a lot of nuances that can influence player movement. A lot of them is they go to where they’re comfortable with the coaching staff that have created a situation there and you’re competing against [that].”
Will offseason moves pay off?
While things seem good off the field, the on-the-field product has potential issues. If the Cowboys miss the postseason in Schottenheimer’s second year, he would become the first coach since Jason Garrett to miss the postseason in his first two seasons.
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Another lost season also means the offseason changes, particularly to the defense, weren’t enough to push the franchise into the playoffs.
A deeper look would show several teams in the NFC have made better offseason moves, such as the Los Angeles Rams trading for elite pass rusher Myles Garrett while the Cowboys failed to trade for Max Crosby, another talented pass rusher.
The Cowboys did make several moves this offseason, the two biggest being the selection of defensive back Caleb Downs in the first round of the draft and the signing of another safety, Jalen Thompson, to a three-year deal.
Dallas Cowboys new defensive coordinator Christian Parker (left) instructs newly drafted safety Caleb Downs of Ohio State during rookie minicamp at the Star in Frisco, on Friday, May 1, 2026.
Shafkat Anowar/The Dallas Morning News
A trade for edge rusher Rashan Gary was also touted as an improvement to the defense.
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“My confidence is rooted in the people that we have,” Schottenheimer said. “Not just the type of player or coach they are, the talent level, but the way they are as human beings, and the way they treat one another, the way they work, the way they understand that we have one goal, and that one goal is the highest of the high.”
Defensive tackle Quinnen Williams noted that in seven NFL seasons he hasn’t made the playoffs. He spent nearly seven seasons with the New York Jets, a franchise that’s hired the same number of head coaches (three) as the Cowboys during that span but lost 29 more games.
Williams, acquired at the trade deadline last season, was part of that bad Cowboys defense in 2025 but is confident the offseason moves will work.
“As a unit, tremendously,” he said. “We were the bottom of the bottom. So it’s like being the last of the last, bottom of the bottom. It’s a lot of improvement we can make.”
Are the moves enough to make the Cowboys a title contender or even a playoff team? Asking a franchise that hasn’t gotten to the conference title game since the 1990s to make the leap to title contender seems unrealistic.
Then again, Jones has high standards for his franchise.
So does his quarterback, Dak Prescott.
What is certain if the Cowboys don’t reach the postseason, more change will come.
“Yeah, I mean we missed it two years,” Prescott said. “Yeah, it sucks definitely. We’re pushing. That’s our goal. That’s the minimum when you have a team like this, and they’ve done everything they’ve done in the offseason. Obviously, we’ve got to push and get better on offense, But when we know we’re already improving on defense, yeah, that’s the minimum. It’s everybody’s goal here.”