The Cowboys have the second-best offense in the NFL. Head coach Brian Schottenheimer does not care.
In his mind, all that matters is the team’s record.
“None of us have done good enough,” Schottenheimer told reporters on Wednesday, via Calvin Watkins of the Dallas Morning News. “That’s real. Our scorecard is what it is. And that’s not just defensively. That’s offensively. We’re a football team that’s 3-4-1. You can take stats on offense and shove them up your ass as far as I’m concerned. It is what it is. We want to win.”
The problem is that the defense has had the ball regularly shoved down its throat. The Cowboys’ have allowed the second-most yards per game, at 404.6. Only the Bengals, at 407.9 yards per game, are worse.
And all that matters is points scored versus points allowed, as measured one game at a time. The Cowboys have lost four, won three, tied one.
They’ve got plenty of work to do to become a playoff contender. The offensive performance doesn’t matter when the defense is every bit as bad as the offense is good.
Jerry Jones has found him some “gloryhole.”
The Cowboys owner and General Manager, who has insisted on personally managing the football affairs of the team he has owned for 36 years, has a different priority. In the short term. And maybe in the long term.
As explained by Benoît Morenne of the Wall Street Journal, Jones’s $1 billion investment in Comstock Resources is paying dividends in the form of a massive underground ocean of natural gas.
“There’s $100 billion present value with gas out there,” Jones told Morenne by phone. “That’s why I’m talking to you on the telephone rather than trying to fix our defense with the Dallas Cowboys.”
That’s all the more reason for Jones to hire a traditional G.M. and get out of the day-to-day football business. If he can’t go all-in with his time and attention, he should find someone who can and who will.
And Jones clearly can afford to hire someone to run the team. If his Comstock Investment has mushroomed to a $100 billion present value, it dwarfs the value of his football franchise.
Who knows? Maybe his more industry-accurate achievement of “gloryhole” will get him to lose sufficient interest in an endeavor that has failed to get there for 30 years, and cash out.
Some help is on the way for Dallas’ beleaguered defense.
Dallas has opened defensive tackle Perrion Winfrey’s 21-day practice window as he returns from injured reserve.
Winfrey, 25, suffered a back injury in late August and was subsequently placed on injured reserve.
A Browns fourth-round pick in 2022, Winfrey appeared in 13 games for Cleveland as a rookie before the team cut him in 2023 after he was involved in a second off-field incident. He appeared in one game for the Jets in 20223 and has not played in a regular-season game since.
Though the Cowboys rank No. 2 in points and yards, they are also No. 31 in points allowed and yards allowed.
Dallas will face Arizona on Monday night before a Week 10 bye.
The Cowboys stole George Pickens.
They sent a 2026 third-round pick and a 2027 fifth-round pick for Pickens and a 2027 sixth-round pick, and they are paying the wide receiver only $3.656 million this season.
Pickens, though, is in the final year of his contract and due a substantial pay raise on a long-term deal. The question isn’t whether the Cowboys can afford him, but whether they should pay that much for a second wide receiver with huge needs on the defensive side of the ball.
The franchise player designation for wide receivers is projected to be $28 million, and Pickens likely will get more than $30 million per season on the open market.
The Cowboys have not engaged in contract extension talks with Pickens or his representatives, Ed Werder of ESPN reports.
Would Dallas consider trading Pickens before Tuesday’s deadline if it can get more than it otherwise would get in compensatory picks?
The Cowboys are 3-4-1 and rank 31st in total defense and 31st in points allowed.
Cowboys cornerback Trevon Diggs was placed on injured reserve over the weekend as he deals with both a concussion and a knee injury, which led to a question for team owner Jerry Jones on Tuesday about whether Diggs has played his final snap for the team.
Diggs missed most of 2024 with a knee injury and his decision to rehab that injury away from the team this offseason led to the Cowboys reducing his salary. He returned to play in Week 1 and appeared in the first six games of the season before suffering a concussion at home ahead of Week 7. He also picked up an injury to his other knee and the health issues as well as the lack of guaranteed money left on his contract have led to thoughts that he’s close to the end of his time in Dallas.
During an appearance on 103.5 The Fan, Jones said “I don’t see that today at all” when asked if Diggs has played his final game for the team and that the corner has “to get well and he hasn’t been.” He also took issue with former Cowboy Micah Parsons’ assertion that the Cowboys rushed him back to the field.
“Diggs’ biggest problem is he’s injured and it’s not the same knee he’s been doing his rehab with,” Jones said. “That’s his No. 1 challenge. Unfortunately, he’s got a handful of challenges here that are physically related. That’s why he’s got the status he’s got today.”
Diggs will miss at least three more games and the Cowboys’ season could be lost by the time he’s eligible to return if head coach Brian Schottenheimer’s planned changes don’t spark an immediate turnaround to the team’s defensive performances. That could impact any plans to bring him back, but Jones isn’t writing him off at this point.
