Dallas Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer watches as players warm up during practice at the Star in Frisco, Friday, Oct. 2, 2026.
Juan Figueroa/The Dallas Morning News
FRISCO — The honeymoon period between Cowboys fans and head coach Brian Schottenheimer ended, fittingly, when the team left a tropical destination.
The Cowboys had their chances to beat the Baltimore Ravens in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday. Specifically, they had an 81% chance to win — according to NFL Pro — when a defensive pass interference call gave the Cowboys a first down at the 2-yard line with 28 seconds left and one timeout remaining. They needed a field goal to tie and a touchdown to take the lead — and likely win.
Instead of success, a litany of mistakes ensued. Instead of the Cowboys scoring a game-winning touchdown, they settled for a field goal. Instead of going to overtime, they gifted the Ravens a chance to win, much to their surprise and appreciation.
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The seven-second, two-play drive by Baltimore marked the quickest game-winning drive after a kickoff in NFL history.
Being on the ugly side of history also sparked a closer, more cynical look at Schottenheimer’s coaching tenure thus far. The first-time head coach is now 8-11-1. The Cowboys are now 1-2 before they head to Houston on Sunday. For a team that talked openly and confidently about playing in the Super Bowl this season, they’re now discussing a tough game against a winless Texans team.
It’s not where the Cowboys, nor their fans, hoped to be at this juncture. Which is why fans and others, including owner Jerry Jones, turned their attention to the head coach after the loss in Brazil.
“I’ll take responsibility for this. I’m a grown man. I can handle it,” Schottenheimer said this week. “Do I deserve the criticism? Absolutely. I deserve the criticism. I take the criticism. You know what it’s going to do? It’s going to fire me up. It ain’t going to happen again.”
With the honeymoon over, it would be in Schottenheimer’s best interest to ensure that a loss like Sunday’s didn’t happen again.
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The recovery process started with accountability. Schottenheimer not only took the blame publicly for Sunday’s meltdown in Rio de Janeiro, but privately, too. He took the blame in front of the team this week.
It’s not what every coach would do, according to offensive coordinator Klayton Adams.
“He is truly someone who what you see, is what you get,” Adams said. “He knows that there’s going to be mistakes. Everybody’s going to make them, but he’s pretty amazing just in the amount of accountability that he has toward the decisions that he makes. It’s one of the reasons I think he’s built for this.
“There’s probably a lot of people in his situation that would try and make excuses, or try to paint the picture different than what it was.”
To be fair, no amount of paint could’ve changed that picture.
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Schottenheimer said this week that he didn’t adhere to a lesson his father, former longtime NFL head coach Marty Schottenheimer, once taught him.
“My dad had a rule: one play at a time,” Schottenheimer said. “He talked a lot about, because it happened to him, he made a decision on a play. It didn’t go good. He was pissed off about it and it affected another decision. I think that’s kind of what happened to me.”
It was evident. Perhaps most on the team’s final offensive play of the game. Quarterback Dak Prescott surprised many when he snapped the ball on third down and quickly threw the ball into the stands. It was shocking for its immediacy. It looked as if Prescott had been programmed to do it. In a way, he was.
Schottenheimer said he over-coached Prescott on that play. Words have meanings, especially between a quarterback and play caller. Schottenheimer said he used a word — which he declined to disclose — that changed Prescott’s mindset, resulting in the immediate offensive surrender in the hopes of preserving at least a tie.
After the game, Prescott said he was initially too angry to discuss the play with reporters. Eventually, he did discuss it with Schottenheimer. He said it was an honest and productive conversation as they detailed what happened and how it won’t happen again. Prescott said conversations like that also require accountability when needed.
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“I think as a leader, as somebody that has to make a lot of decisions, even myself … when you mess up and you haven’t made the decision, or made the decision that you wanted to make, you have to do that,” Prescott said about Schottenheimer’s accountability this week. “You have to do that. If not, you lose respect and you lose trust.”
Prescott insinuated the trust is still there between the head coach and the quarterback. Schottenheimer hoped the same.
Jones said on 105.3 The Fan (KRLD-FM) on Friday “you can 1,000% assume that the confidence is there,” in regard to Schottenheimer and his coaching staff moving forward. He also said earlier in the week on the same station that there was no explanation possible from Schottenheimer that could’ve satisfied him about how the Cowboys let a win slip away in the last 28 seconds. Not the offensive play-calling; not the decision to send the kickoff through the back of the end zone; not the regrettable man-coverage play call that set up the game-winning field goal by Ravens kicker Tyler Loop.
With the honeymoon period over, the only thing that will suffice for Schottenheimer and the Cowboys is improvement. That starts with a much-needed win Sunday in Houston. Four teams that were 1-2 or worse made the playoffs last year. Only one team — the Texans, ironically — made the playoffs after starting 1-3.
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“If we’re going to walk through the fire,” Schottenheimer said, “like we did this week, let’s learn from it.”
Otherwise, the heat will only turn up.